Lectionary reading
First reading: Ezekiel 2:2-5
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 122(123)
Second reading: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Gospel: Mark 6:1-6
Link to readings.
Commentary
The theme that links the readings today seems to be that of the “rejected prophet”. The not very attractive but mercifully brief First Reading, taken from the call of the prophet Ezekiel (2:2-5), sets this up. The Lord instructs the prophet that he is to stand by his message even though it will meet with rejection from a rebellious people. The message will be vindicated in due course.
It is against this background that the Gospel, Mark 6:1-6, describes Jesus’ return to his hometown Nazareth. He is accompanied by his disciples, who are now beginning to constitute his “new family” (3:31-35), distinct from the members of his original family listed here. When on the sabbath day Jesus begins to teach in the synagogue, his former townsfolk are amazed at the authority and wisdom of his words.
RIGHT QUESTION, WRONG TONE
In a sense, they ask the right question, “Where did the man get all this?” But the contemptuous tone (“the man”) already signals rejection. Had they pondered a little longer on the “where” (or “whence”), they might have begun to arrive at the right solution: that the authority and wisdom Jesus is displaying comes from his empowerment with the Spirit of God (Mark 1:10).
Instead, the Nazarenes immediately seek to put him back into the box of their previous knowledge of him: he is the carpenter and, yes, they know and can list all the members of his family. With this they can be comfortable. Impossible that one of them, one so familiar, could really be a prophet sent from God to instruct them. Small-town prejudice and narrow-mindedness blinker perception of the reality that is there before them, forcing Jesus to repeat in reference to Nazareth the adage, “The only place where prophets are without honour is in their own hometown, ...” (v 4).
This Markan account of the incident goes on to comment, “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them” (v. 5). “Deeds of power” in Mark’s Gospel refer to the liberation of people from a variety of afflictions (spiritual, psychological and physical) that the worldview of the time attributed to demonic possession. We do not have to follow that attribution in all instances, but we should ask what corresponds in our understanding to this sense of captivity to demonic forces. We can see it as Jesus confronting all that seeks to control and de-humanise people, alienating them from God and from fellow-human beings.
FAITH ALLOWS GOD'S POWER
What is remarkable here is the way in which the Gospel so frankly records Jesus’ helplessness to do any such deeds of power for his townsfolk because of their lack of faith. Faith or the lack of it conditioned his power to help. Put the other way round and more positively; it is faith that allows God’s power to be effective in our world.
The episode shows that the greatest enemy to faith can simply be “familiarity”: a refusal to believe that God’s presence and God’s power could come to us in so familiar a form as the person next door. The Nazarenes had their own fixed ideas as to when and where and how the Messiah should come to Israel – and the one they knew as the local carpenter simply didn’t fit the bill. So the only place that really missed out on Jesus’ works of power was his own hometown.
Progress in the spiritual life – growth in the Spirit – almost always shows itself in the ability to recognise God more and more in the ordinary, the everyday. This is why the great saints never stopped wondering – being filled with wonder at the mysterious presence of God they constantly sensed all round them. The full meaning of the Incarnation is not only that the Son of God became a human being but that he took human form in a town as ordinary and insignificant and out of the way as Nazareth (cf. John 1:46). Perhaps we have to identify and name “the Nazareth” in our own selves.
FRANKNESS OF ST PAUL
With respect to the Second Reading (2 Cor 12:7-10) we should surely be grateful to St Paul for the frankness with which he acknowledged the “thorn in the flesh” that remained despite all his pleadings with God to take it away.
It must have been something well known and obvious, since he clearly expected his Corinthians audience to know what he was talking about – something like a physical ailment that made his appearance unattractive or an impediment of speech. Whatever it was, the “thorn” that God would not take away became a key aspect of his spirituality and sense of God’s grace. Faced with seemingly ineradicable character traits and weaknesses, we too have to learn, “When I am weak, then I am strong.”
Brendan Byrne, SJ, FAHA, taught New Testament at Jesuit Theological College, Parkville, Vic., for almost forty years. He is now Emeritus Professor at the University of Divinity (Melbourne). His commentaries on the Gospels can be found at Pauline Books and Media