46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”[a]
48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Before this, you were part of God's people because you were Jewish, because you had the right daddy. But Jesus says that that is not how we define who is in the kingdom and who is out anymore. It is those who obey, those who do the will of God the Father in heaven.
Jesus' family did not like this, they did not like what he was doing. Then Jesus launches into this sermon filled with parables, all talking about what the kingdom of God is like, and he ends these parables with another rejection. Jesus' hometown rejects him as king.
His family rejected him because they didn't think he was acting the way the Messiah should be acting, and his hometown rejecting him because they knew him. Look at the passage:
53 When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. 54 Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. 55 “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? 56 Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” 57 And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”
58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
They were acting how a small town acts. You have seen this before. Someone leaves your community and goes and excels and does some amazing things. The small town is all about being proud of their local hero. But when the hero comes back home, they want the hero to know that they aren't better than all of the rest of them. They want the hero to know, "We changed your diapers; we were there when you set off the fire alarm at school; we baby sat you and taught you sunday school." And the small town tends to not treat that person with honor but tries to put them in their place.
Kind of the same thing is happening here, except amplified. According to the ancient world, whatever family or town or village or nationality you were born in, came with a level of honor. And if you rose above that level of honor, that was threatening, not only to your own skin, because people don't like it when you rise above your established level of honor, but you also put the your whole community in jeopardy.
Since those that had the most honor wanted to keep the honor, if they saw a poor carpenter from the tiny village of Nazareth in the already rebellious region of Galilee, they could think a rebellion was going to occur, and they could quite possibly come and wipe out all of the villages just to make sure no one tried to rise above their level of honor.
So Jesus' hometown did not like what he was doing, all the miracles and all the new teachings. They wanted to put him in his place, his right level of honor. This introduces the new section of Matthew 14-17, Jesus teaching his disciples who he is, who they are, and how the world will then treat you. Jesus begins by concluding what it means to be the kingdom of God (Matthew 13), by showing that those a part of the kingdom will be rejected, because the world does not like it when you are different.
And we see how they treat Jesus in the concluding verse:
"And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith."
It wasn't that their faith limited his power to do miracles, but that they didn't believe or think he was who he said he was, so no one brought their needs to Jesus.
Here are a couple of thoughts that come to me after diving into this passage:
- Do you believe Jesus is who he says he is, the Son of God, all powerful, loving, Lord of Creation
- Do you believe Jesus can take care of all your needs through his church
- Do you realize that you have been called to be a different nation, a set apart people
- Do you understand that people will reject you when you begin to live differently
- Are you being rejected or persecuted for your faith? If not, does that mean that you are not living the way God intended you to live
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