“Jesus came into his own country.” He’s has now left the place where he healed Jairus’ daughter and the hemorrhaging women and has returned to Nazareth. It’s the place where he grew up and spent the first thirty years of his life. He’s come home, back to His hometown.
I have often spoke about the little town I grew up in. I knew most everyone there. I had the same friends year after year after year. I graduated high school with many of the same kids I had known since first grade. I knew everyone and everyone knew me. There was a closeness. We had a history, a common bond.
My hometown was familiar, comfortable, and predictable. There was a consistency and routine. We knew what to expect. There was stability and security. Not much changed from year to year—not many people moved in—or out. I lived close to my grandparents and could see them most anytime I wanted. I felt I belonged there, I felt safe there and we looked after each other. I never thought about leaving my hometown, but eventually I did. And although the world I once knew does not exist anymore, there are times I would like to go back for a visit.
I wonder what your hometown experience was like? Maybe you never felt you had a hometown. Perhaps your family moved around quite a bit or perhaps you lived in a large city and did not enjoy the spirit of a small community as I did. Maybe you were further out into the country and were not around a lot of folks. Maybe you can’t quite comprehend it when someone says, “There’s no place like home.” Or, perhaps they say, “You can never go home again.”
Jesus had a hometown too. It was a place called Nazareth. We can study its history and its geography, but we still don’t know a lot about the day to day life our Lord enjoyed there.
Yet, as I consider your hometown and mine, I want to think about more than a geographical location; more than old memories from a scrap book. This hometown isn’t something outside of us, its within us. It’s not a place, but a way of being and a way of thinking. It’s the place where we form our routines and habits, attitudes, beliefs, opinions, prejudices, assumptions, and values. It’s where we formed the patterns of how we’ve always done things and the way we’ve always thought. It formulates the way we think and the way we see things. This hometown is a lens through which we see the world, one another, and ourselves. This internal hometown shapes who we are and how we live. It’s our place of comfort and familiarity. It is that place inside your own skin where you feel you belong, your internal hometown.
In many ways, your internal hometown is just like a literal one. It is the place where a lot of the things that determine the way you think were born. This hometown contains your faith and church, your political views, your national and racial identity. Chances are your family is there, what they told or taught you, or the family way of doing things. Your work is there, and so is your reputation and social status. Your friends are there, of course in this hometown you choose the ones you let in and the ones you keep out.
For most of us, our internal hometown is our comfort zone. In this zone we like to believe that we have the hometown advantage. We think that playing the game in our comfort zone, on our own home field, gives us an edge, an advantage. Of course, there is also a hometown disadvantage. Here’s what I mean by that.
In the literal hometown where I grew up there was not a lot of opportunity for jobs. In order to find work, I had to leave. I didn’t especially want to leave, but I knew I had no choice. The same is true of your internal, or spiritual hometown. Sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone to accomplish what you were born to accomplish; to do what God has called you to do.
In your hometown, it’s easy to know about others, but not really know them deeply. The hometown often has a way of convincing us that the hometown way is the right way, the best way, the only way. Sometimes our vision of the world and life extends only as far as the city limits sign. We value our closeness, but risk becoming closed to someone or something new. Excessive familiarity often keeps us from recognizing, valuing, and appreciating what is right in front of us. Yes, I knew everyone in my old hometown, but as I look back there are a lot of folks I wish I had known better. Let me give you an illustration:
I was about thirteen I guess, and I remember coming home from school one afternoon. As I walked toward our house, I saw a very attractive young lady sitting on a friend’s front porch. Actually, she wasn’t just attractive, she was gorgeous. I decided a closer investigation was in order. So, I walked up to the house, and with every ounce of courage I could muster, I said “hello” to the young lady, while knocking on my friend’s door. My friend came to the door and I asked if I could speak to him outside. We walked back toward my house, and I asked him, “Who is that sitting on your porch?” He replied, “That’s just Susan, she’s my creepy cousin!” I stood there looking at my snaggled toothed, freckled faced, and obviously blind friend and said, “Someone that looks like that, is related to you?” You see, to him, she was just Susan, to me she was the prettiest thing my thirteen-year-old eyes had ever seen. To him, she was just an annoying relative that hopefully wouldn’t be there very long. As for me, I wanted him to move away and for her to move in his house.
I wonder how many times the people of Nazareth said, “Oh, that’s just Jesus.” I am sure as He began His public ministry, they were astounded by the wisdom in His teaching and they knew about the miracles and the great deeds He had done. But, it made no difference, because, “That’s just Jesus. He lived across the street.” That’s the carpenter; the son of Mary; the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon; the one whose sisters are right here with us.
They knew all about Him, and yet saw no special value in Him. Actually, the Bible says, “they were offended at him.” I think that’s the hometown disadvantage. That can happen in our internal hometowns also. Sometimes, we can’t see the forest for the trees. We miss the blessings. We don’t see the beauty of where we are; the value of the moment. That can happen in our internal hometowns, especially when…
We settle for what we know rather than opening our hearts and minds to what we don’t know;
We take for granted those we love most, and are closest to;
We forget that many of the blessings we enjoy were not earned but were freely given because someone cared;
We choose being content and comfortable over being challenged;
We believe that if God really speaks to us, it will not come through those who are most familiar and closest to us. It will come through someone greater, or more famous;
Or when we miss the presence of God in our life, world, and prayers because it didn’t come “with the pomp and circumstance” we think we deserve.
Thus, our internal hometown has become a walled city. We are afraid to leave, yet also afraid to let anyone else in. I wonder if the hometown disadvantage is at work in your life, or in mine? And if so, in what ways? I wonder if it’s preventing great miracles and deeds of power from being done in our lives. I wonder how the internal hometown disadvantage might be diminishing our lives and impoverishing our world. And I wonder how we might be limiting our hometown advantage by not seeing the beauty that is right in front of us. Or, perhaps we may be trapped by the hometown disadvantage by not being willing to leave our comfort zone and step out on faith if that is what God wants me us do?
Many Christians are right where God wants them to be. Don’t let familiarity blind you to the manifold blessings of your internal hometown, of where you are right now. On the other hand, if God is moving you to a new field of service, a new calling of faith, it may be time to shake off the dust and move on.
Dr. Worthington has been in the ministry for over forty-five years and serves as President of Pathway Ministries and Christian Bible College.