The Bible doesn’t tell us much about the village of Nazareth. Most of what we know comes from archeologists, who tell us that Nazareth was hardly a village at all. In Jesus’s time, Nazareth was a collection of huts, two-room houses that often consisted of a cave in the cliff with a front room tacked on.
Most of the people in Nazareth were farmers and shepherds, which means that Joseph would have been an anomaly. Without a field to farm, he earned a living as a builder. He wouldn’t have found much work in Nazareth. Most likely, Joseph walked two hours each morning to Sepphoris, the nearest big city, where he got work as a day laborer on construction projects.
Sepphoris would have been a bustling, cosmopolitan sort of place with traders and merchants from foreign lands. When Jesus tagged along with Joseph, he would have experienced an astonishing diversity of people, clothing, and languages. All of this might explain why the people of Nazareth looked down on Joseph and his family.
The people don’t expect much when Jesus, who is just beginning to establish a reputation as a wandering rabbi, returns to preach in the local synagogue. Jesus reads about a great jubilee—a moment when God will lift up the poor, set the prisoner free, give sight to the blind, and end oppression. Jesus declares that this moment is at hand, and his neighbors are impressed—they seem delighted that Jesus can even string a few words together.
But then the sermon takes a turn. Instead of quitting while he is ahead, Jesus keeps going. He predicts that the people of Nazareth will reject him, his ministry, and his message. He starts telling stories from Scripture. He tells the story of Elijah, who gave miraculous food to a Canaanite widow. He tells the story of Elisha, who heals a Syrian leper. He makes it clear that in his ministry, God is once again reaching out to outsiders and foreigners, and he correctly predicts that this is going to make people angry.
Why does Jesus take his sermon in this particular direction? We can only assume that Jesus knew which message the people most needed and least wanted to hear. Jesus knew firsthand how the people of Nazareth looked down on outsiders (like his father Joseph). And he had heard them talking about the evils of the big city. “You’d never catch me over there,” they said, “You know what those people are like.”
Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Luke 4:20-23
Jesus knew that people in Nazareth blamed strangers for every crime and every hardship. Jesus knew that the people of Nazareth were proud of their religion (the right religion), they were proud of their nation (God’s favorite nation), and they had contempt for people who were not like them. That hatred was the glue that held their religiosity and patriotism together.
And that’s what Jesus challenges in his sermon – he challenges their right to hate. He points out that God embraces the people they despise. Jesus challenges their sense of privilege and entitlement. He challenges their belief that God will always choose to be on their side. And he must know what will happen next. When Jesus threatens to take away their hate, the people respond with violence. They seize Jesus and try to throw him off a cliff.
Two thousand years into the future, at a time when foreigners, immigrants, outsiders, and refugees are once again being made into scapegoats, at a time when the very idea of diversity itself is the subject of ridicule and scorn, Jesus asks us still: would you allow me to take away your hatred and contempt? Or would you throw me over a cliff in order to hold onto your malicious pride?
Pastor Jeremy Peters
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Pastor Tommy
Our series was inspired by The Reverend Jeremy Peters of Court Street United Methodist Church, Flint, Michigan, in collaboration with several United Methodist Pastors serving the Flint area. Pastor Jeremy wrote some of the content.