Don’t Miss The Blessings That God Has Uniquely Extended

Hebrews 12:4-7,11-15
Mark 6:1-6

What a startling incident! Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth and begins to teach in its synagogue on the Sabbath. Instead of being dazzled by Jesus’ words, his neighbors react negatively.  “Where did this man get all this?  What kind of wisdom has been given him?  What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!  Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?  And are not his sisters here with us?”  As the gospel narrator sadly notes: “And they took offense at him.

One way or another, we have all been rejected probably because of our opinion, intellect, inability, or appearance. In other words, we are rejected because of what others think and receive of us. Many people today have been rejected by race, nationality, color, complexion, status, religion, sex, age, and gender. When others reject us we feel sometimes God has rejected us. The world we are in today seems to be more intolerant than ever before. No one wants to hear or accept other people’s opinions that are different from ours.

One painful experience is the rejection by someone who knows us. Those we call family rejecting you and not being responsible for you anymore. When spouses do not want to live with each other any more. When the place called Home becomes a house of commotion, Friends become strangers and life together seems not to be intolerable anymore it is no longer the same.

Jesus laments their negative reaction: “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” The failure of the people of Nazareth to accept Jesus reveals how our preconceptions and prejudices can keep us from appreciating the beauty and truth of the people and events that surround us every day. We can fail to recognize the dignity and talents of the people with whom we live and work.  We can turn a deaf ear to the sufferings and joys of the people close to us.  How sad that the people of Nazareth did not recognize that among them lived Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.  How sad for us if we take for granted members of our own family or become indifferent to the joys and sorrows of those close to us.

We have to overcome rejection at all times because we have to focus on God. God never leaves us alone. We do not allow someone’s rejection or labeling of us to make us disillusioned because we have been labeled by God through our baptism in Christ. If men and women forsake you, God has not forsaken you. He is faithful forever.
The Lord wants you to overcome rejection that is why he wants to have a relationship with you, he loves you.
He rejoices over our life such that if people hate us to a very high degree and have nowhere to go he will eagerly take us in his arms to himself.

Fr Joseph Osho