53Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there. 54When He had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, "Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? 55Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? 56And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?" 57So they were offended at Him.
But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country and in his own house." 58Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.
When I think of the people of Jesus' home town rejecting Him just because they knew Him as a little boy, knew His family, I'm surprised. Usually it seems that small towns like to boast when one of its members makes good. They make it a community celebration when the famous person comes back for a visit. Long after the person quit doing what they were famous for, and often even after their death, the community still uses that person as their claim to fame. What is the difference here? Why no pride in Jesus' work? Why no community pride in Jesus?
The key is their unbelief. I am reminded of the start of this book which goes through the deep Jewish background of the family Jesus was born into. Jesus, and all the other members of His family, would have been raised in rich Jewish tradition. Here they see a community member returning, one who they "taught in Sunday school", one from a fine Jewish family, one who they thought they knew well for 30 years, breaking Jewish tradition, telling them of things they did not want to hear.
Were they offended at Him because they were too familiar with Him or because He was breaking Jewish tradition? I wonder if their concerns that this wisdom and great works could not possibly come from someone of His background, was simply their excuse because they did not want to believe Him.
When you really get down to what it takes for you to believe something, it has very little to do with the evidence presented before you, and instead boils down to how much you want to believe something. Yes, the amount of evidence may sway you toward one direction or the other if you really don't know what you want to believe, but final acceptance or rejection depends on what you want to believe. If you really don't want to believe something, you can always find reason to not believe, just as this community rejected Jesus citing such wisdom and mighty works could not come from this family they knew so well.
I don't think their unbelief was because they knew Jesus too well, but because they didn't want to believe. And when they didn't want to believe, I could just imagine them gathering at their favorite gathering places, whispering behind His back: "Remember that time when He was 5 years old and did...?", "How can I respect an oldest son who inherited his father's business, who just up and deserted his mother, brothers, and sisters, leaving them to fend for themselves...?", or "One day He just left everything behind and disappeared into the wilderness..." And the gossip could get worse.
If I look carefully at Jesus' words, I see He says "not without honor". He uses the terms "with honor", rather than "honored". When I first read this, I was thinking in terms of whether someone returning home is honored or not. Being with or without honor is something different entirely. Being with or without honor says whether or not you are an honorable person.
Who can strip your honor from you more easily than anyone else? The ones who love you most, who know all your secrets, the things you would rather forget. If you ever want to embarrass someone, bring out their baby pictures, or worse yet, their junior high pictures, or tell the stories that seem so humorous to us but are simply embarrassing to them now. It is easy to strip someone of their dignity when you know all their secrets. It can be hard for someone hold their honor in the presence of those who know them so well.
So I don't think it is just prophets that are not without honor except in their own country and in their own house. But it may be worse for prophets who are coming with messages that their country or house might not want to hear. Without the desire to believe, the desire to discredit the prophet would be forefront. And knowing everything about the prophet's history, they would have the ability to strip away the prophet's honor.
How does this fit in with the previous verses of this chapter? Jesus finished the last parable by talking of a householder bringing out of his treasure both things old and new. We must be able to continue adding new things to our treasure. The people of Jesus' home community simply wanted to hold onto the old. They would not accept the new.
We cannot simply accept or reject things based on what we know of the past. We too must be willing to accept the new. If we simply refuse to believe, just like Jesus' home town, Jesus won't be able to do many mighty works with us either. Remember, Jesus didn't do His mighty works in order to make people believe. He did them simply because they believed. We can always find excuses to believe or not believe. But if we want to believe, we shall, and Jesus will do mighty works for us too.