Sunday Jan 31st, thoughts going in

Luke 4:21 And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." 22 And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips ; and they were saying, "Is this not Joseph's son ?" 23 And He said to them, "No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself ! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown (patridi, lit. fatherland) as well.' " 24 And He said, "Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome (dektos, acceptable) in his hometown (patridi).
(NASB)

In the story, something happens between vs 21 and vs 23.
I think it’s safe to say that when we study the Gospels, we just don’t see Jesus RIPPING IN to that many people. He hits the scribes and Pharisees pretty hard in Matthew 23: “woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” He hits Peter pretty hard in Matthew 16: “get thee behind me, Satan.” And of course he comes uncorked in the Temple cleansing scenes of all of the Gospels. But for the most part, the Jesus we observe in the Gospel narratives is that of a patient teacher/healer.

The account in Luke 4 of Jesus in his own hometown synagogue has to register as one of the exceptions, though. It’s very interesting to me to try to read between the lines here. For one, given that it’s **his** boyhood synagogue, the odds are good that many of those present are part of his own extended family. If so, that’s doubly interesting when you consider that they weren’t thinking twice about lynching him (v29).

And there are a lot of other interesting things going on in the text, but I keep coming back to that major fork in the road between vs 21 & vs 23. Everything had been just fine. What happened?

I’ve chosen the text from the NASB above because it preserves the string of “ands” (kai in the Greek). Verse 22 reads:

And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips ; and they were saying, "Is this not Joseph's son ?"

Then, as already mentioned, vs 23 begins the meltdown from Jesus.
The whole thing makes me wonder…was the meltdown caused by the SUM OF VS 22, or one or more of the individual parts? In other words, does Jesus react this way because they were “speaking well of him (emartyroun….witnessing/testifying in the Greek)”…or because they were “wondering (ethoumazon, marveling) at the gracious words falling from his lips,” or because they were saying “is this not Joseph’s son?” Are points A, B & C tied together as a package deal, or is it only that last part that set Jesus off?

Regardless, his verbal response has 3 initial prongs: (a)"No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, 'Physician, heal yourself ! (b) Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown (patridi, lit. fatherland) as well.' " 24 And He said, (c) "Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome (dektos, acceptable) in his hometown (patridi).

Given vs 24, it seems hard to imagine that the synagogue ‘speaking well of him’ and ‘marveling at his words of grace’ would amount to his feeling of being a prophet unaccepted in his homeland. That leaves us with only the question ‘isn’t this Joseph’s son?….(and also a dotted line connection to the use of patridi/fatherland twice nearby). In other words, what I’m saying is that it SEEMS LIKE everything was JUST FINE until they asked that ONE QUESTION, “is this not Joseph’s son?” From that one question stems Jesus’ entire rebuttal, including the part that really lands him in hot water, the reference to the prophets of old ministering to the Goyim.

I see two possible/probable implications to the question “is this not Joseph’s son,” one stemming from the milieu of the Gospel’s author (St. Luke, circa 79AD), and one stemming from within the narrative itself.

Joseph’s son part 1: Clearly, if Jesus is Joseph’s son in the biological sense, then the earlier chapters of Luke are fairy tale. The voice of rabbinic Judaism as it was developing in the 1st century over and against messianic-Jews (aka believers in Jesus) was PRECISELY the voice of “isn’t this Joseph’s son?” In other words, the question is shorthand for DISBELIEF. If Jesus is Joseph’s son, then the entire Christian Faith unravels at the seams.

Joseph’s son part 2: Besides whatever Luke & his worshipping community were seeing/hearing on a daily basis as they interacted among various religious perceptions and developing rabbinic Judaism, this question also seems to have meaning within the narrative itself. And here I draw a line to the word ‘patridi’ or home turf. If Jesus is Joseph’s son, then that’s GREAT NEWS FOR THE HOME TEAM (if he can really do & be all these things he’s talking about). It’s like someone from your home town being elected to the Senate. You’d NATURALLY expect him/her to lobby hard for new business/industry etc. to come HOME. If they understood Jesus to be proclaiming himself as the Messiah, then being Joseph’s boy means that Nazareth is the new center of the universe.

Since the question results in such an intense rebuttal from Jesus, I think the big issue for us today is to ask ourselves…..how & when do we say “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

cheers



TM