Jesus was not accepted by his natives.

Jesus still sends prophets today. We do not want to position ourselves as natives of Jesus. Everyone has enemies. Today’s gospel warns us believers about this. Addressing his countrymen, who did not accept him as a prophet, Jesus says: “..not even a prophet is welcome in his own country” (Lk 4:24). Jesus is already acting as a prophet in the Nazareth synagogue. He provokes his countrymen with his behavior. When he says, that the words of the prophet Isaiah, which he had just read, were fulfilled in him, the natives will not accept. They will immediately remark, “isn’t this Joseph’s son” (Luke 4:22)? In other words, what new can he tell us?

Jesus answers them by pointing to the well-known event, how the prophet Elijah was not accepted by the nation, only by the Gentiles, the widow of Zarephath, and Naaman the Syrian. Jesus did the right thing. Shouldn’t he have first won his countrymen over with acceptable words and only then, later, gradually explain things to them? Wasn’t it Jesus’ fault that the natives were carried away by anger? We can observe that the preaching of the apostles is carried in the spirit of Jesus. It must be remembered that the people in Nazareth were no worse than elsewhere in the world. When Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah to them, all his countrymen were happy to hear the glad tidings that answered their wish. Let’s be aware of the paradox, Jesus announces a “merciful year” and the natives react by wanting to kill their native who announced this news to them. Jesus God brings forgiveness and love and receives hatred, anger, and finally death from people.

The Church continues what Jesus taught and commanded the Church not only to teach, to baptize, but also to teach to observe all that He commanded. The mission of the Church was, is, and will be to speak the truth, to defend and uphold the rights that the world tramples on, silences in the entire breadth of life, from those who cannot be born, who no longer want them, or who hinder someone, to the old, infirm, or condemned to death. Do we not have a similar relationship with Christ and the Church? When they comply with us, we are satisfied, but when they enter our conscience when they draw our attention to something, and when they rightly demand something from us, we no longer have a kind heart, but a heart full of hatred, malice, and sin.

Jesus in Nazareth was led to “the slope of a mountain…and they wanted to throw him down from there” (Lk 4:29), but he did not change his attitude towards the truth, he did not retract what he said. Only on the slope of another mountain does Jesus allow, because he wanted it, he gives to crucify oneself so that until the end of time people will be aware of the truth of Jesus. Let us not condemn the people of Nazareth. On the contrary, let us learn to follow Christ and radically preserve the words of the Gospel. After all, we believed in Christ, who not only died for his conviction but as the God-man proved one and eternal truth. God pours his Spirit into the prophet and makes him an instrument of his activity. The perspective of such activity is difficult and most prophets, except when directly addressed by God himself, do not want to undertake this mission. The mission of the prophet hinders many sons and daughters of this world .