Hi everyone. Welcome back to our podcast, where we look at the Gospel reading from today's mass, and we then look at the literal sense of the text. We provide an exegesis of what it meant in its original context, which is a really useful way of what, should be our foundation for studying the Bible. Today, we're up to Mark chapter 6, and we're looking at verse 1 to 6. Jesus went to his hometown and
his disciples accompanied him. With the coming of the Sabbath, he began teaching in the synagogue and most of them were astonished when they heard him they said where did the man get all this? What is the wisdom that has been granted him and these Miracles that are worked through him? This is the carpenter, surely the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Jude and Simon his sister's to are they not here with us. And I would not accept him.
And Jesus said to them, a prophet is only despised in his own country among his own relations, and in his own house, and he could do no Miracle there, though, he cured a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. So that's our passage today and interesting little accounts from the life of Jesus where his own Hometown Nazareth, rejects him.
So in verse one here, he travels to to Nazareth, his hometown and he's coming from Capernaum. He's been living in Capernaum for a while, doing some doing his ministry work there. So it's a 10-hour walk or about 20 miles to get to Nazareth, probably just a Day's Journey. Now it's possible that Jesus stayed there. Or a few days with his family before the Sabbath even comes around.
Because as our text says, with the coming of the Sabbath, he began teaching in the synagogue, but he apparently already been in his home town for a few days. So on the Sabbath every Jew in that time would go to the synagogue and that here from the scriptures and they'd hear some teaching either from a local teacher or from a traveling preacher. So Jesus has been teaching and other synagogues and Galilee.
So he's been in Capernaum teaching in the synagogue there, but he hasn't been to the local synagogue in Nazareth yet. It's the first time apparently. So the reaction of the people in verse 2 is they were astonished when they heard him. So we don't know what Jesus preached what his sermon was but it must have been something quite powerful powerful because
they're astonished. And at first glance the people of Nazareth have a very similar reaction to other people in places like Capernaum. They say things like what is this wisdom that has been granted him. So they're impressed by Jesus teaching and they recognize that it comes from God. God. So there are astonished but as we read on the passage, their astonishment is different from the reaction of people in other
places. So here in Nazareth, they see, Jesus power is inappropriate almost, so they're asking the right questions. Where does this man? Get his power but with the wrong attitude they're actually asking it with a skeptical attitude. And they say, how does he do these Miracles that are worked through him. So they acknowledge the Jesus can do Miracles sort of, but they can't really comprehend how it can be Jesus. This guy Jesus from their own home town that does these
things. So, as one scholar calls this, this is kind of like that. People are Nazareth, are showing an indignant skepticism of of Jesus here. So, for this next week, we need to keep in mind Jesus grew up in Nazareth. Who was there for 30 years? Just being a normal guy, there was nothing particularly special about him at all. There's only 300 people that live in Nazareth, so everyone knows Jesus. And there was nothing out of the ordinary in his early life.
Apparently, verse 3, they are asked to each other. Is this is not this the carpenter carpenter. And so for 30 years, he Learned carpentry from Joseph, apparently. Joseph was a carpenter and that's what the people know him as the local Carpenter. The word here. Translated Carpenter is tecton in Greek and that can be translated different ways at illegitimate translation, is Builder or craftsman so we can't be 100% certain that Jesus was a carpenter.
He could have just been a builder of any sort. Now, another thing to keep in mind about the culture of the time, and this is why the science of exegesis is really important. We ask the question, what was the culture? Like, at the time in this part of Israel. So there was a radical separation in society between a religious leaders who are considered to be elite and clever and then the Common Man there was a huge gap and people usually.
You know, you were born either rich or poor there was no middle class and it was very hard to change classes. If you're a poor person you're always going to be a poor common man. If you're a rich person you probably always going to be a rich person. So the Jewish people trusted their religious leaders. They trusted their Elite smart Pharisees Etc, and they couldn't understand how a simple Carpenter a common poor man.
Could suddenly become a religious messenger of God, that That's just not how the society worked. If a person who they knew for 30 years, who had been a common Carpenter suddenly started. Proclaiming, you know, the kingdom of God, the best explanation for that would be that his crazy, not that his legitimately, you know, got a new role in my for the God has spoken to him. That's they just couldn't break out of that mold of thinking.
Now they call him or they say surely, this is the son of Mary. Now, notice they don't say son of Joseph, which would be the normal Jewish way of designating Jesus. You would say Jesus, the son of Joseph. So why do they call him Jesus? Son of Mary Three explanations but there are three possible explanations.
