In today’s gospel Jesus returns to his hometown after a time of travelling, preaching the gospel and healing. We might expect that they welcome him with open arms. We might hope that the people who knew him best, who watched him grow up which trust him and believe in him. Instead, they were puzzled, unsettled and confused. They said to one another:
“What is this wisdom that has been granted him, and these miracles that are worked through him? This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joset and Jude and Simon?”
I can understand their response. It’s disconcerting at best when somebody we know starts to behave in a different way. We can feel uncomfortable and even judged if they start to question our familiar ways of being, ways that we thought they accepted as we do.
It’s an experience many of us will of us will have had in our own lives. Such situations can be painful and undermining. The gospel shows how fully human Jesus was. It seems to me that he, like us, was hurt and was thrown by their response, so much so that:
“He could work no miracle there…”
Such situations can lead us to blame one another, and that increases the hurt, and can lead to disagreement and bitterness. Jesus does none of these things. He sees the situation, acknowledges his own pain, but does not blame the townspeople.
He holds a mirror up to us, inviting and challenging us to look at our own behaviour and to put aside that temptation to blame, leaving the door open for reconciliation.
Where is Christ challenging you to put aside the temptation to blame today?