WHEN YOU CAN'T BE A BLESSING AT HOME
it has been said that "Charity starts at home and then spreads abroad." However, what is one expected to do when they cannot be a blessing at home?
Read Mark 6:1-6
INTRODUCTION
SITUATION
“Is not this the carpenter
the son of Mary
and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?
Are not His sisters here with us?
And they took offense at Him.
“Familiarity breeds contempt” is a well-known maxim that goes all the way back to Publius the Syrian, who lived in 2 B.C. Aesop wrote a fable to illustrate it. In Aesop’s fable, a fox had never before seen a lion, and when he first met the king of the beasts, the fox was nearly frightened to death. At their second meeting, the fox was not frightened quite as much; and the third time he met the lion, the fox went up and chatted with him! “And so it is,” Aesop concluded, “that familiarity makes even the most frightening things seem quite harmless.”
The maxim, however, must be taken with a grain of salt. For example, can you imagine a loving husband and wife thinking less of each other because they know each other so well? Or two dear friends starting to despise each other because their friendship has deepened over the years? Phillips Brooks said it best: “Familiarity breeds contempt, only with contemptible things or among contemptible people.” The contempt shown by the Nazarenes said nothing about Jesus Christ, but it said a great deal about them!
A tourist, eager to see everything in the art gallery, fled from picture to picture, scarcely noticing what was in the frames. “I didn’t see anything very special here,” he said to one of the guards as he left. “Sir,” the guard replied, “it is not the pictures that are on trial here—it is the visitors.”
A carpenter was a respected artisan in that day, but nobody expected a carpenter to do miracles or teach profound truths in the synagogue. Where did He get all this power and wisdom? From God or from Satan? (see Mark 3:22) And why did His brothers and sisters not possess this same power and wisdom? Even more, why did His brothers and sisters not believe in Him? The people who called Him “the son of Mary” were actually insulting Him; because in that day you identified a man by calling him the son of his father, not the son of his mother.
The people of Nazareth were “offended at Him,” which literally means “they stumbled over Him.” The Greek word gives us our English word scandalize. Kenneth Wuest wrote in his book Wuest’s Word Studies (Eerdmans), “They could not explain Him, so they rejected Him.” Jesus was certainly a “stone of stumbling” to them because of their unbelief (Isa. 8:14; Rom. 9:32–33; 1 Peter 2:8).
Twice in the Gospel record you find Jesus marveling. As this passage reveals, He marveled at the unbelief of the Jews, and He marveled at the great faith of a Roman centurion, a Gentile (Luke 7:9). Instead of remaining at Nazareth, Jesus departed and made another circuit of the towns and villages in Galilee. His heart was broken as He saw the desperate plight of the people (Matt. 9:35–38), so He decided to send out His disciples to minister with His authority and power.
COMPLICATION
6:5–6a. Because of such persistent unbelief Jesus could not do any miracles there except to lay His hands on (cf. 5:23) a few sick people and heal them. There was no limitation on His power, but His purpose was to perform miracles in the presence of faith. Only a few here had faith to come to Him for healing.
Even Jesus was amazed (ethaumasen, “astonished”; cf. 5:20; 12:17; 15:5, 44) at their unbelief, their unwillingness to believe that His wisdom and power were from God. So far as is known, He never returned to Nazareth.
The people of Nazareth represent Israel’s blindness. Their refusal to believe in Jesus pictured what the disciples would soon experience (cf. 6:7–13) and what Mark’s readers (then and now) would experience in the advance of the gospel.
RESOLUTION
6:6b Jesus’ Ministry in the Surrounding Region
Perhaps verse 6b can be included with the previous episode, counting as a fourth response by Jesus to the lack of faith in Nazareth. He is rejected there, but his ministry is not hindered. He moves out to the smaller villages around Nazareth. Connecting verse 6b to this episode, however, also fits Mark’s larger pattern. The sequel to rejection is expanded ministry. We have often seen this in Mark:
• When demonic opposition arises, it is quickly subdued, and Jesus’ fame spreads (1:23–28).
• When religious leaders begin to question Jesus, his fame attracts great crowds (2:6–7, 12–13).
• When the Pharisees and Herodians initiate a death plot, Jesus is quickly surrounded by crowds from virtually every region in Palestine (3:6–8).
• When family and foe alike oppose him (3:21–22), Jesus is surrounded first by faithful followers (3:34–35), and then by the largest crowds to date (4:1).
So it is here also: Jesus is rejected in his hometown, and immediately the narrative shifts to the enlarging ministry of Jesus (among the villages; 6:6b) and its multiplication through those he sends out (v. 7).