Episode 84: Mark Part 26–Hometown Rejection/Handling Rejection with Grace
After four incidents of bringing people from four different kinds of death into life and restoration, we would think that Yeshua would be treated to a hero’s welcome upon His return to Nazareth. But–not so much. What can we learn from the way He did and didn’t handle things?
If you can’t see the player, click here or visit characterincontext.podbean.com
Transcript below.
*********************************
Mark 26—Home Town Rejection/Coping with Rejection with Grace
6 He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” 5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching.
Hey, it’s taken us twenty-six weeks, but we have finally made it to Chapter six. And there are ten more chapters to go so we are not leaving Mark anytime soon. I don’t have a problem with that as I just love the depth and intricacies of this very neglected Gospel. This passage of Scripture not only has great depth contextually, but it is also a gold mine for our own struggles for acceptance. It is a wake-up call and a reminder, also, to get over ourselves or to take things too personally—or to resort to anger and bitterness which are just heading in the absolutely wrong direction if you want to impact the world on behalf of the Kingdom.
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist, and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com
All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for Part two of this series at theancientbridge.com.
6 He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.
Where is there? We actually don’t know for sure. He had just healed the woman with the issue of blood and raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead but not one of the Gospel accounts says anything other than that this took place somewhere in the towns along the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. So wherever this is, He now leaves town (had to, probably, once the girl was seen walking around) and heads to Nazareth. So, let’s do a bit of geography and history on Nazareth and the region around it so we can understand why they were there in the first place.
Nazareth is southwest of the Sea of Galilee but getting there “as the crow flies” wasn’t really something one would do on foot. Most of Galilee is hills and valleys, making those valleys very fertile but certainly not as fertile as the Jordan Valley region. The city of Sepphoris was about four or five miles away and had been razed to the ground by the Romans in 6 CE, making Nazareth a very good location for an artisan/day laborer to be. For the record, although both Joseph and Yeshua/Jesus were called tekton, which is often translated as carpenter, that’s a traditional understanding. A tekton was any sort of skilled craftsman or builder, including not only carpenters but masons and that sort of thing as well. As 90% of building projects were stone, and with trees being far less prevalent and harder to replace, Yeshua and Joseph were much more likely to be working in stone than with wood. They were quite probably stonemasons. This would make much more sense with Yeshua’s focus on stone throughout His teachings—He called Peter “Cephas” which means stone. He said “upon this rock will I build my ekklesia.” He spoke of the wise man building His mouse upon the rock. Trees, on the other hand, are living things and more often associated with life. None of this changes anything, of course, just something to think about. But Sepphoris would have been swarming with men who were tekton, or builders, for many years.
But Nazareth is an obscure place. It is mentioned only eight times as a place name, never in the Hebrew Scriptures, and nineteen times as part of Yeshua’s name. Professor James F. Strange once believed that the population in Yeshua’s day was about comparable to Capernaum at roughly 1500 (which you will hear repeated a lot) people but after another decade of research puts the population at about 480. Other scholars believe it may have been as small as 150-200 people. Nazareth was teeny, if that was the case. Not anymore, but it was then. Where the name came from, no one knows for sure but some hypothesize that it might have come from Is 11:1-2
11 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The Hebrew word for branch in verse one is netser, a word that we find capitalized six times in the Prophets because it is believed to refer to the Messiah. I will give you all the references but I won’t read them all because we would get off track: Is 4:2, Is 11:1, Jer 23:5-6, Jer 33:15-17, Zech 3:8-9, and Zech 6:12-13. Definitely check them out. But the theory is, and it is just a theory, that this place was settled by Davidic descendants and named after this prophecy. Might be. Might not be. We don’t know. It sounds cool though.
So, He went to Nazareth, presumably the home still of His brothers and mother and, as we will see, His sisters were definitely there. His disciples were with Him, which becomes important for next week’s teaching and for the theme of this next series of teachings. This week sets up the consequences that will determine what comes next.
2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands?
