THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

Video Text Download version

A good Sunday to all. 

The episode we hear in today’s Gospel passage must have occurred about a year into Jesus’ public life in Capernaum. There he preached the Gospel, and with his presence and word, he performed wonders, casting out demons and healing the sick. We remember two of these wonders; we heard about them last Sunday: the woman who touched his garment and was healed, and the resuscitation of Jairus’s daughter. 

The crowds admire him; they flock to him, and this success begins to worry the religious authorities in Jerusalem. Why? Because what Jesus teaches and does often contrasts with the tradition of the ancestors and with what the rabbis, the scribes, and the Pharisees teach. He violates the Sabbath when people are in need; he frequents the houses of the tax collectors and sinners; he caresses the lepers; he announces a face of God who loves all, regards no one as unclean, rejects no one, and forgives sinners without first questioning whether they are repentant. First, he forgives, and then, when his love envelops them, they realize they are far from God and from themselves; they repent of their condition. Therefore, they change not because of threats of punishment from God, but out of love. Jesus also does not practice fasting and teaches even the disciples to do the same. 

All of this is enough to be concerned that Jesus is leading people astray from traditional religious practice. A group of scribes and Pharisees departs from Jerusalem to warn the people of the danger Jesus poses to their faith. The people must have replied, ‘But he is good… No,’ they say, ‘what happens is that he performs these wonders by the power of Beelzebub, giving Jesus the power to do so to divert people from the faith.’ Beelzebub was a god worshiped in the land of the Philistines, in the plain of Sharon, where he had a temple in Ekron. He was the god who cured diseases, and secretly even some of the Jews, when they did not receive the grace requested from their God, went to ask to be cured by Beelzebub in Ekron. 

The religious authority is concerned, and at a certain point, they decide to take him out of the way. The news that Jesus is becoming quite famous throughout Galilee begins to worry his relatives in Nazareth, a small town of 300 inhabitants in the hills of Lower Galilee. You can see a picture of Nazareth from the 19th century. Nazareth, at the time of Jesus, looked something like this. 

What do Jesus’ relatives do? They mobilize like clans do when they must rescue a member in danger. They go to Capernaum to bring him back home, but they return empty-handed. Jesus does not allow himself to be trapped; he does not allow himself to be drawn into their fears and plans. He makes them understand that he has begun a new family; it is not that he has rejected or renounced his family of origin, but that his natural family must give its adhesion to the new family, which is that of those who welcome the proposal of the kingdom of God. 

It is in this context, just after realizing the two healings we heard about last Sunday, that Jesus decided to return to Nazareth. What is he going to do there? He did not go when they came to take him away, but now he goes of his own free will. It is not to visit his mother, who may have been a little disappointed when she couldn’t convince him to come home. It’s not a visit to his family or his friends. Instead, he has a different objective. 

Let’s hear what happens when he returns to Nazareth: 

He departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. 

Jesus departs from Capernaum; behind me, you can see the fields just above the city of Capernaum, which stretches along the shore of the lake. I want you to notice the background, the last green you see. It’s the place where Magdala used to rise, and from Magdala, the mule track starts, passing between the two mountains through that gorge and then going to Nazareth. The lake is located 200 meters below sea level, and Nazareth is 500 meters above sea level, so the elevation difference is 700 meters. The trail is quite long; it takes two days to walk it. 

Note that Jesus does not go alone; he goes with the disciples, and he has an obvious objective: to introduce his natural family and fellow villagers to the new family formed by those who have given him their adhesion, those who have accepted the proposal of the kingdom of God. This new family is formed by Peter and Andrew, who have left their nets; by James and John, who have left their nets and their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the servants; and by Levi, Matthew, who abandoned the collection of taxes. Jesus and the disciples leave Capernaum, pass through the whole plain along the length of the lake, and arrive at Magdala. Magdala was called Tarichea (Ταριχαία – taricos is dried fish). Dried fish was the business that made Magdala rich. Peter, Andrew, James, and John fished in that lake at night. In the morning, they took the fish and sold it in Magdala. There they dried and salted them with salt from the Dead Sea and sold them in all the markets of Galilee; it was highly prized. 

