Friday 30 July 2021

Today is Friday the 30 July, in the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time.

Moira Smiley sings ‘Should my soul not wait on God?’, a setting of Psalm 62 by Steven Faux.

Today’s reading is from the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew 13:54-58

Jesus came to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son? 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? Where then did this man get all this?" And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, "Prophets are not without honour except in their own country and in their own house." And he did not do many deeds of power there, because of their unbelief.

Perhaps the situation Jesus finds himself in today sounds familiar to you.  He comes back to people he’s grown up among, and they can’t see how he’s grown since he left.  They know him, and they know his family.  He’s nothing special.  Notice any echoes in your own life?

Jesus knows that his reputation is high elsewhere.  As a prophet, he’s received with honour in many other places.  How then do you think he feels at his home-town’s reaction?

As you listen again, notice that the passage twice speaks of Jesus’s “deeds of power”.  Can you point to powerful things that Jesus has done in your own life?

Join Jesus as he leaves his home-town after this encounter.  What do you say to him as he walks away?

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.