Sermon 671+October 26, 2011
November 2, 2011
Nineteenth Week after Pentecost
812th Week as Priest
638th Week at St Dunstan’s
The Brother of Jesus
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?”
So the people of his own hometown met Jesus, with doubt and criticism. With their own valuation of his worth and that of his family. I’m glad to live in a place where people are known much more by the content of their character, and the accomplishments they have achieved, than by their pedigree or their generational history or their storied wealth. Auburn is no paradise, of course, but it’s the best place I’ve ever lived.
Most small towns are not this way, of course. You are judged by the same judgments they have had of your family. Your worth as a human being is always suspect, because they’ve known somebody in your family tree who was a horse thief, or a dirt farmer, or a ne’er do well.
Jesus is being judged by his father Joseph’s occupation. Is not this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t he one of those children of Joseph’s? Who does he think he is, reading from Torah and trying to heal people? What good can come out of Nazareth anyway?
The plain answer, of course, is that the Son of God can come out of Nazareth, that’s who. The Messiah can come into the world as a carpenter’s son. The Christ, in an ironic way, chooses to come as an ordinary person of an ordinary family in an ordinary little town, in the middle of nowhere in Galilee.
So we should be careful not to write somebody off, just because of their genealogy or their home address. We should give everybody the benefit of the doubt—and not our doubt and criticism.
Nobody has a God-given right to damage your self-esteem or your reputation or your good work. Nobody has the right to criticize, demean, and belittle another person. No matter who they are, or where they come from. Life is hard enough as it is. Just making it through the day is often challenge enough. So let’s try our best to be a help to others, a blessing to others, and let us show ourselves slow to judge another. Amen.