I suppose Peter must have said to the group something like this: ‘There are 13 of us; if we come to Nazareth and stay there three or four days, and we arrive empty-handed, your mother (he says to Jesus) will be grieved because she will ask, How can I feed all these people?’… Peter must have said: ‘I know those who dry up the fish; they know me very well’… and they must have taken their contribution to Nazareth to have something to eat on the days they stayed there. I made this digression because I believe it is not very far from the facts and because I would like to take everybody off the pedestal, even Mary, take her out of the high place, and put her in this concrete life, and to listen to the apostles, Jesus, and Mary as fellow travelers in our concrete life. 

Now they continue their journey; starting from Magdala, they begin to climb the valley of Arbella between these two mountains. Many caves characterize these mountains, and, certainly, Jesus and his disciples have commented on the dramatic events that had happened in these caves, and of which the memory was still very much alive. Herod the Great, the one who wanted to kill Jesus as a child, had cruelly massacred the rebels who had barricaded themselves in those caves. Then the road goes on, always uphill, of course. Our passage says that he reached his native place. 

Note the precision of the text; it does not say that he returned to Nazareth but to his homeland (patria). ‘Patris’ in Greek is a clear reference to the father, hence to tradition. The group does not arrive on a Sabbath; they arrive a few days earlier, and there is no allusion to any discrepancies or discussions. Jesus was known and certainly well-liked, even if, in the hearts of his compatriots, there may still be some grudges and a certain resentment toward him because he had chosen to change his residence and to perform wonders not in Nazareth but in Capernaum. 

Jesus made this choice easy to understand, and it is found in several Gospel texts. Nazareth is a small town in the mountains; the mentality is closed and refractory to novelties. Jesus wanted to change all the traditional religiosity, often linked to archaic beliefs. If Jesus had stayed in Nazareth, he would have made a hole in the water. However, his reputation in Capernaum had also reached the inhabitants of Nazareth. The welcome he received when he arrived was undoubtedly good; Mary was glad to see her son again, and certainly during those days she did everything she could to make everyone comfortable. 

The problems began on Saturday when, as was his custom, Jesus went to the synagogue for the celebration. Let’s hear what happened: 

When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. 

The incomprehension toward Jesus was not immediately evident upon his arrival in Nazareth. In Mark’s account, it appears he spent a few days peacefully with his mother and friends; no one had anything to say about him; he was respected. The problem erupted only when the Sabbath arrived and he began to speak in the synagogue. The evangelist says that many who heard him were astonished. Here, it is important to understand what the verb in the Gospel means in the original text: It does not say they were astonished by his beautiful words. It does not use the verb ‘zaumásein,’ which would mean astonishment, wonder… no, the verb is ‘ecplexo,’ which means they were impressed, grieved, scandalized by what he said. 

What was it that hurt them? They were not shocked by his eloquence, but they were pained by what he said. We do not know what he preached, but he certainly proclaimed the message he announced everywhere, a message that questioned an entire traditionalist mentality and a religious practice considered intangible, the message preached by the rabbis and scribes and accepted by all as absolute truth. Jesus questioned all this; clearly, those in the synagogue were scandalized. 

The image of God that Jesus presented was not God as the lawgiver and severe judge who punished those who dared to transgress his orders; no, it was a God who loved everyone, who considered all his sons and daughters, who made the sun rise for the good and the bad… This was unacceptable to the traditional religiosity of the inhabitants of Nazareth and to all the people of Israel, but especially to those more traditionalist people who lived there in those mountains. 

Then, the observance of the precepts of the Torah. The Torah was a body of legislation that had to be observed in every detail, and Jesus placed the Torah at the service of the person; the Lord has given the Torah for the good of the person; and when you realize that these provisions are not conducive to life and to the joy of people, it means that the Torah has been misinterpreted. The Sabbath is in the service of the person; when, on the other hand, you realize that the Sabbath is not conducive to the good of the person, it means that you have not understood or interpreted this rule that God has given in the right way. 

Also, salvation is reserved for the children of Abraham. Israel has always been considered the chosen people, in contrast to the pagans; God chose Israel and, therefore, privileged Israel. Jesus says no. Israel’s vocation is to serve the pagans and carry the blessings of Abraham to them as well. All this could only hurt exclusivism, closed-mindedness, and separation, which characterized the mentality of these people. All this is called into question. Here is then the reason why the people of Nazareth, present in the synagogue, reacted… ‘He equates us with the pagans, and he says they are also children of God as we are… no way… ‘ This is what they probably said. 

Faced with this news, they should have asked themselves: ‘Is what Jesus does and says right or wrong?’ They should have asked him to explain himself more clearly. Let us instead hear what objections they raise: 

They said, ‘Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given to him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him. 

