22 All who were there, watching and listening, were surprised at how well he (Jesus) spoke. But they also said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son, the one we’ve known since he was a youngster?”
23-27 He answered, “I suppose you’re going to quote the proverb, ‘Doctor, go heal yourself. Do here in your hometown what we heard you did in Capernaum.’ Well, let me tell you something: No prophet is ever welcomed in his hometown. Isn’t it a fact that there were many widows in Israel at the time of Elijah during that three and a half years of drought when famine devastated the land, but the only widow to whom Elijah was sent was in Sarepta in Sidon? And there were many lepers in Israel at the time of the prophet Elisha but the only one cleansed was Naaman the Syrian.”
28-30 That set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger. They threw him out, banishing him from the village, then took him to a mountain cliff at the edge of the village to throw him to his doom, but he gave them the slip and was on his way.
This is Jesus first trip home following his baptism and 40 days in the wilderness. It is the beginning of his ministry. He is announcing who he is and why he has come. And he is doing it in his home synagogue.
Jesus should have stopped before he got himself thrown out of town. But he didn’t. He went on to say what they didn’t want to hear. That God used outsiders - Sarepta and Naaman - to do what the insiders wouldn’t do. For with God there are no outsiders!
Jesus began him ministry with this clear message, and we still find it hard to swallow.
“Jesus was ‘a reject who
rejected rejection’"
Virgilio Eliizando
Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, help me remember that you do not reject those I reject. Your love is beyond my understanding or control!”
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