The People Want a Non-Prophet World

Today going to talk about Jesus and some of the people who DIDN’T believe he was anything but a con man and why that was. But first, a brief introduction.

I’m Captain Roger – The Salvation Army – Currently based in Grass Valley, CA.

This is our online worship in study – If you come to our Sunday morning meeting, this is the topic we’re planning to discuss, but we post the main teaching online each week so everyone will get a chance to hear and participate in God’s Word as we wrestle with what it means and how we can use it in our lives.

Working through Matthew’s biography of Jesus. Matt was one of the Twelve key disciples of Jesus, the inner circle who was responsible to carry the message to the rest of the disciples and to the world around them.

He believed Jesus was more than a great teacher – He thought Jesus was also the long-promised Messiah God had said he would send to rescue his people. He also thought that Jesus was, in some way, also God, and not just an agent of God. And in his biography, he’s done all he can to tell the story in a way which shows us why he believed these things. He’s also told us about a number of people who absolutely did NOT believe. Which we will hear more about in just a moment.

We’re up to the end of chapter 13 in the book of Matthew, the first book of the Christian scriptures, also called the New Testament. Stating today at verse 53, which will transition us from the story of Jesus’ teaching to the skepticism and anger of those who didn’t like what he had to say.

53 And it happened that when Jesus had finished these parables he went away from there. 54 And he came to his hometown and* began to teach them in their synagogue, so that they were amazed and said, “From where did this man getthis wisdom and these miracles? 55 Is not this one the son of the carpenter? Is not his mother called Mary and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 And are not all his sisters with us? From where then did this man get all these things?” 57 And they were offended by him.[1]

Jesus grew up in Nazareth, backwater town in Northern Israel, in the region of Galilee. It was the kind of small, nondescript village that other small, nondescript towns made fun of. Back in the first days of his ministry Jesus called a guy named Philip to come follow him and Philip went to his buddy Nathanael and said, “Bro, we found the guy! This is the one Moses and the Prophets wrote about! It’s Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth!” To which we are told Nathanael replied, “Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But, once he met and listened to Jesus, Nathanael was right there, following him just like Philip and so many others did, even though Jesus seemed to be from nowhere.

Now, Jesus had spent a couple of years traveling around Israel, sharing his amazing teaching about the Kingdom of God and how to live in it, bringing about miraculous healing for people with life changing injuries and chronic diseases, and even bringing the dead back to life. There were several times where he even seemed to confront people possessed by supernatural entities and free them from that demonic control. His reputation had grown and spread from being a wilderness preacher to being something more, something that could only have come from God. The people began to whisper that this was the one they had been waiting for, the Messiah, and they began to match up the things Jesus did with the signs God had promised would herald the arrival of that savior.

This wasn’t universally accepted. Some among the religious elite found themselves threatened by the things Jesus said and did. They didn’t care for the way he interpreted some of the scripture passages he taught about. They didn’t like that he treated everyone as if they were on the same social level. They didn’t like how his teaching subtly shifted power away from their leadership. And they tried to fight against Jesus like they did when they argued with each other: they asked questions in a way which they thought could elicit answers which would reinforce their position or lead to them being able to condemn this young upstart as a heretic come to lead them away from the God of their people. But Jesus had answered their questions and their attacks on him ended up bringing shame on themselves instead.

Frustrated, they began to level wild insults at him, trying to tear him down or start rumors that he was the devil. Their poison spread to some, and even his own family had felt the need to come and try to bring him home because they were embarrassed that Jesus was causing such an upheaval.

Jesus kept teaching, but he began to use more stories, which the people loved to hear, even when he didn’t always explain them. As they puzzled out his meanings they found themselves blessed by the things he said, while those who had decided they would be his enemies just got angrier, not liking what they understood and refusing to understand what they didn’t want to think about.

Through it all, Jesus kept moving, visiting place after place, sharing the news that the Kingdom of God was at hand, and healing those who came to him.

And then, for the first time since he started, he came home.

He went to church that week and he began to teach amazing things and some people came to him and were healed. And the response of those there, the people who had known him and his family their whole lives, the ones who you would think would have been his proudest followers and supporters, went like this:

Who does he think he is? This is the carpenter’s kid! We KNOW Jesus, so whatever this is he’s trying to do here, we’re not buying.

Well, why not?

Hmm… Remember what the Pharisee’s biggest problem with Jesus’ teaching was?

They needed to set aside their own understanding of things to embrace God’s understanding, and they didn’t want to do it. Their pride built an obstacle that they weren’t willing to get past, even when what was on the other side was a place in the Kingdom of God.

