Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

The rulers of the earth are powerful, but there’s a limit to their power. At first, Naaman couldn’t see beyond the royal power, coming to the king to cure his leprosy. But the king recognises the limits of his power. He is not God, though some of the kings of ancient times thought they were. Naaman is almost offended when the prophet appears and tells him to bathe in the Jordan. Both prophet and river seem too ordinary.

So too does Jesus when he returns to his hometown. The people of Nazareth think they know Jesus, and they claim him as one of their own. But when he won’t produce a few miracles for the hometown crowd, they turn on him. He won’t play the tribal game, and they won’t recognise the truth of who he is. He’s crossing borders in many ways, but the Nazarenes are locked inside the borders of their hometown.

He calls them into a much bigger world, the world of God, and they choose to throw him out of their own little world. But Jesus cannot be possessed or contained. Mysteriously, he passes through their midst and goes on his way. He is in control, and his dying time has not yet come.