Why does Jesus in today’s Gospel text (Mk 6: 1-6) say ‘A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house’?

After Jesus had left the mansion of Jairus (see last Sunday’s Gospel), He undertook a mission through Galilee, preaching in every little hamlet of that land. He went to his old home in Nazareth and on the Sabbath began to preach in the synagogue. But alas, He met with a cold reception. Rather than appreciate and thank God for the gift of their divine townsman, the Nazarenes belittled Him, saying, ‘Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’

When good people meet with rejection, this could be out of plain lack of seriousness or out of malice from the other side. We either take them for granted or we envy them. We consider them just like us, nothing better than us. They look ordinary, incapable of any good. And the better we know them, the more likely we will find fault with them. In short, familiarity breeds contempt.

Such situations are very painful, but then, such are the ways of the world, of which there is no better summary than the words of the Divine Master. It may be noted, however, that while St Mark uses a double negative in ‘A prophet is not without honour, except in his own country…’, St Matthew (13: 57) puts it straightforwardly as: ‘A prophet is respected everywhere except in his hometown and by his own family.’

Have you noticed how the well-intentioned come under the scanner while the deceptively pleasant stand on a pedestal? It was the same in the times of the Prophet Ezekiel. He was sent to the people of Israel, a nation of rebels, impudent and stubborn, who had often turned against God. Yet, God in His infinite love and mercy, did not abandon them; He sent them His prophet, whether or not they heard or refused to hear. One day they would realise that they had had a prophet in their midst.

Down the ages, hundreds of saints faced rejection from family and friends. In fact, God often allowed them to be tested in this way; it was like gold going through the fire of purification. The late Brazilian writer, Professor Plínio Corrêa de Oliveira, says: ‘It is very true that God often tests our confidence. When He does, do not deceive yourself into believing that God has abandoned you. It is when all seems lost that the way out is closest at hand.’[i]

What should be our attitude in such a situation? We have to reach out to others through thick and thin. As the same zealous Catholic writer says in his Way of the Cross: ‘I must continue my apostolate, even when all my works have tumbled to the ground, even when all have joined together to attack me, even when the ingratitude and perversity of those to whom I have wished to do good have turned against me.’[ii]

Such is also the spirit of St Paul who, in today’s Second Reading (2 Cor 12: 7-10), states: ‘I will more gladly boast of my weaknesses that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.’

So much for the true prophets. Similarly, you and I have received the baptismal gifts of priest, prophet and king are not to make cheap concessions, be it in our talk, in our tastes, in our attire, in the company we keep, and in what we think and what we teach. We ought not to denature the Church and by our conduct imply that there is nothing sacred anymore. Finally, we should have no feelings of disregard or envy, for someone might well be a Godsend.

Having said that, we should only be alert to the fruits a person produces, for, very tragically, there are those who distort the nature of the Gospel mandate, shirk their responsibilities, and worse, give counter-witness and scandal of bad example. About them, Jesus issued this warning: ‘Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.’ (Mt 7: 15)

Pope Paul VI, in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, states:  “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses…It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus – the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of holiness”. (EN n. 41)

So, the real challenge today is to separate the wheat from the chaff and discern the true prophet. If he does not fit the bill, the tide will turn from admiration and sympathy to incredulity and/or rejection, for which neither God nor the people but the so-called prophet alone will be responsible.

[i] https://www.pliniocorreadeoliveira.info/UK_00_passion_for_truth.htm

[ii] https://www.pliniocorreadeoliveira.info/the-way-of-the-cross/#gsc.tab=0