Reading Scripture: Mark 6:1-6

I've been reading in The Gospel of St. Mark lately and the topic of familiarity breeding contempt crops up when, in Chapter 6:1-6, Jesus returns to his hometown. The entire time Jesus is "home," everyone is questioning his authority. They "know" him too well according to their own understanding of who Jesus is. He will never be more than Mary's son, other than a carpenter, other than a member of the community who they watched grow up. They do not believe he is capable of miracles or is equipped to teach in the synagogue because there is no way he could be.

Verse 3 says that "they took offense at him" and in verse 4 Jesus says "'Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.'"

They had contempt for Jesus and diminished him from his proper status as prophet, and yes, God's son, but He wasn't allowing His identity a the Son of God to be publicly proclaimed at this point in His ministry. I actually do get this concept a lot. If I suddenly professed a vocation that nobody suspected before, my friends, family, and colleagues would wonder what in the world was going on and whether I needed psychiatric help. I get it. Change comes as a shock to the people in our lives who are accustomed to a person being one thing.

And verse 5 says "He (Jesus) could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them."

I love how faith plays a role in Jesus working miracles. This verse does not imply that Jesus was limited in terms of ability although some would wrongly interpret it that way, but it does make clear that He will perform miracles only where there is that faith as small as a mustard seed. His neighbors really missed out on a lot by their lack of willingness to believe in Him. There were people in that town who would have benefited from Jesus' healing touch if they had just reached out in faith, but that wasn't happening. Jesus does not force Himself on people who are unwilling to believe. He is a respecter of free will, which is totally a double-edged sword. In free will, people have the freedom to choose, but it also means they have the freedom to choose. And if they don't choose Christ, as He is, He's not going to force the issue.

Imagine those few sick people who were healed though! What broke through to them? Were they new to the community or was it something Jesus said that really shifted their perception from the familiar to the unknown? I don't know, but I love that even here, in a place where so few people believed, there were still some who put their faith in Jesus.

Finally, in verse 6 it says "And He (Jesus) was amazed at their lack of faith."

I don't believe for one minute that God didn't know these people would be lacking in faith, but I also don't pretend to know in what way Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith. Disappointment would imply that He had expectations, which He didn't have. He wasn't surprised either. There is such a lack of understanding of who Jesus is that the lack of faith is amazing, but not in a positive way. I don't know. I think the closest I've come to understanding is simply Jesus' amazement at how hard it is for those who should know Him well to trust and have faith in Him. I read something similar in this article on the Catholic Exchange and it makes the most sense to me, trying to explain something that feels inexplicable.

My personal takeaway is that I don't want to be the community in Nazareth who thought they knew Jesus so well that they couldn't see Him as the Christ. And the only way to avoid that happening is by practicing faith in Jesus.