The people of Nazareth are good, pious people, but unfortunately, they fear that their convictions, what they have always done, thought, and believed, will be questioned. For this reason, in the face of the novelty of Jesus’ message, they raise a series of objections that are not requests for clarification but serve to divert, to convince themselves that they are right, and therefore, they do not need to get involved in the Master’s message. This is exactly what is still happening today, among believers and non-believers. In the face of the novelty of the Gospel, in the face of the demanding requests made by Jesus in his beatitudes, they try to shield themselves with the same questions. 

Let’s study them. The first question they ask is: “Where did this man get all this?” They say it to Jesus: ‘This man,’ where does he get these things from? ‘He does things that attract the admiration of the people of Capernaum; we’ve already heard it, but where does he get them from? Where does he get the ability to do these prodigious things?’ The answer for them is reassuring because they shield themselves in the proposals that he makes with his life and with his words, and they say that the rabbis are right: ‘We have already heard it from the rabbis, who are the established religious authority, that he is unreliable because he does it by the power of Beelzebub, he is linked with the prince of demons.’ So, where does he get these things from? 

The question one must ask is not where he gets them from, but whether his behavior and life create joy, love, peace, and harmony among people. This was the right question, not where they come from. Even today, the same objection arises when people are confronted with someone who leads a very evangelical life and therefore presents the demands of the Gospel. Someone may tell him that he is a holy one, a leftist, a rightist, a heretic, someone who wants to be original, someone who wants to stand out… What does this have to do with it? The right question is: ‘Is their behavior evangelical, beautiful, and in keeping with the human model proposed by Jesus?’ 

This is the question that one should ask, and then one is forced to bring one’s convictions back into play. Perhaps he was a Christian who felt at ease, but with this proposal of life made to him, his life is put at stake again, which costs him dearly. 

A second objection: “What kind of wisdom has been given him?” ‘To this one…’ Where did he get the message? Where does this message come from? It doesn’t come from the religious authority constituted by the official guides; therefore, it is not reliable. It is not the traditional one, the one we have always learned and listened to, and that also corresponds to our reasoning. The question to ask should have been not where this wisdom comes from, but whether it is true or false, right or wrong. 

For the believer today, the correct question is not whether it conforms to what has always been taught, but rather what we learned in catechism as children. This is not the right question. The right question is whether this new face of God and man that is proposed to us is true or not, and whether it conforms to the Gospel or not. This is the question the believer must ask. When confronted with the Gospel message, many people today object to something that did not happen in the past: ‘But we’ve always been taught’… No, the question is: ‘Is this message true?’ even if you are asked to change your thinking. 

For the non-believer, the right question should be: ‘Is the Gospel message I hear humanizing or not?’ You don’t have to ask yourself from which pulpit the sermon comes. Naturally, we would all like the one who announces the Gospel to also incarnate it, as Jesus of Nazareth did, but at the end of the day, it is with the Gospel that you must confront yourself, not with the life of some priest or some Christian. Don’t look for excuses; do not raise objections to escape this proposal that you recognize is beautiful. 

Always for the unbeliever: Is the proposal of the gift of life made by Jesus in conformity with your identity as a human being? I mean to say: Who is more of a person… the one who lives thinking at all times of his own benefit, doing what he likes, or the one who acts, thinking about the good and the happiness of the other, who wants the other to be happy even if the other is an enemy who has done him wrong? Who is more of a person? This is the right question for you, the unbelievers. Is the way of living sexuality, the monogamous family, and unconditional conjugal love worthy of a person? These are the right questions, not where they come from. 

And then, “What mighty deeds his hands have wrought! Is he not the carpenter?” Always ‘this one… the carpenter.’ Like it or not, he’s a carpenter who changed the world. No one expected it, least of all those in Nazareth. Let’s note that they don’t call him by his name; they identify him by his profession, which is not an appreciated one. Why? Because in Israel, every minimally well-to-do family had their fields, and the one who practiced these professions was someone who did not have enough land to live on. The carpenters’ work was what every family did in their leisure time. If there was a door or a plow to fix, they fixed it; they didn’t call the carpenter. The carpenter was a profession for someone who didn’t have enough land to satisfy his needs. 

