Christ the Provocateur.
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” After this, things started well in today's gospel, "all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words" --that is until He said this:
“Amen, I say to you,
no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you,
there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
Again, there were many lepers in Israel
during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury."
"...no prophet is accepted in his own native place." Mark says Christ could do no miracles there.This is often explained by their lack of faith, the notion that one's relationship with God is necessarily two-way, like the brilliant gospel of the disciples meeting Christ on the road to Ammaus. But this reading shows Christ means something quite different; the widow and the leper were gentiles, not Jews. Salvation was going to be universal, not provincial. All humanity would be saved, not just the Jews.
No wonder they were mad.
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” After this, things started well in today's gospel, "all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words" --that is until He said this:
“Amen, I say to you,
no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you,
there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
Again, there were many lepers in Israel
during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
When the people in the synagogue heard this,
they were all filled with fury."
"...no prophet is accepted in his own native place." Mark says Christ could do no miracles there.This is often explained by their lack of faith, the notion that one's relationship with God is necessarily two-way, like the brilliant gospel of the disciples meeting Christ on the road to Ammaus. But this reading shows Christ means something quite different; the widow and the leper were gentiles, not Jews. Salvation was going to be universal, not provincial. All humanity would be saved, not just the Jews.
No wonder they were mad.
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