IN his pains, sated with the contempt of the proud, the psalmist looks up to the Lord for pity (Psalm 123:1-2, 2, 3-4). The town-mates of Jesus were astonished at his wisdom, but thinking that they knew him best they actually understood him least and were contemptuous of him (Mark 6:1-6).
Sated with the mockery of the arrogant
Psalm 123 expresses the sentiments of a pilgrim who has reached Jerusalem. As he nears the holy city, he lifts up his eyes to the hills full of longing for the Lord’s help, his up-lifted eyes expressive of his ardent hope of receiving help. And now, as he enters the temple, he looks up to the Lord Himself who is “enthroned in heaven” and who listens to supplications made to Him in the temple.
The total dependence of the people on God is illustrated by the simile of the servants looking intently on the hands of their masters, waiting to see a hand putting a stop to suffering being meted or signaling that one may approach near. God’s hands dispense blessings rather than pains.
“My eyes are ever toward the Lord…. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am afflicted…. Bring me out of my distress…and forgive all my sins” (Psalm 25:15-18). Kyrie eleison! Lord, have pity on us! The plight of God’s people is recounted: they are overwhelmed by the scorn of the arrogant. They have had more than enough of the mockery of the proud heaped upon them (for daring to rebuild the temple after the return from the exile?) (Cf. Nehemiah 2:19; 3:36-37). Victims of contempt and sated with so much humiliation, they turn to God in absolute trust, confident that their sovereign Lord will save them from their distress (Psalm 116:4-6).
Where did He get all this?
The gospel reading narrates conflict and rejection. Jesus came with His disciples to His hometown and on the Sabbath began to teach in the synagogue. His teaching caused astonishment on the part of the people. They have heard of His teaching and marvelous deeds elsewhere, but face to face with Jesus they were directly perplexed: “Where did He get all this?” This astonishing wisdom and such wonderful power from His hands, how do you explain them? Right questions, but asked with the wrong motive. Instead of leading them to the transcendent power at work in Jesus, their perplexity led them to rejection because they thought they already knew who Jesus was.
They knew Jesus as one of them: a carpenter, the Son of Mary, their town-mate who is still alive, the brother or kapamilya of their neighbors James, Joses, Judas and Simon, not to mention his sisters and close relatives living among them. Do not origins determine destiny? They know Him only too well: Who does He think He is? Their question’s origin is resentment, envy, blindness. He is an ordinary Galilean, one of them. He is overreaching himself! “They took offense at Him.” Their perspective is the human ordinariness of Jesus is a refutation of the wonders He may have performed in other places and of His wisdom they themselves have heard.
Amazed at their lack of faith
THE wisdom and power of Jesus may find honor elsewhere but not among His own. Jesus, in turn, was astonished at their lack of faith. The belief of His town-mates was that the ordinary excludes the extraordinary; God can only work through special people and so an ordinary person cannot possibly be an instrument of the Almighty. The very revelation that was Jesus doing God’s wonders and proclaiming God’s wisdom and love did not find the corresponding faith from the people. Jesus was amazed that they could turn away from the possibility He personifies that God can work also through them.
The absence of receptivity on the part of the people of His hometown made it hard for Jesus to perform mighty deeds there. They simply were not open and ready to experience in their midst God’s power and goodness. Their astonishment was dominated with skepticism that brought them to rejection and scandal. They did not have yet that humble awe that culminates in faith and surrender.
But Jesus was not deterred; He was not sated with their contempt. He moved on to other places, knowing that a prophet usually does not find easy hearing among people who should have known him best, or so they think so, but end up knowing him least.
Alálaong bagá, “familiarity breeds contempt.” The people of Nazareth thought they had Jesus “nailed down” in a box, and they could not imagine Him to be more than what they thought of Him. Mark Twain humorously added, “Familiarity breeds contempt and…children.” Let us be aware that our own claimed knowledgeability/familiarity and lack of faith breed children of unbelief. May we all be parenting children of faith, not children of scorn and lack of faith.
Join me in meditating on the Word of God every Sunday, 5 to 6 a.m. on DWIZ 882, or by audio-streaming on www.dwiz882.com.