Firstly, we could give the people of Nazareth credit here and say that maybe they knew that Joseph wasn't the biological father and because possibly Joseph Nazareth told everyone, I'm not the biological father and maybe they believe that it was some sort of miraculous conception and that's what they mean when they say son of Mary. Think that's probably unlikely though because they do, they seem to have a problem with believing in Jesus here.
Second option, it could be a slur, like, an offensive thing to say, which focuses on the fact that Mary was not married when Jesus was conceived as in your son of Mary, not really the son of Joseph, because they weren't legally married when Joseph was conceived. But when Jesus was conceived, that is third option. And I think this is the most likely option. Is there just indicating the Joseph has died? And that he's been dead by for
quite a while by this point. Depending on how old you think Joseph was. He could, if Jesus is 30 here, Joseph would be anywhere between 50 and 70 years old. And a lot of people didn't make it past 50, so he's probably
been dead for quite a while. And so he's now known in Nazareth is simply the son of Mary, because Joseph isn't around anymore, so I think that's the best explanation for the phrase, son of Mary, but then they go on and say, is he not the brother of James and Joseph and Judas, and Simon Now, we talked a bit about this in Mark chapter 3 when Jesus relatives come and accuse Jesus of being crazy. But let's go over it again because it's really important.
So, the word brother here. When it says, the brothers of Jesus, the word is Adele force in Greek and that's used quite Loosely in that culture as it is in many parts of the world. Today, you'll go to places in the Eastern world where words like Uncle and Cousin and brother are you?
Add more Loosely. So not necessarily Jesus literal biological brothers and we also learned that there are some sisters here living in Nazareth. So, who are these people that the people of Nazareth consider to be Jesus, brothers and sisters their mentioned, several times in the New Testament. Although we're never given a full explanation of who they are. We are given some Clues. So, firstly, the early church unanimously held that Mary did
not have other children. They can't be children of Mary. No one in the early Church, believe that Mary Had other children or it was a very much a minority position. But if Joseph has died. Let's think about what Mary's doing, Mary's probably living in Nazareth with other relatives. Since she's living in Nazareth. And these other brothers and sisters live in Nazareth to, it's reasonable to assume that these other brothers and sisters of Jesus are Mary's blood
relatives. It's of some sort, maybe they're her nephews and nieces maybe they're her own cousins. We know that they're not full siblings of Jesus. And here's how because the gospels tell us that these brothers, James Joseph, Judas and Simon are not actually come from a different mother. And the place we've looked for that is Mark 1540 where it specifically tells us that two of these guys. James and Joseph are from a different mother. Whose name is Mary.
But it's not vert. There's not the virgin Mary. It's not the mother of Jesus. It's actually different Mary, we're not sure which Mary this is but many in the early church believed that this marry this mother of James and Joseph, He's a relative of Marion. It's possibly the wife of
cleopas. So if that's right, if this other Mary who's the mother of James and Joseph is a relative of Mary then that would make these brothers and sisters of Jesus basically their Jesus cousins and I think that that's probably a good reasonable solution. Let's move on. So they say about Jesus are they not here with us? So apparently his family is here in this scene. Gog listening to Jesus, which makes sense. Because Nazareth only has about
300 people living there. So everyone's there on that day. So, by asking these kind of questions, how does it get this knowledge? Is this not the son of Mary, the people of Nazareth that kind of showing skepticism. And they're basically saying that they're confident, they already know everything there is to know about Jesus. You could consider this to be a fulfillment of Isaiah 53.
Verse to remember Isaiah 53, is the famous Suffering servant prophecy about the Messiah. And in verse 2 of Isaiah 53, it talks about the Messiah, not having any particular form or comeliness. As in this Messiah is going to grow up unnoticed by those around him. And there's not going to be anything particularly special about him. So this could be a fulfillment of that. And now, Mark tells us the people of Nazareth would not accept him or another
translation. Is they took offense at him, so their preconceived ideas become an obstacle to Faith. This kind of a willful refusal to accept that God is truly working through Jesus. They make a willful decision that this is not really the Messiah. God is not working through him. So by doing that they closed
himself off to God's grace. In a sense, they're kind of like remember in Mark chapter 4 when Jesus is describing the meaning of Parables, he says that there's those inside the kingdom who understand and that those outside the kingdom. And in Mark, chapter 4, verse 12. It describes those people, as they look and see, but do not perceive and hear and listen, but do not understand.
