“Home Town Religion” – MARK 6:1-6

We place too much emphasis on personalities and celebrity. One fascinating aspect of this human tendency is that we tend to exalt folks we do not know. When we are close to a person, we more clearly can see their actual faults and even some perceived faults.

Great people, you see, come from somewhere else.

Great people come from some other family, not mine. The only man who had no faults suffered the same fate. Jesus, the only truly great man, was rejected by those from His home town and from His family (6:4).

Taking a step back from the narrative, it is amazing (we seem to find this in the gospels a lot) that the miracles Jesus worked were simply written off by so many. “Why, His dad was a carpenter so raising Jairus’ daughter from death has no significance to me”, they seemed to be saying (6:2-3).

They would not hear the words because they were focused on the speaker.

They could not interpret the signs because they knew the hands.

Faith was thwarted by hometown prejudice.

Taking another step back, we also can see that some people are simply looking for an excuse to reject Jesus. It does not even have to be a good reason, any ol’ reason will do! Notice it says that Jesus was “not able” to work miracles here (6:5). Since God is all-powerful, there was a self-imposed restriction that required faith for the works to be done through Jesus. He cannot work with unbelief (6:6).

The God of love, the Good Shepherd who came seeking the lost sheep of Israel, had to walk away in amazement that these folks would not allow faith to be born.

Now looking at ourselves, we find excuse-making in a personal application. “Why, there is nothing great Jesus can do with me, I know me too well … He can only do great things through good people”, we so easily say. I am not talking about miracles, I am talking about the extraordinary explosion of flavor when salt is added. When opportunity knocks we look around for someone else to answer the door. It cannot be me, I know me too well.

My friend, Jesus is not looking for someone else from somewhere else … He is looking for you.