Son of The Carpenter
As we’ve walked with the apostles in the Gospels in recent weeks, we’ve witnessed Jesus command the wind and sea, and order a little girl to arise from the dead.
But He seems to meet His match in His hometown of Nazareth. Today’s Gospel is blunt: “He was not able to perform any mighty deed there.”
Why not? Because of the people’s lack of faith. They acknowledged the wisdom of His words, the power of His works. But they refused to recognize Him as a prophet come among them, a messenger sent by God.
All they could see was how much “this man” was like them—a carpenter, the son of their neighbor, Mary, with brothers and sisters.
Of course, Mary was ever-virgin, and had no other children. The Gospel refers to Jesus’ brothers as Paul refers to all Israelites as his brothers, the children of Abraham (see Romans 9:3,7).
That’s the point in today’s Gospel, too. Like the prophet Ezekiel in today’s First Reading, Jesus was sent by God to the rebellious house of Israel, where He found His own brothers and sisters obstinate of heart and in revolt against God.
The servant is not above the Master (see Matthew 10:24). As His disciples, we too face the mockery and contempt we hear of in today’s Psalm. And isn’t it often hardest to live our faith among those in our own families, those who think they really know us, who define us by the people we used to be—before we chose to walk with Jesus?
As Paul confides in today’s Epistle, insults and hardships are God’s way of teaching us to rely solely on His grace.
Jesus will work no mighty deeds in our lives unless we abandon ourselves to Him in faith. Blessed then are those who take no offense in Him (see Luke 7:23). Instead, we must look upon Him with the eyes of servants—knowing that the son of Mary is also the Lord enthroned in the heavens.
Saint Symeon the New Theologian
Catecheses, III, 19
Many people never stop saying – I have heard them myself – “If only we had lived in the days of the apostles, and been counted worthy to gaze upon Christ as they did, we should have become holy like them.” Such people do not realize that the Christ who spoke then and the Christ who speaks now throughout the whole world is one and the same…
The position now is not the same as it was then, but our situation now, in the present day, is very much better. It leads us more easily to a deeper faith and conviction than seeing and hearing him in the flesh would have done.
Then he appeared to the uncomprehending as a man of lowly station: now he is proclaimed to us as true God. Then in his body he associated with tax collectors and sinners and ate with them: now he is seated at the right hand of God the Father, and is never in any way separated from him… Then even those of lowliest condition held him in contempt.
They said: «Is not this the son of Mary, and of Joseph the carpenter?» (Mk 6,3; Jn 6,42) Now kings and rulers worship him as Son of the true God, and himself true God… Then he was thought to be mortal and corruptible like the rest of humankind. He was no different in appearance from other men. The formless and invisible God, without change or alteration, assumed a human form and showed himself to be a normal human being. He ate, he drank, he slept, he sweated, and he grew weary. He did everything other people do, except that he did not sin. For anyone to recognize him in that human body, and to believe that he was the God who made heaven and earth and everything in them was very exceptional… It is certain, therefore, that anyone who now hears Christ cry out daily through the holy gospels and proclaim the will of his blessed Father, but does not obey him with fear and trembling and keep his commandments: it is certain that such a person would have refused to believe in him then.
Blessed Pope John XXIII
Radio Message (May 1, 1960)
Saint Joseph, Jesus’ guardian and most chaste husband of Mary, who spent your life carrying out your duty perfectly while supporting the Holy Family at Nazareth with the work of your hands: protect those who turn confidently to you.
You know their longings, anxieties and hopes; to you they come, knowing that in you they will find someone who understands and watches over them. For you, too, have known difficulties, weariness and exhaustion, and yet, even in the midst of your preoccupations with material life, your soul, filled with profound peace, rejoiced with inexpressible joy because of your intimacy with the Son of God entrusted to your hands and his sweetest mother, Mary.
May those who seek your protection understand for themselves that they are not alone in their work. May they know how to find Jesus at their side, welcome him gratefully and watch over him faithfully as you yourself did. Grant that, in every family, workplace and yard, wherever christians are at work, all may be sanctified in charity, patience and justice, in a concern to do things well, that the gifts of God’s love may abundantly fall on us all.
Pope Benedict XVI
Angelus Address, July 8, 2012
I would like to reflect briefly on this Sunday’s Gospel passage. It is taken from the text that has the famous saying “Nemo propheta in patria”. In other words no prophet is properly accepted among his own people who watched him grow up (cf. Mk 6:4).
Indeed after Jesus, when he was about 30 years old, had left Nazareth and had already been travelling about preaching and working miracles of healing elsewhere, he once returned to his birthplace and started teaching in the synagogue.
His fellow citizens “were astonished” by his wisdom, and knowing him as “the son of Mary”, as the carpenter who had lived in their midst, instead of welcoming him with faith were shocked and took offence (cf. Mk 6:2-3). This reaction is understandable because familiarity at the human level makes it difficult to go beyond this in order to be open to the divine dimension.
That this son of a carpenter was the Son of God was hard for them to believe. Jesus actually takes as an example the experience of the prophets of Israel, who in their own homeland were an object of contempt, and identifies himself with them. Due to this spiritual closure Jesus “could do no mighty work there [Nazareth], except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them” (Mk 6:5).
In fact Christ’s miracles are not a display of power but signs of the love of God that is brought into being wherever it encounters reciprocated human faith. Origen writes: “as in the case of material things there exists in some things a natural attraction towards some other thing, as in the magnet for iron… so there is an attraction in such faith towards the divine power” (Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 10, 19).
It would therefore seem that Jesus—as is said—is making sense of the negative welcome he received in Nazareth. Instead, at the end of the account, we find a remark that says precisely the opposite. The Evangelist writes that Jesus “marvelled because of their unbelief” (Mk 6:6). The astonishment of Jesus’ fellow townspeople is matched by his own surprise. In a certain sense he too is shocked!
Although he knows that no prophet is well accepted in his homeland, the closed heart of his people was nevertheless obscure and impenetrable to him: how could they fail to recognize the light of the Truth? Why did they not open themselves to the goodness of God who deigned to share in our humanity? Effectively Jesus of Nazareth the man is the transparency of God, in him God dwells fully. And while we are constantly seeking other signs, other miracles, we do not realize that he is the true Sign, God made flesh, he is the greatest miracle in the world: the whole of God’s love contained in a human heart, in a man’s face.
The One who fully understood this reality was the Virgin Mary, who is blessed because she believed (cf. Lk 1:45). Mary was not shocked by her Son: her wonder for him was full of faith, full of love and joy, in seeing him so human and at the same time so divine. Let us therefore learn from her, our Mother in faith, to recognize in the humanity of Christ the perfect revelation of God.
Saint Hilary
De Trinitate, XII, final prayer
“He was not able to perform any mighty deed there because of their lack of faith”
Father, Almighty God, keep, i pray, my faith undefiled, and till my last breath, grant that I may always confess my deepest convictions. May I ever hold fast to everything which I professed in the creed of my new brith, when I was baptized in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. May I always adore you our Father, and your Son who is one with you; give me always your Holy Spirit, who proceeds from you, through your Only-begotten Son.
For I have a convincing witness to my faith, who says, “Father, everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine” (Jn 17:10). This witness is my Lord Jesus Christ, for ever God in you, and from you, and with you, who are blessed for ever and ever. Amen.