What did the people of Nazareth understand? Well, look what happened:

57 And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. [2]

What did the Nazarene’s understand?

They understood that Mary was the mother of Jesus, and they remembered that there was a time when she was engaged to Joseph and she turned up pregnant before the final wedding took place. Joseph stepped up and all, but the people remembered that this is a family in which questionable things have happened in the past.

They understood that Jesus has grown up with four brothers and at least two sisters – we aren’t told how many, but we are told that it is sisters, plural. And Joseph was a carpenter, which could mean anything and everything from basic woodwork to stonecutting. He was a construction worker and a small-town craftsman. He probably spent much of his children’s youth working in the nearby town of Sepphoris as part of the teams working on rebuilding it for King Herod after it had been destroyed in a revolt after he had taken power. Jesus, the oldest son, would have helped his father and learned the trade from him, as would one or all of the other brothers. In Mark’s version of this same story, he mentions that the people actually called Jesus “the carpenter”.

That was part of the problem. To them, he’s “the carpenter” so what kind of spiritual insight are they going to get? I don’t call on a plumber to make pizza, I don’t ask a zookeeper to explain the human decision-making process, and I don’t call a movie star to explain macroeconomics. Why would I want to have a carpenter explain the Kingdom of God to me?

So when Jesus gets to town, he teaches amazing things and he performs miracles of healing, but all the people can really see is that this is Jesus, born under a cloud, raised to be a carpenter, and he’s from Nazareth! Can anything good ever come from Nazareth?

And they say no, it can’t.

They get OFFENDED that he’s even there.

Let me point out that Matthew has told us that the teaching was amazing. The people were AMAZED at the wisdom of what Jesus said. He also has told us that miracles were performed there. I know that at the end it says he didn’t do many, but not only were the people amazed at Jesus’ wisdom, they were astounded by his miraculous powers. The problem isn’t that they didn’t hear his teaching and it isn’t that they didn’t see the signs! They heard and they saw, but then they were, like, “Yeah, but this is JESUS,” and they ignored what it meant in favor of getting upset by it.

So, yeah, I guess he didn’t do so many miracles here as in some other towns, because you can’t help those who don’t want help.

You can’t force people to understand when they have decided not to.

Selfishness blinds people to God’s reality.

Look what happened to John. That’s the next thing Matthew tells us about.

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, 2 and he said to his attendants, “This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” [3]

This might seem like a leap, but Herod has a guilty conscience about John. Matthew fills those details in for us next.

3 Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, 4 for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.” 5 Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet. [4]

We went over some of this story a few weeks ago, when we talked about John being in prison. He’d made a point of letting Herod know that his incestuous and illegal relationship with his brother’s wife who happened to be their niece was way out of line. Leaders become the examples their people follow, so it is doubly important that they be humble and law-abiding in all things. Herod was leading the people away from God and from honorable behavior altogether. And John let him know it.

So Herod thew John in prison and left him there to rot. Why? Because Herod was a selfish snot who was set on doing things his way instead of listening to that God had to say.

He knew John was a prophet, or at least that the people thought he was. He was afraid to just get rid of the Galilean preacher, so he locked him away and left him.

But Herod wasn’t the only one who didn’t want John going around shining a light on his shameful marriage.

Herodias, his wife, wanted him silenced as well.

6 On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so much 7 that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. 8 Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”[5]

I’ve heard preachers go on about what kind of dance this must have been to get Herod worked up enough to make such a sweeping promise, but this it isn’t that kind of thing. The story is told in a very straightforward way in a culture where they spoke pretty graphically about sexuality, so it’s really just what it sounds like. Besides, when you read this story in the original Greek it was written in, you can tell that we’re talking about a girl who is maybe 11 or 12. Herod is really just impressed with her dance and, like a benevolent father, offers to reward her. He doesn’t realize that her mother had primed her to ask for what she wanted instead of what the girl might ordinarily have asked for.

9 The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted 10 and had John beheaded in the prison. 11 His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.[6]

I once told someone that if they asked me to, I’d do something for them, even though I knew that thing would be wrong. Very very wrong. But I figured they would never ask! It would be a very destructive thing which would lead to heartache and disaster on several other fronts. It would change our lives for the worse. There was NO WAY they would ever ask me to do what I said I would do.

So then they asked.

Crap.

I felt trapped. After all, I’d given my word. I had made this bold declaration and I didn’t want to let this person down and I didn’t want to look like I was a liar and I didn’t want… I didn’t want…

Pshnxxxt.

