When we look up at the sky and see the sun, we don’t really see the sun. We see the sun as it existed about 8 minutes ago. It takes the light that long to reach us. When we look up at the heavens and see the lights of the stars, we are not really seeing the stars as they are now. We are seeing them as they were years ago.
We do that with people too, don’t we? We meet someone from our past, maybe a high school, college or university buddy. Maybe someone we used to work with. Haven’t seen them in years. Yet, in our mind they are the people we knew many many years ago, We don’t see them as they are now., but rather as we remember them from the past. Kind of like the light from the stars. We are not really seeing them as they are now. We are seeing them as they were years ago.
It is what happened to Jesus in our Gospel from today. He went back to the town where he grew up, Nazareth. And the people there likely thought …. Ahhhh – there is J’eshua ben Josef (Jesus, son of Joseph) … I remember him as a kid .… a teenager. …..used to help his Dad out doing carpentry. It was a tough life. I wondered what had happened to him. He was one of us, and then he kind of disappeared. He seems to be a real topic of conversation around here. Seems he has been doing some really interesting things around the countryside. I mean, I have heard rumours. But you can’t believe rumours. I mean, I knew the kid. He was just one of us. Just like us. I know who he is. Watched him grow up. Who does he think he is coming back here as if he is someone different. I know the guy. He’s just one of us.
How often in life we look at someone, having seen only a few scenes in the movie of their life, and think we know their whole life story. How quick we are to judge others, and see, not who they really are, but who we may think they are, from having spent just a little time with them at some point in the past. It was indeed providential that Mark chose to give us this insight, this glimpse of Jesus in his home town. Because all too often we are prone to think we know someone. And from that, we judge them. We interpret their actions to fit a story, a narrative, that only really exists in our own minds. How typical it is of humans to think we know all about other humans.
I have lived with myself for 68 years now. Not only do I know what I have experienced, I also know what I hear, and what I say, and even what I think! And despite this intimate knowledge, I am not sure I really know even myself. How can I presume to think that I know the heart and mind of someone else.
Thank you Mark for reminding us that there are depths in each of us, even those we think we know well, that only God can glimpse. Thank you Mark for reminding us to open our hearts and minds so that we may recognise your presence in the ordinary encounters of our day. Thank you Mark, for reminding us that to really encounter the spirit of God in a moment, or in a person, we need to throw away preconceived notions of who that person is, what that experience is all about, and just be open to the experience of the moment, the reality of the encounter. To suspend the stories we make up in our minds.
To become merely a soul, encountering another soul, openly, honestly, tenderly, compassionately, as we share a moment in time in our journey through life.