There is so much here to unpack—a lot of stuff that tends to go unnoticed. He goes to his home town assembly and starts teaching. Nothing controversial about that. But what is strange, and especially to people who take some of the apocryphal gospels seriously, is that they are totally floored at His teachings, as though they have never heard any of this before from Him. Those who say He was taught Torah in the manner of later generations, having it memorized early on, well, these guys are certainly not acting as though they expected Him to be very educated. Yeshua obviously didn’t use them for trial runs of teachings before He left for Capernaum. He obviously wasn’t doing miracles before He left town. And they were shocked at His wisdom. This wasn’t a case of, “Yeah, we always knew that He’d be a somebody someday.” This was more like a “what the heck happened after He left town?”
What don’t we see? We don’t see demons rising up and confronting Him as in other places. This is very notable. That’s often what happens the first time He preaches in an area. As a thirty-year-old man, certainly, He had read from the Torah and Haftarah many times and especially in such a small town before the age of dedicated Rabbis. We have to wonder what He was doing before, if anything, that He could have flown so far below the radar that all these things are shocking them. Of course, we have already seen the incident where His mom and brothers traveled to haul what they thought was His crazy butt back home, so it wasn’t like rumors weren’t getting around but maybe the townspeople thought they knew Him so well after thirty years that they were laughing off the stories. Regardless of what the situation was, they are certainly not laughing now. They are utterly astonished. So, we don’t have demons rising up but we do have a genuine controversy right here. Where did He get this message He is preaching? Where did He get this wisdom? How is He working all these miracles and healings and exorcisms? You see, they aren’t contesting that He has wisdom or that His teaching and preaching aren’t amazing or that He is doing the works. They are asking where this stuff is coming from. Who is the source? In essence, we have the Beelzebul controversy all over again. Yes, they acknowledge the works but the source is seriously in doubt. Because it would seem as though this came out of nowhere.
There are people who claim He learned under John the Baptist—but John was only six months older than Yeshua and Yeshua was busy working as a tekton, a builder. Presumably, He was doing this until the day He left His family, left His mother with one of His brothers, and was baptized. But, apart from the incident that Luke records with the scholars in the Temple when Yeshua was twelve, it looks like this has caught them completely off guard. And let me add that they had to be more careful than any other town in Israel as the Torah says that the citizens of an ir hanidat were to be put under the ban if the one who led them astray was from their own town. We covered that in the episode about the Beelzebul controversy. They were in more danger and had more to lose than anyone if they followed this guy and He ended up being a heretic. I want to look at this verse again:
2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands?
This is actually the last verse that two of these words will appear together in the Gospel of Mark, the words for teaching and synagogue together. We don’t see Yeshua in a synagogue after this. It doesn’t mean that He wasn’t going to synagogues and teaching anymore, however, as it was His custom to do so—it just won’t show up in the narrative again. From now on, He will be seen “on the road” and headed toward Jerusalem and His death. Now, looking more closely at the verse—were all astonished? No, the word is pollys, our word for many, and the word used to translate rabbim in the servant songs of Isaiah. All those references to the “many” whom the Servant would save. And the word for astonished is a really cool word, ekplesso. It doesn’t just mean shocked, it means “knocked out” and is used to describe things that are unsettling, things that demand further explanation. So, they are amazed but they want answers. As for wisdom, that word is sophia, and I want to quote from Sirach 39:1-11, a very popular apocryphal work that is not scripture but helps us to understand how they thought and how they used words and concepts and what they believed during these times:
39 On the other hand he who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, and will be concerned with prophecies; 2 he will preserve the discourse of notable men and penetrate the subtleties of parables; 3 he will seek out the hidden meanings of proverbs and be at home with the obscurities of parables. 4 He will serve among great men and appear before rulers; he will travel through the lands of foreign nations, for he tests the good and the evil among men. 5 He will set his heart to rise early to seek the Lord who made him, and will make supplication before the Most High; he will open his mouth in prayer and make supplication for his sins.
