The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 4, 2021

Mark 6:1–6

Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

One of the most important benefits of visiting the Holy Land is that it helps a person think about the Lord in human terms.  While this is true of visits to the holy places like Joseph’s house in Nazareth, or the synagogue in Capernaum, or the Lord’s tomb, perhaps it is even more true of the hills of Judea or the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  In these natural places we can easily imagine the Lord and his disciples walking about, or getting into a boat.  On the various hills, we can picture the Lord Jesus preaching to the crowds.  At the same time, we wonder what it would have been like to stand within such a crowd and to hear and see him.  What did his voice sound like?  What did he look like?  If we were walking through the streets of Bethany or Capernaum, would we even recognize him if we saw him?  Would we know if we brushed up against the Son of God in the narrow streets of these towns?

The people of the Lord’s time struggled with questions like these, as well.  The people in the synagogue at Nazareth had heard of his miracles, and had heard his preaching for themselves.  And yet, they could not reconcile this with the fact that they had often seen him in the streets of their town and had thought little or nothing about him.  Theirs was not a significant or wealthy town, and he appeared no greater or lesser than anyone else who lived there.  They had often brushed up against him.  Some had brought work for him to do.  “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!”  They ask good questions, but they do not ask him.  Asking only themselves, they arrive at no answers.  “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?”  How can he heal the blind and the paralyzed?  We know him, he is an ordinary man, he is one of us!  

If we look at a consecrated Host, it seems like nothing.  If we put it in our mouths, it will dissolve there.  And yet, it is God.  He makes himself so ordinary that we might miss him, but so ordinary that we might in fact brush up against him.  If we touch him on our “streets” — in our world — and we have faith, we will be saved by him, just as the woman with the flow of blood, who touched only the fringe of his garment.  The others who touched him as he walked along, not believing, were not saved.  Three of the Apostles saw him as he truly is, when he was transfigured on the mountain.  If he came among us in his true form, we, whose faith is not as strong as Peter’s and John’s and James’s, it would be too much for us.  And so he comes among us as one like us so that we might not be overwhelmed, but that we might not be afraid to touch him, and he saved.