Rejection and Love

Jesus accepts from experience that a prophet is not accepted in his own country. He is not free from local prejudice; he is not above the normal, haphazard way that people look at other people and events. People get tangled in his roots; they cannot see the tree for the roots. They complain that Jesus performs no local wonders while at the same time letting him know that they disbelieve in him anyway. When Jesus tells his own people that his mission is addressed to all people, they become angry. Jesus refuses to share their small-mindedness, their meanness of vision. He will be no part of their pettiness.

In responding to his neighbors, Jesus makes it clear that he is not going to live down to their expectations. Like many groups, the neighbors want Jesus to be different in the same way that are different. They expect Jesus to share the same exclusive outlook as themselves – as R. D. Laing observed, ‘’Sanity is a matter of having the same diseases as everyone else.’’ Jesus is different: he does not share their clannish idea of salvation, their mean image of God, their suspicious view of each other. God is always more than people’s expectations. Jesus may share their nervousness about local boys making good, but he has good reason to be nervous about the cost of making good in such an environment of threat.

  When your local audience suddenly become a mob, you have reason to be nervous. Jesus’ audience is at such a loss for words that they do what many mobs did before them – they try the final solution of beating your opponent to death. But Jesus makes himself scare, learning, so early in his public ministry, the art of knowing when to run. He is not looking for an executioner; he is shy of threatening mobs’ intent on his death. So, he escapes to live and preach another day. And in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus, not surprisingly, does not return home again.

  The harsh reality of the Nazareth experience seems a world away from Paul’s description of love in today’s second reading: ‘’Love is always patient and kind: it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.’’

  The quality of love ‘’to endure whatever comes’’ can be seen in Jesus’ whole ministry. If love is always patient and kind, it has to face impatience and unkindness. If love is always ready to excuse, it has to face those who are prompt to condemn. If love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, then it has to face those who delight in the weaknesses of others.

  Love has a tough program, we know this from experience. But what else can meet rejection with such endurance and greatness?