This is the perennial attempt to trivialize the proposal. He is not a rabbi. He is not a member of the clergy; he is not a scribe. He is not a synagogue leader. He is not an elite. He is a carpenter… one of little worth. This is not what is relevant. What matters is what he says and what he does. This is what needs to be examined. In the same way that the present refusal to adhere to Christ is excused by saying priests are not very exemplary… the popes of the Renaissance were corrupt, then the Crusades, the Inquisition… but what does this have to do with it? These are excuses that keep you from confronting the Gospel proposition. You must confront yourself with the Gospel, not with the priests. 

“The son of Mary.” This is offensive. A son is never identified with the mother; even if the father is deceased, it is always with the father. Son of such a father… never of the mother. When the mother is mentioned, it is a way of saying that paternity is doubtful; therefore, it is offensive. 

Then they mention the brothers, “The brother of James and Joses, Judas, and Simon. And are not his sisters here with us?” We do not know the exact relationship between Jesus and these brothers and sisters, but the names are significant. They are all traditional Jewish names. Jesus’ family were all traditionalists, so much so that, in chapter 7 of the Gospel of John, it is said that not even his brothers had shown him their support. Here is the objection of the inhabitants of Nazareth when they mention the brothers’ names: ‘Your family is traditionalist; what are you inventing… how is it possible to believe in you if even your family members do not trust you and are scandalized by you?’ It is paradoxical, but Jesus becomes a scandal to their faith. 

There is a form of faith that holds it good to be scandalized, a particular faith present even among Christians today, that must be scandalized and let itself be scandalized by the newness of the Gospel. There are certain traditional forms and credulities that must be scandalized when the novelty of the Gospel is presented. Let us now listen to the answer that Jesus gives: 

Jesus told them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his kin and in his own house.’ So he could not perform any mighty deed there except to cure a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Then he went to the neighboring villages to teach. 

Jesus came to Nazareth with the 12, full of high hopes and an excellent disposition. The conclusion of his journey is deeply bitter. Quoting a proverb, he says: “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his kin and in his own house.” There is a similar reference at the beginning of the Gospel of John: “He came to his own, yet his people did not receive him.” The evangelist John says that the people who had prepared to receive the messiah did not receive him. 

In Capernaum, Jesus clashed with the religious authorities; he attacked the formalism of the scribes and Pharisees and denounced their hypocrisy and hardness of heart, but he had never had problems with simple people. Here, instead, Jesus has a harrowing experience: the peasants in his own place do not understand or accept him. There is no mention of religious leaders, as there had been in Capernaum; here, it is the townspeople who do not accept him and reject the newness of the Gospel. 

The mentality of the small town expects great things of people from outside. Distant people, foreign countries, always exert a particular charm; they are fascinating. Just think of the stars of our time, all the stars: those of politics, of sport, of show business. They seem unapproachable, unreachable… ‘They are great, important.’ They are myths because they are far away; when you get close to them, you discover all their limits, and then all that aura of sacredness and mystery soon vanishes. 

And Jesus “could not perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them.” What produces wonders is faith in the Gospel, not miracles that come from outside. The miracle, the prodigy, is the Gospel, and when you embrace and incarnate it, you become a witness to wonders. Where it is welcomed, a world is born where there is love, joy, peace, gentleness, mastery of passions, and free and humble service to the brother and sister, even to the enemy who has wronged you. These are the wonders the Gospel creates. If one rejects Christ and his Gospel, nothing happens; the world, society, and families continue with their disagreements and wars. 

“He was amazed at their lack of faith.” In the Gospels, the verb to marvel or to wonder (aumazein) appears 30 times, and twice it is applied to Jesus. Jesus marveled twice in the Gospels, once here in Nazareth. He marveled at their lack of faith. ‘How come these people of Nazareth, who are good, do not welcome the wonderful news of the Gospel that I announce?’ It is the same wonder that those Christians who believe in the Gospel experience; they have understood the beauty of Jesus’ message and are surprised that people do not accept it. We experience this wonder today as well. 

The second time was when Jesus marveled at the faith of the centurion, a pagan. We are also surprised today when the Gospel is accepted by someone; we would never have expected them to accept the Master’s proposal. Therefore, Jesus’s journey from Capernaum to Nazareth failed. 

So, what do we expect to happen next? That he would drop his arms, as happens so often today when there is a misunderstanding or disagreement between the catechist and her parish priest? Sometimes, some people just drop everything. It should not be like that. Jesus is not discouraged, and according to the Gospel passage, he went through the surrounding villages, continuing to proclaim the Gospel message. 

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.