Today we hear from Matthew what is perhaps one of the most tragic of the stories in the gospel. As chapter 13 ends Jesus returns to his home town to preach. And this is the only place in the gospels where we read.
And he did not do there mighty works
Imagine being the only earth with this designation. And Matthew tells exactly how they earned this designation
Because of their lack of faith
Saddest of all they lacked faith because they knew him, or at least they thought they did.
How many times in our lives do we make judgements about people based on very limited information?
A person who has been alive for 40 years walks in and sometimes within less than a single hour we are so arrogant as to think that we know what they are like. Or one person tells us of a bad experience they had with the person and based on this second hand information, without ever hearing the other side to the story, we form an opinion. And once the opinion is formed we then filter all new information through that opinion. We look for things that confirm it and dismiss things that contradict it. We reduce a living breathing child of God to a snapshot. And worst of all, we all do it.
The sin here really is hubris. We may not like to say we are arrogant, but when we make these kinds of judgments we are. And like the people in Jesus's home place, we too can time and time again miss an opportunity to encounter Christ in our brother or sister.
Today let us pause to call to mind someone about whom we have made a negative judgement and in Chrstian charity take another look. Let us actually look for the good.
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