6 If the great Lord is willing, he will be filled with the spirit of understanding; he will pour forth words of wisdom and give thanks to the Lord in prayer. 7 He will direct his counsel and knowledge aright, and meditate on his secrets. 8 He will reveal instruction in his teaching, and will glory in the law of the Lord’s covenant. 9 Many will praise his understanding, and it will never be blotted out; his memory will not disappear, and his name will live through all generations. 10 Nations will declare his wisdom, and the congregation will proclaim his praise; 11 if he lives long, he will leave a name greater than a thousand, and if he goes to rest, it is enough for him. (RSV)
This is where wisdom comes from, in their eyes, first century faithful Jews. I have to imagine that if Yeshua had been pouring over Torah and the Prophets night and day (impossible in such a small town, by the way), they would be thinking, “Well, all that study finally paid off. Adonai has rewarded Him with wisdom.” What they say next will really quash the idea that this was a possibility.
3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
“Is this not the tekton?” He’s a builder! He works as a lowly artisan to eke out a living. FYI carpenters and masons were not respected or well paid in those days. Anyone who has redone their kitchen knows this is no longer the case. They are using it here almost as a pejorative, like “Who does he think he is?” But the next snippet is worse, “the son of Mary.” Oh man, no one’s parentage is linked to their mom. No one’s. His name would have been Yeshua ben Yosef, not Yeshua ben Miriam. And there are a couple of theories here—one is that Joseph is long dead and that they are pointing out the parent who is still alive. Maybe. Gosh, I hope that is what they were doing. I’d love to give them the benefit of the doubt. What’s the other theory? Well, as you probably guessed, His parentage might be being called into question. It was not a compliment to be called “son of a woman” and to be denied that link to your father. Adoption was absolutely respectable and legal and once you were adopted, you were the son of X, and that X was a guy, okay? But if they are denying Him that link to Joseph they may be taking a cheap shot by using a very old rumor—namely, the rumor that Mary got pregnant by sleeping around out of wedlock, that she was an adulteress. After all, we see in Luke that Nazareth is Mary’s hometown. We don’t know where Joseph is actually from. Might be from right there in town, maybe from some other village. So, the roots of this rumor went deep in ways that only people who grew up in very small towns can truly appreciate. Now, I wrote up a chapter in Context for Adults that explored the possibility that Mary went through the Sotah, the Temple ritual that either condemned or cleared a suspected adulteress but it is all entirely conjecture. It might have happened, Might not have happened. Mary might still have been considered damaged goods. Joseph might have been considered a righteous fool. Yeshua might have been considered to be a potential bastard. So many questions. No for sure answers. But even if she was cleared, you know how folks are. It would seem that Mary and His brothers were not there that day but that His sisters were there, probably with their husbands. In any event, this was not how someone was supposed to be properly designated.
Another controversy about this passage—that these are Yeshua’s cousins and not His brothers. That is an important doctrine in Catholicism that Mary was a perpetual virgin but there would have been nothing honorable about it in their world. A woman was honored through childbearing. Perpetual virginity would have been really weird and even shameful. In this particular case it would have looked like proof that she was a cursed woman, and yet here we see that she has seven children, the Biblical number of perfection. But anyway, the word used here for brothers means…brothers. Adelphos, pretty straightforward, and Paul also uses it to describe them in I Cor 9:5 and Gal 1:19. The word for cousin is used elsewhere by Paul, in Col 4:10 and it is anepsios.
All four of His brothers have the names of patriarchs, which makes His own name stick out like a sore thumb. James, of course, is Jacob (Ya’akov), Joses is possibly a form of Josef (Yosef), and Judas, a Hellenized form of Judah or Yehuda, and Simon, or Shimon. Two of the brothers even share names with the Maccabean zealots.
But, back to the verse—they took offense at Him. The Greek says scandalize. They were scandalized for whatever reasons—probably no small part of it was that a simple carpenter from a small town ought to know His place. And I want to mention about zero-sum economy and if you have read my curriculum on honor and shame in the Bible then you know all about this but I will do a quick and dirty summary for everyone else. In ancient societies and in two-thirds of the world today, there exists what is known as a zero-sum economy. It means that there is only so much to go around. In a world without supermarkets, that means only so much food—which is why prepping is fine but hoarding is evil. It’s prepping to buy and stock up when there is plenty but when supplies are limited, it is hoarding, which is evil. Hoarding makes sure that the most vulnerable among us, those living paycheck to paycheck and just scraping by, won’t have what they need when things get dicey. And, yeah, people say they will share but they never know the person who came by the store and couldn’t get the basics because it was already bought up by people who probably already had more than enough to begin with. But they didn’t just believe that with tangible items like food. And it was totally true for them. They also thought there was only so much honor/reputation/respect to go around.