The truth is that I had decided that I just wanted what I wanted and I didn’t want to pay a price for it and I didn’t want to face any consequences for it. I’d decided that my pride was all that mattered.

Thank God that he intervened and kept me from making the biggest mistake of my life any worse than I’d already made it. My pride was going to lead me to my doom, but God redirected my steps through a number of outside circumstances and kept me from it. It’s been a long, long time since this happened, but it remains a lighthouse warning me away from the reef of pride and selfishness. I can’t say that I’m not still prone to behave foolishly sometimes, but – at least so far – the memory of this event has been enough to keep me away from anything that might lead to me being in that situation again.

Herod didn’t have that, or maybe it was just that it didn’t matter. Maybe his pride was too much of an obstacle for anything to overcome it except his own decision to set it aside.

That’s the secret to defeating foolish pride, by the way. You can always choose to set it aside and listen to the voices around you, listen to your conscience, listen to the Spirit of God as it directs you to choose God’s life over selfishness. Over death.

Herod chose death. In this case, John’s physical life was worth less to him than the mild embarrassment of telling his daughter and his guests that he wasn’t going to kill God’s prophet because she’d managed to pull of some cool ballet moves.

So he sent his men to the prison beneath his palace, and they came back with John’s head on a platter, which was presented to the little girl, who them brought it to her mother.

The things we do to our kids.

The things we do to each other.

God, forgive us for our foolish pride and how we allow it to block us from following you. How we refuse to acknowledge that others are just as important as we are. That they are people, with flesh and blood and feelings and complicated backstories, just like us.

12 John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus. [7]

His trip through Nazareth may have been part of what Jesus did next, which is to head out into the wilderness. Maybe to grieve. Maybe to clear his head. Maybe as the next step towards what he needed to do. Maybe all of that and other reasons too.

Matthew wants us to know about these events. He wants us to understand that the people were rejecting the message of God. They were ignoring his prophet and his savior. They were allowing their pride to blind them to God’s reality, and they were hanging that decision on things that were incidental to what they could have seen and heard, if only they had been willing to.

If they had listened to the words of Jesus instead of refusing to hear him because of tier perception of who he was and where he’d come from.

If they had seen the miracles and thought about what they meant instead of ignoring them and the other signs as if they somehow didn’t matter or were just the kind of thing that happens all the time.

If only if only if only.

But this rejection was expected too. It’s one of the signs God promised.

Through Isaiah, speaking about the One who would come, God said,

3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. [8]

When he sent Ezekiel to share his wisdom with the people, God told him:

4 The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says.’ 5 And whether they listen or fail to listen—for they are a rebellious people—they will know that a prophet has been among them.[9]

When he sent Jeremiah to call the people to follow him, God had him tell them this:

25 From the time your ancestors left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. 26 But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their ancestors.’ [10]

And then he said this to Jeremiah:

27 “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer.[11]

What did people do to the prophets? By and large they ignored them and their calls to return to God. When they got upset because the truth began to worm its way into them, digging into their hardened hearts, they killed them.

It’s no surprise that the same thing has happened to John, to Jesus.

But maybe some have heard. Maybe some have seen. There are a few who listened and followed, right?

So how about you?

Are you willing to set aside the obstruction of your pride so that you can follow Jesus, or will you allow selfishness to blind you to God’s truth?

Hey, we all do it, but it’s a behavior we can unlearn. We can always choose to follow Jesus into God’s Kingdom rather than remaining stubbornly outside, as if our desire is somehow going to change his decree. As if we somehow matter more than the people around us. More than God.

If you aren’t sure how to get around that, let me give you a simple start in the right direction.

Pray about it.

You don’t need to give some fancy speech. No matter what your words are, God will hear your heart. Simply say:

Lord, I’ve made myself blind. Help me to see. I’ve covered my ears. Help me to hear. Lead me on your path and show me when I do wrong. Help me to learn from your correction and establish a place in your Kingdom. Teach me to follow Jesus instead of my own whims. In his name we pray. Amen.

[1] W. Hall Harris III et al., eds., The Lexham English Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012), Mt 13:53–57. [2] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mt 13:57–58. [3] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mt 14:1–2. [4] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mt 14:3–5. [5] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mt 14:6–8. [6] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mt 14:9–11. [7] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Mt 14:12. [8] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Is 53:3. [9] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Eze 2:4–5. [10] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Je 7:25–26. [11] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Je 7:27.

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