The Rejected Nazarene Made All The Difference

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara CSsR

Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

St. Gerard Majella Church

Baton Rouge, LA

July 8, 2012

Who are the people that we sometimes tend to ignore or reject? Who are the people that we easily pass by pretending they don’t exist? Who are the people that we want to avoid meeting, not because meeting them cause us any harm, but meeting them irritates us? Who are the invisibles in our society? Who are the easily rejected persons in our lives? For some people, beggars are the people they find difficult to deal with. For some people, the neighborhood where a person lives determines how they relate with him or her. If someone lives in a very poor, drug infested and unkempt neighborhood, he or she is immediately seen as a nobody or a riffraff . For some people, a person’s ability to speak intelligently determines if he or she would be accepted. In this case, what matters are the academic degrees acquired. If you have none, you are out, but if you have one or more, then you are in. It is as if humanity dignity is acquired and not innate.

Sometimes, we tend to ignore those who provide services to us until they err. People who serve us in shops, in restaurants, in leisure places etc are easily ignored and we only tend to notice them when they falter in their services. Even those closest to us in our households (or in our parishes/churches) can sometimes be ignored. Remember the saying, “Familiarity brings contempt.” The nearest, closest and the dearest to us can sometimes be taken for granted until we loose any of them. There is an African adage that says, “A cow does not know the importance of its tail until he looses it.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus went home as a prophet and as a Rabbi to his own people. But before he made this journey, he had expelled unclean spirits from the possessed, healed a woman with hemorrhage for 12 years, and raised the daughter of a Synagogue official, Jairus from death. His fame and popularity had spread. Multitude of people were following him. He already had disciples who believed in him and his message. But on getting home, to his own people, he was shocked by their lack of faith and respect for him. People from other villages, towns and regions were following Jesus wherever he went. They were more open to his message and more friendly to him than his own people. As Jesus taught in their Synagogue, his teaching was received not with pleasant amazement but with contempt. ”

Now, why did the Nazarenes refuse to listen to their own son? Because they knew his origin. They knew Jesus’ humble and lowly beginnings; they knew his mother, his profession and his relatives. And in their amazement of contempt, they asked: “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary...? Jesus was rejected by his people simply because a lowly and nobody background like him could be saying wise things and doing great things: “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are done by his hands? Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary...” Immediately, they rejected him, his message and his miracles. The Gospel puts it this way: “And they took offense at him." 

Jesus came from a nobody’s family. His father was poor and obviously died a poor man. His mother Mary too was poor. There was no moneybag in his family. But Jesus at least had a job. Even though his job was ridiculed, but he was not jobless. In the Gospel of John 5:17, he says, “My Father is always working, and I too, am working.” After the death of Joseph, Jesus seemed to have taken over his foster-father’s carpentry workshop, worked hard, earned a living and supported Mary his mother. He did this for many years before he began his ministry. Jesus was a hardworking man. He was as a matter of fact a handyman who could build a wall, mend a roof, repair a gate, repair a furniture and construct a new floor or repair an old one. Unfortunately, the people of Nazareth despised him just because he was an ordinary hard working man. He was not a Wall-street man but a Main-street man. He was a man of the people, a layman, a simple man, a handyman who could do anything to help people and support his family. Just because of that, they rejected and despised him. But his rejection did not lead to the collapse of his ministry. The ordinary man of Nazareth, rejected by Nazarenes, held in contempt by Nazarenes, today is the center of history. Today, we all are here because of him.

So from Jesus, we learn that it is not only the moneybags that can make a difference in the world. It is not only the intellectually gifted people that can make a difference in the world. It is not only those who sit on the chairs of power and who walk on the corridors of power that can make a difference in the world. It is not only the famous people that can make a difference in our world. It is not only those born with silver spoons that can make a difference in our world. As a matter of fact, change happens when ordinary folks want it happen. The powerful most times want the status quo to remain unchanged because they fear loosing their powers, money and relevance. From Jesus we learn that regardless of status, fame, position in life, degrees acquired, you can make a difference by the witness of your life.

Because of the rejection of Jesus by his own people, he could not do mighty works in Nazareth. The whole atmosphere was not right for him. The mighty works of God can hardly be done in an atmosphere of religious coldness and indifference. The most power packed and spirit-filled message of salvation can fall lifeless in an environment of coldness and scorn towards God and what pertains to God. To those he healed, Jesus never said: “Your faithlessness has saved you” or “Your religious coldness and indifference have saved you.” It has always been: “Your faith has saved you.” Great things happen to people of great faith. Great things happen to hearts and lives that are open to receive the Lord. Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”