You Can't Go Home (Mark 6:4)

Remember that time you pooped your pants in 1st grade? How could you forget? Everyone in your family loves to tell that story as often as possible ...at every holiday ...at your graduation party ...at your wedding. I'm sure they'll draw straws to see who gets to tell it for your eulogy. I admit, I'm guilty of family hazing too. I'll try my best to keep my mouth shut, but when that many people gather together with so much history, you might as well be playing hopscotch in a minefield.

Now multiply that by the celebrity factor. Since I'm not particularly famous, I resort to examples from movies. (Mass media is always right!) The possibilities are extreme but limited. On one end of the spectrum, everyone blows smoke up your butt to try and ride your coattails. On the flip side, you get death threats for being such a tool. To the Nazarenes, Jesus = Ray STinkle (That's were I got the billboard imagery stuck in my head. Laces out!)

MISCONCEPTION CORRECTION: In verse 3, the townsfolk insult Jesus saying something along the lines of “How did he get so spiritually wise that he can even do miracles? Isn't this guy a carpenter?” Nowadays, carpenters don't necessarily get a whole lot of respect. Sure, it's a skill that requires lots of training and experience, but it has this “grunt work” feel to it. The truth of the matter is that back in the day carpenters such as Jesus were master craftsmen and were in the top 10% of the population in regards to education. It may be more appropriate to compare Jesus to an modern era college-educated architect. So the people's complaint seems to be more about Jesus' trade in relation to religion, such as “Dude, you're trained to build stuff not preach and heal people!”

The interesting question for me is in verse 5. Jesus “could not” or was “not able” to perform any miracles in relation to the people's lack of faith. Is Jesus' power limited by faith? Or was Jesus morally unable to do miracles in order to keep with his common practice of requiring faith before action? Hmmm. If you think about it, simply by definition miracles require faith. Without faith, a miracle would be redefined as a supernatural event of improbable coincidence.

Remember that time you pooped your pants in 1st grade?