I liken it to a pizza. You have ten people working at your company. There is a pizza and there is only one pizza. It is sliced into ten pieces. In an equitable system, everyone gets one piece, and no one goes hungry. But in an honor/shame society, there are people who get more than one piece and people who do without. Think of each slice of pizza as good reputation—not like how we think of good reputation though—I am talking the respect that people get for being rich, powerful, athletic, and not the respect that people get for having good character. You could have high honor while being very dishonorable, a lowdown dirty skunk. So, some people get a double portion, most people get like one portion, and some people have nothing at all. Think rulers vs normal people vs beggars. And everyone knows their place and stays there. Well, Yeshua was seen as hogging the pizza slices. And if He had more, what does that mean for everyone else in His hometown? They were being demoted. All the big fish in that small pond were losing reputation because He was winning it. His gain meant their loss. This was unacceptable in the ancient world. Thus, they were scandalized at His behavior.
4 And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.”
And this is a very accurate statement to make about the dilemma of honor/shame cultures. Unlike the people of the land, the am ha’aretz in every other town, they had something to lose if He became great. It’s crazy to us, I know, but they aren’t 21st-century westerners and we have to just accept that this was how they accepted life. Your victory means my defeat. It wasn’t a system where everyone could have a good reputation just by being honorable people, by our definition of what makes someone an honorable person. We believe that everyone can just work hard and achieve and that someone else’s success doesn’t mean that we are doomed. Or at least we should. Jealousy is still rampant among believers, which is why celebrity and political gossip is so popular.
These people, from His own family members to His childhood friends, had everything to lose by accepting Him and His teachings. Reputation and life were at stake. They didn’t want Him to be greater than they were and they didn’t want to be declared a seduced city. It was a no-win situation for Yeshua. Still, it had to be heartbreaking.
5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.
Could do no mighty work there. The word for work is dynamis and so we are talking about miracles. He healed a few people but we see no sign that anyone was delivered of any demons. Were there none or were they not threatened by him there because they knew that honor/shame rules meant He would not be a threat to Him in Nazareth? I think that it was mercy that stayed His hand. If He had worked a lot of miracles it would have put them in the position of making a decision that would have condemned them prematurely if they had rejected Him. Let’s look at Mark 11:
20 Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”
Receiving miracles and not responding to them properly brings severe condemnation. Perhaps He couldn’t bear to do that to these people He loved the most. That’s my assumption as to what happened. Certainly, He didn’t lack either power or authority. He could have done it and so He must not have wanted to for some reason. Mercy would be in keeping with His character. Also, how could He heal those who doubted the source of His power? If they then attributed the healings to people who questioned the source of His authority then we are right back to the Beelzebul controversy where they are told that this is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
6 And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching.
He must have hoped that these people who had known Him all His life would support Him. Yeshua was 100% fully, absolutely, and painfully human. Yes, He is also divine but things hurt Him physically and emotionally because He is the perfect reflection of the Father’s love. The word for marveled here is thaumazo and this is the only time it is used in Mark to refer to Yeshua. Other people have marveled at Him, but this is the only time we see Him marveling at others. So, He leaves His hometown—probably for the last time and goes on His third mentioned teaching tour of the villages. And next week, we will see Him up the ante by sending out His disciples to do the same works in teams of two. That, in turn, will lead to some interesting consequences.
So, He’s been rejected. What does He do? He makes one sad remark about the situation. But He doesn’t stomp off. He actually stays to heal the few who believe. He doesn’t put on a big miracle show in order to show them they are wrong. No whip, no table flipping. I mean, this is after his family tried to take hold of him because they thought he was mentally deranged. No threats. No anger. No resentment. No updating His social media wall and saying. “I guess some people can’t handle the truthful truthiness of my truth! Rebellious sons of motherless goats!” No posturing, ranting, or raving. And it had to hurt worse than we can imagine. He was the ultimate revelation of God’s love there in their presence and He was treated with suspicion and maybe even contempt. And he wanted nothing more than to save them. To bring His own people into the Kingdom. I have never experienced rejection on that level. But what does He do? He keeps on working. He moves on. He doesn’t curse them.
