IT'S HARD TO BE A PROPHET AT HOME

Throughout her life, my mother always called me “Kenny,” and if she had the opportunity, she would tell her well-worn stories about the time a rooster chased me around our barnyard when I was a toddler and/or the time I put a kernel of corn in my nose … and it took root. I told her to quit telling these old stories and to call me “pastor Kenny,” but I was never a pastor to her. Some time ago I called an old high school friend of mine and, in the course of our conversation, I asked him how he and his wife were doing. He told me that he and she “didn’t make it” and he wondered what I was doing. “I’m a preacher now,” I told him. “You? A preacher?” he exclaimed, and then he began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more. It never stopped and we said goodbye! Me, a preacher? It was sort of surprising, I confess, but it wasn’t that funny. It’s hard to be a pastor at home because there are too many thoughts, doubts, secrets, and memories in the way.

It’s also hard to be a prophet at home. That’s what Jesus said to the congregation in Nazareth after he told them that HE had been anointed by God to touch, heal, empower, and forgive the very people whom they generally ignored. At first, the congregation seemed to be amazed, but their amazement was anchored in their unbelief. This is just Mary’s boy, someone said, the kid who ran on our streets, the young man who worked in his father’s carpentry shop. Who does he think he's fooling? Who does he think he is? Well, as his homecoming in Nazareth was deteriorating, Jesus rebuked the gathering and said that, like God’s other prophets, he would be doing his miracles somewhere else! Upon hearing this news, the congregation became a mob, which drove him out of town and planned to hurl him off of the cliff. (Luke 4:30)

Jesus, it appears, barely escaped with his life... and the best thing to come out of Nazareth left town and made Capernaum his home. Jesus was rejected in part because he was a “prophet at home,” but he was also rejected because he told the truth! People are eager for the truth when it favors them, neutral toward the truth when it doesn’t involve them, and downright hostile to the truth when it threatens or condemns them! To use an old movie line, some people can't take the truth. It hurts their feelings. It asks to much of them. It indicts them and it makes them mad. Be careful with the truth.  People don’t like it when they're asked to help others get out of the places to which they've been relegated. They don’t like it when they’re told that, instead of receiving miracles, they’re being called to serve people whom they consider inferior. People don’t like it when they expect to be honored and are told instead, that God is more likely to heal a leper from Syria than he is to heal them!

Prophets get killed for telling the truth to people who don’t like it. Period. But the main reason the congregation at Nazareth rejected Jesus was this: they didn’t believe in Him! They didn’t believe that God had anointed him to usher in a new age. They couldn't believe that he was speaking for God. Matthew tells us that Jesus didn’t do many deeds of power in Nazareth because of their unbelief. (Matt. 13:58) Mark tells us that, other than laying hands on a few people, Jesus didn’t do much at Nazareth because “He was amazed at their unbelief.” (Mark 6:6) Our journey in Christ begins when we’re willing to trust because no one is going to carry a cross for a man whom they don't believe in and trust. We may like and admire such a person, but we aren’t likely to surrender to him… unless we believe that he is who he says he is. 

The people may have objected to parts of Jesus’message. Some of them may have thought that the oppressed were to blame for their own oppression and they didn't want to see them released. Some of them may have thought that Jesus should not have suggested that a widow in Sidon was more important to God than they were. The leaders of the synagogue may have held a meeting in the parking lot. The members may have complained over lunch… but the die was cast when Jesus said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” because I have been anointed to usher in the kingdom of God. The die was cast when he uttered these words because the people didn’t believe them!

There are many wonderful prayers in the Bible, but I've always been especially fond of this one: "I believe, Lord, help my unbelief!” Help my unbelief! Let this be our prayer then our faith begins to wane. Let this be our prayer when the winds of life blow against us and batter our dreams... because it is in believing that we will find the courage and the grace to love God with every fiber of our being and our neighbors as ourselves. Amen!