Hometown Discount

He came to his country and to his hometown. They all knew him. They loved him they said. They knew his mother and father, his brothers and sisters. His power and wisdom were obvious. It left people asking, “Where did he get this? Where did this come from?”

Novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can’t Go Home Again. You can visit. But after you’ve left a place, the place will not receive back for good. Because you’ve changed. And the place has changed, though it may think it is the same.

Jesus is facing this reception. He is teaching like Messiah but they want to keep him the carpenter’s son. Jesus suffered from the hometown discount. They automatically discounted that he could be a prophet. There’s no way that he could be Messiah, because he’s from here. In words of a Keith Green song, “Prophets don’t grow up from little boys, do they?”

Can you imagine what it must have been like for Jesus’ brothers and sisters? How hard must it have been for them to believe that their brother was the Anointed One, the very Son of God?

There is a reason that in the United Methodist Church pastors are not appointed to their home church. It’s too difficult. There’s too many people that remember you as the kid who vomited during the Christmas pageant. You can’t go home again. It’s nice to visit. It was a nice visit we had with Mark Hecht last month. He obviously has a great ministry. You can be proud of him. But he couldn’t have stayed in Duncansville just like I couldn’t stay in Williamsport. I would have always been waiting for my sister Kathy to let the cat out of the bag, that in fact I’m not a holy man at all. I’m the one who once chased her around the house with a kitchen knife. Psychopath, maybe, pastor, uh, no.

In fact, Jesus’ brothers did have trouble believing that he was a prophet and more than a prophet. In John’s Gospel chapter seven it says that Jesus stayed in Galilee and refused to go to Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill and he wasn’t ready to be killed yet. His own brothers urged him to go to Judea to make himself known.

“No man works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. Show yourself to the world.”

Being a brother myself, and having observed my own sons, I know the thoughts that can creep into brother’s hearts. Jesus’ brothers may have genuinely wanted Jesus to “take it to the next level” in Judea, to go worldwide. And they may have also thought, Son of God? We’ll see. Let him stick out his neck in Judea. If he survives that, then we’ll believe.

“For even his brothers did not believe in him.” John 7.5

How did Jesus react to all this?

“He was amazed at their unbelief.” Mark 6.6

He may have understood it, but he was still amazed and disturbed by it. Which leads me to wonder what Jesus thinks of the Church today. It is easy for us who have grown up in the church to remember our favorite time or our favorite way to experience God. It’s fine to have these memories and fine to treasure them. But the church is not a museum to preserve old furniture and antiques. The church is not the Library of Congress here to preserve old records. We are a living community of people serving a living God!

In Matthew 12, someone asks Jesus for a sign and he says enough with signs. You’ve had the sign of Jonah, but something greater than Jonah is here. You had the sign of Solomon, but something greater than Solomon is here. The purpose of religion is to clean out the house of the human heart to allow room for the living God to come and dwell. If you clean out the house but don’t let the Master come in and live, then the ghosts that you chased out before will return in greater force and number.

Maybe our problem is one of geography. We’ve been in the same location for so long that we’ve forgotten, oh yeah, we are actually following that old boy, Jesus, and he’s still on the move!

There is a scene in Will Ferrell’s movie, Talledega Nights, in which his character, Ricky Bobby, prays to “tiny, baby Christmas Jesus” for success in his next race. He thanks God for KFC and the always delicious Taco Bell, for his striking boys and his smoking hot wife (who hasn’t prayed that prayer?) and continues, “tiny infant Jesus. . .” when his wife interrupts:

“Hey, umm, you know sweetie, Jesus did grow up.You don’t always have to call him baby. It’s a bit odd and off-putting to pray to a baby.”

To which Ricky Bobby responds, “Look, I like the Christmas Jesus best and I’m saying grace. When you say grace you say it to grown up Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus or whoever you want.”


The discussion continues. Ricky’s friend likes to picture Jesus as a rock star while Ricky’s son, Texas Ranger, likes to picture Jesus as a ninja fighting off Samurai. This may all seem silly to you, but the truth is we all like to picture Jesus in the way the is most comfortable to us – remembering him at a certain time of year (Christmas, Easter) at a certain time in our lives, or simply as an unseen spirit supporting our efforts and agenda.

Listen to Ricky’s wife, “Jesus did grow up.” In fact, Jesus is still living and hoping to grow the church, which he called “his body.”

Is the body of baby Jesus still growing? To paraphrase and old hymn, “Are we still alive?”

What would change if grown-up Jesus were walking around this building today? Maybe he has a beard, maybe he doesn’t. He’s dressed like you and me. He talks and laughs. Sometimes he shouts and sometimes he just gets quiet and thinks. He’s a real person and he’s really God.

But he’s walking around here with us. Hmm.

The problem with the hometown church is that we stop expecting and stop wanting walkin’ talkin’ Jesus to doing any thing new around here. We want eight pound six ounce Jesus. We want Christmas Eve Jesus because he’s warm and cute and won’t trouble us.

That’s want the people of Nazareth wanted. And because of their unbelief,

“ he could do no mighty work there. . .” Mark 6.5


In the book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse, Jesus speaks to the churches. To the church at Ephesus, this is what Jesus says:

“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear eivil men but have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, you have abandoned your first love. Remember then, from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first.”
Revelation 2.2-5

Jesus judgment of the church is that the church has stopped loving Jesus.

Let us return to the love that brought us here to be the church.