Learning this was an important lesson for me back in 2014 when I first started teaching. It wasn’t something I wanted to do or thought I could do. One day, all of a sudden, I just knew how to teach people things. No one was more surprised than I was. Before then, I couldn’t have taught a bunny to reproduce. And no, I am not exaggerating—explaining stuff is a gift and I can still only do it with the Bible. I homeschooled for a few years and it was pretty ugly.
But when I first started doing it, I learned right away how ugly some men can be to women who are teaching. Now, mind you, I never teach anywhere unless I am invited. I don’t go on people’s pages and post my teachings. I won’t tag anyone. I don’t force myself on anyone. I don’t even send out friend requests except to scholars I want to talk to and learn from. Mostly the latter as I am too shy to talk with most of them and I know they are busy. So, I just stay on my social media wall and on my blog and here and on my podcast channel and that’s it. You have to come find me. I do it for a number of reasons (1) I am enormously shy, (2) I am extremely self-conscious, and (3) I don’t want to set myself up for needless criticism. But one of the biggest reasons why I can’t see myself ever promoting myself to people who aren’t already listening to me is because of the abuse out there by a small but vocal minority of men who outright reject me because of my lack of the appropriate genitalia. There are two verses that, when taken out of historical context, make it possible to ignore a whole bunch more verses and these are the ones that some guys hone in on and judge me over but as I never try to teach men, and stay on my own platforms, I don’t know how I can be accused of taking authority over men. I mean, men decide for themselves to read or listen. I have nothing to do with it. But still, the accusations come. And it’s a bit disheartening at times, but it’s not as crushing as having your family and hometown categorically reject you.
So, I have made a point of using Yeshua as my guide to what I should do. I keep on teaching. Unlike Him, I am not always right in what I teach, but I do my best. But I just move on to the next lesson and keep going and don’t lash out or protest about being oppressed and rejected on social media because that’s just silly. There are plenty of teachers out there and no one is going to go to hell because they listened to someone else instead of me so I keep it in context. Sure, occasionally I get nasty letters from men but that’s not about me. A kind man would never harass a woman or call names or any of that so I can’t take that personally. But I also get some really kind letters from men who tell me that God has used me to change their minds about women in teaching. And that wouldn’t have happened if I was shrieking like a harpy over being rejected. We have to handle rejection with patience and grace—otherwise, the people rejecting us feel absolutely justified! It’s like the difference between peaceful protesters and looters. Peaceful protesters get people to think about looking at things from a different point of view. Looters make people dig in their heels and see whatever side the looters are associated with as being wrong, no matter what. Bad behavior does not change hearts or attitudes. Good behavior challenges stereotypes and preconceived notions. I am embarrassed when women behave badly because it means I have to work a whole lot harder to be different. But Yeshua has to be our example. He was astonished but He didn’t retaliate or show off or behave badly or call down fire and brimstone or cut off anyone’s ear. He did what He could and moved on. We must be ready, willing, and able to do the same. We certainly don’t have cause to be more prideful than Yeshua. Or more offended. We are called to be humble not because it is our natural state but because it is not our natural state!
Rejection is a wonderful lesson for us—if we allow it. It either does or does not teach us that we cannot control what other people do and think, at least not without resorting to abuse and manipulation. There are a hundred reasons why someone might object to me as a teacher. Why should I choose to believe the worst reasons and not give them the benefit of the doubt? It really doesn’t have to be personal. There doesn’t automatically have to be anything wrong with someone who rejects me. I mean, I am not the Savior. Not the Messiah. Not the King of kings and Lord of lords and I am certainly not the Teacher of teachers. Like Yeshua, we have to do as much good as we can and then move on without bitterness, hatred, judgment, or contempt. We just aren’t all that and a bag of chips. Rejecting me is not the same thing as rejecting Yeshua, or all wisdom, or whatever. So I just move on and keep on walking. And if I can’t do that then I need to stop teaching because I won’t be a safe person to be around. It doesn’t mean I will allow you to be abusive to me on my social media wall, but you can disagree with me as long as you are loving about it. We just need to keep things in perspective.