Just Thinkin'

I was reading in Luke 4 this morning (while sweating out on the patio of my hotel room), where the story is told of Jesus entering the synagogue on the Sabbath and reading from the scroll of Isaiah. After basically claiming to be the Messiah, the people are amazed and thrilled - and then remember that He's one of their own, someone from Nazareth who maybe played with their children growing up, or goofed off on the bus after school on those same streets. Maybe they were thinking about all the notoriety and the boost for the local economy that would come from being "The Boyhood Home of The Messiah". Somebody might've been planning "Six Flags over Nazareth" and a new Hard Rock Café already. Starbucks was thinking of putting in a WiFi shop around the corner.

I was also reading in the Daily Dig that these people were possibly amazed at what Jesus had done and that He'd come from Nazareth. And then, as He told them that He knew He wouldn't be accepted in His own town, they took offense and wanted to kill him. This article said the cause of the change-of-heart might've been the realization that Jesus was coming to declare a year of jubilee - a time when debts are cancelled and people are generally "set free" from being indebted to each other. That's bad for business - and these people wanted to dash Jesus on the rocks below the cliffs before any of this foolishness got out of hand and people began defaulting on their home loans.

I don't know about it being that specific, since Jesus was probably speaking more generally about the kingdom of God that was at hand in their midst. I had a different thought as I conversed with this passage this morning (reading the Bible like a "conversation", where you try not to have pre-conceived notions of what the other person might be about to say). To me, it looked like they were all for being townspeople in the home of Jesus - like Memphis still smiles big about Elvis. But when Jesus said next that these people might miss the very blessing they were now counting on to build and multiply their expendable wealth, it was too much. It sounded more like He was telling the crowds, "It doesn't matter where I've come from, because you're not open to receiving what I'm bringing - release and forgiveness and reconciliation - and because of that, the blessing just might have to find someplace else to call home".