Once again, I invite you to join me in some reflective imagining. Doing such helps us live into the Gospels. Stories from Scripture, and the work of many artists, can enable us to engage the Word. So here is our opportunity: We are in Nazareth! Let’s imagine that we are in the little village of Nazareth, in about the year 30 A.D. We are gathered in our local synagogue for worship on the sabbath. And, without any of us expecting it, our young Rabbi with a messianic vocation enters and begins to teach us ~ just as James Tissot portrays in the image above.

Some of us in the synagogue begin to marvel and raise questions about our experience of him. Who is this, we ask. And where did he get this wisdom? After all, he’s from our village… and no one of any account has come out of this place. Don’t we know his family? And aren’t we familiar with his work as a local contractor? So what is he thinking, presuming to teach us, his peers and fellow residents? He then responds to us, sounding more philosophical than angry. He says that ‘wise people are not overlooked, except among those who think they already know them.’ And so he can do no deed of power here, unless perhaps to heal a few needy folks at the margins of our little community.

He looks at us with astonishment. Why? Because, through him, the mystery of God’s Kingdom is being opened before us. And he is beckoning us to enter. Except that we hesitate, and come up with excuses. We find all kinds of reasons why we cannot, or will not, step out of our familiar and largely self-decided assumptions and expectations.

And so, he turns away, and moves on toward a more fruitful field, in which he will plant his tiny seeds of insight. They are like little gleaming pebbles, dropped below the surface of a shallow stream. Unless we notice their glimmering nearness, and reach down to pick them up, they will only tantalize our curiosity. And yet, they 
won’t amount to anything of value until we collect them, and carry them with us. For these are the small smooth stones that have the power to knock down what gets in the way of God’s ongoing mission ~ as we learn from David’s encounter with the Philistine giant, Goliath.

Therefore, if —like some of our fellow villagers— we doubt him… if we hesitate to accept his teaching and overlook what he does, because we discount its apparently human source… we may miss the opportunity to enter, and live into, the beckoning mystery of God’s unfolding Kingdom. This is the Kingdom that is manifest in him, through what he says, and in what he does.

This post is based on my homily for Sunday, July 8, 2018, which can be accessed by clicking here. The image above is by James Tissot, titled Jesus Rejected in the Synagogue at Nazareth.