Monday of the Third Week of Lent
“Little Yeshu bar Yosef is a bit too big for his britches!”
The above is not a direct quote from today's Gospel but it might have been. It's been said that “you can never go home again.” Jesus certainly finds this to be true. Neighbors in Nazareth remember Yosef & Maryam's boy. They knew Yeshu as a toddler needing a diaper change. They knew him as an awkward, gawky adolescent. They recall him sitting in the front section of the local synagogue every Shabbat with Yosef and the other men.
In the words of my Irish Catholic mother, Who in the ___ does he think he is?
The situation unravels when he compares the locals to their stiff necked ancestors from the days of Elisha. In a rage, they drive Yeshua to the edge of a cliff to hurl him off (you can go and stand at that very cliff today). But he slips away.
“No prophet is welcome in his own town,” Jesus says.
Many of us can appreciate the circumstances our Lord finds himself in. To the 28 cousins I grew up with in Youngstown I will be “Timmy” if I live to be 100. My four adult children think it's a hoot when they hear it. I really don't mind. And Jesus may not have had difficulty with the intimate and familiar “Yeshu.” What he did have difficulty with was their narrow mindedness and hardheartedness.
Comparing people he's known since infancy to those YHWH once rejected in favor of an accursed unbeliever (II Kings 5:1-15) was bad enough. Accusing them of being less than that unclean heathen swine-eating pagan was a road too far.
Poduct Nazareth was so narrow-minded, nationalistic, and blind that they couldn't imagine YHWH caring two bits for any Gentile. But the God Jesus knows doesn't care what flag you fly. (His Father isn't a Catholic or an American either, but that's for another reflection.)
Telling the neighbors that they were hard of heart would have conjured up images of those who persecuted the prophets. When stiff necked, Israel thwarted the very will of YHWH. Now this smart alack homeboy returns and dares to accuse them of being no better.
Who in the ___ does he think he is?
Jesus would have made a terrible politician. He insisted on telling people the truth.
He speaks the truth still. This penitential season of Lent is an opportune time to have a long and hard look at our own narrow mindedness and how we, too, can be hard of heart. Spiritual discernment goes to the heart of the matter. Of course such an effort is not limited to Lent 2022. It's a life long task.
All Yeshua is asking us to do is to be honest. As he was.
Timothy J. Cronin