I think that's quite a good description of these people in Nazareth. Here they're outside the kingdom because they cannot perceive that this is Uli godson. Verse 4. Jesus. Now, says, in the synagogue, a prophet is only despised in his own country among his own relations, and in his own house. So, it's kind of like three circles, concentric circles getting closer and closer in a more intimate. So the outside Circle his own country.
Next Circle in, among his own relations, third circle in his own house So, why does Jesus say this? A prophet is not accepted by his own family in his own house, but think about how important family relationships were in that culture, everyone knew everyone. And so, if you knew someone growing up, you felt like in your everything about them, you're very close to them and it's going to be Unthinkable for them to be like God has spoken through me. You're going to be very skeptical of that.
Because you've grown up with this person it just And yeah, they had a radical separation between the Common Man and the religious in their view, God only works. Well God speaks through the religious leaders, not through your own relatives, or your own Common Man in your own town. So the fact that Jesus addresses, this at his family, he says to them. A prophet is only accepted. He's trying to get his family to think, he's trying to get them
to recall. A principle that they should already know, which is that many of the prophets of the Old Testament, like Isaiah Iran. Ezekiel. Who were revered by the Jews of Jesus time, where, in fact, we rejected by the town's in their own time. So Jesus is saying, remember, all those Old Testament, prophets, who weren't accepted by the people of their time. Well, I'm like one of those. So, Jesus, here indicates that he's a prophet. This five Mark tells us, he
could do no Miracle there. That's quite significant because of the lack of faith of people in Nazareth. Jesus could not do any significant Miracle. We often don't talk about this aspect of Jesus Ministry. Jesus ability to do Miracles, is proportionate to the level of faith of people in the local area. It appears that that's the principle. But then verse 5 Mark goes on. He says though, he cured a few sick people by laying his hands on them. So Jesus does do a few Little Miracles?
But Mark seems to be trying to say that Jesus could not do anything extraordinary that he's been doing so far. For example, he doesn't cast out many demons, he can't come and he storms here, there's not enough faith of the people in order for him to do that. Now we want to be careful. We don't want to say that Jesus power is limited here or
something like that. It's just that the miracle itself is not going to be received, or the power is not involved in the miracle would not work with these particular people. So Jesus does not lose his omnipotence or something in a proper sense when it comes to these towns. But what he can do, there is limited by people's lack of faith. And there's a, there's been a lot written about that as well. Verse 6. He says it says he was amazed at
their lack of faith. Sometimes Jesus is amazed at people's amount of faith in terms of being a positive thing, like the Canaanite woman. And also remember the center Ian who said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof and so he's amazed at people's faith in those cases. But here he's amazed at Nazareth and their lack of faith.
In a sense, the Nazareth reaction is understandable, because of the view, they Had a varietal separation between the religious man and the common man, but also that does seem to show a closing off of God's grace, that's not warranted. And that they are still accountable for willfully, turning their back on Jesus here. Doesn't seem to faze Jesus though, because if you read on he just goes around to other local towns and he just keeps
going with his ministry. How's the Catholic Church to develop teachings from this passage? So first in paragraph, five hundred, there's a discussion about who these brothers of Jesus are so paragraph. Five hundred says against the doctrine of Mary's ever
virginity. Is the objection that is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus. The church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin, Mary. In fact, James and Joseph Brothers of Chase's other sons of another marry, a disciple of Christ whom Saint, Matthew significantly calls. The other Mary, they are close relations of Jesus according to an Old Testament expression. So there we hear the Catholic
Church's teaching. Although there's no specific Catholic teaching on who these brothers are the Catholic teaching is that they're definitely not the sons of Mary and that they are some sort of other close relation of Jesus. Paragraph. 69, 9 talks about the significance of the hand because Jesus lays hands on people here in Nazareth.
And then also already a paragraph 26 10, which is in the section about how Jesus teaches us how to pray, just as Jesus prays to the father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts. So he teaches us, feel your boldness, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you will receive it. And you will, such is the power of prayer and have faith. That does not doubt. All things are possible to him, who believes.
Jesus is a saddened by the lack of faith of his own neighbors, and of the little faith of his own disciples. As he is struck with admiration, at the great faith of the Roman Centurion and the Canaanite woman. So there you'll hear the Catholic Church's teaching on Jesus sadness, at the lack of faith, displayed by the people of Nazareth. So I'll put all those catechism references there for you, to have a look at in the show notes. Hopefully, you learned something
new about. Jesus short visit to Nazareth and will continue again tomorrow. Thanks for listening.