In our gospel reading for today, Jesus ends up back in his home town, after performing many spectacular miracles throughout the region of Galilee. But instead of giving Jesus a hero's welcome, the people of Nazareth took offence at him, and were unwilling to believe that the source of Jesus' wisdom and power was what he proclaimed. And so, as in all cases where it better suits his purposes, Jesus did not perform deeds of power there, and instead, acted from a sense of humility.....
Have you ever had the chance to see a first-class magician in action? Things that seem impossible – occur right there before your very eyes. If you are at all sceptical, it's likely you spend most of a magic show trying to figure out how the performer did what he just did. That saw blade must collapse into the handle – there must be a hidden wire somewhere – there's a special lining sewn into that suit jacket. There has to be another explanation for what you have seen - because in this day and age, it's hard to believe in magic.
Jesus ran into a similar problem when he went back to Nazareth. He had been regularly performing that which was impossible: miracle cures, exorcisms, and even resurrections. And the explanation was simple – God was working through him. But for Jesus' own relatives and neighbours, there had to be another explanation. “Jesus – Joseph's kid – he has the power and wisdom of God?? Impossible! You mean to tell me that Jesus from up the street, the one who built my coffee table – he can raise people from the dead? It has to be a trick, boys, it's some sort of scam. It's probably demonic, because I can't believe GOD would work through someone like our own home town carpenter.”
We here are familiar with life in a town like Nazareth. If THE TOWN has decided something about someone, what does it take to change our minds? That's right – it's impossible! So what would Jesus accomplish with an awesome display of deeds of power in Nazareth? He would confirm for the town that he was a scam artist with demonic abilities. As it says in our gospel reading, “Jesus was AMAZED at their unbelief, and could do no deed of power there.” Or at least, he couldn't see the point.
But we are tempted to read more into these words. Does Mark's gospel really say, “Jesus was UNABLE to do a deed of power,” in the original Greek? Yup, that's what it says. “AHA,” our sinful selves exclaim, “Jesus NEEDS US to BELIEVE before he is ABLE to do deeds of power. We have a degree of control over what Jesus does.”
And it's only a tiny leap in logic from there to the position where if we DO truly believe, then we feel Jesus HAS TO respond with a miracle. But believing that our faith can dictate what Jesus will do is no better than believing in magic: We are not really trusting in Jesus Christ as a PERSON, who can make up his own mind as to what we need and how to make it happen. We are, instead, trusting in OUR trust – putting faith in our strong faith – it's all about us. And if it's all about OUR FAITH, then, if for some reason, miracles don't happen, we can blame each other – obviously our faith is not strong enough for Jesus to perform deeds of power here....