The one we would know yet

Today’s gospel (Matthew 13: 54-58) tells us something about how focused God is on relationship with us. As happy as He is in Himself, it is in the nature of goodness to share itself, and thus He turns His eye of eternal love on us, His new creation. And, thus, His eye remained, even after we had sinned:

And He that might the vantage best have took

Found out the remedy.

says Shakespeare’s Isabella in Measure for Measure (Act 2: 2).

It is this freedom of God’s salvation that determines the fact that Jesus will not work miracles because of their lack of faith - the lack of faith of the other Nazarenes. God is not a customer for our affection. He is not a merchant in search of business. He offers His gifts freely and keeps no shop. He is not ‘in trade’.

We can wonder at why those in Nazareth lacked faith. Were these not the people who knew Him best, and to love Him, was it not enough merely to know Him? They were astonished at His teaching, but that was as far as they were ready to bestir themselves. The Nazarenes are an example of the easy comforts of the shallows – the dangerous indolence of a life that excuses itself from the adventures of contemplation. They were complacent in a familiarity that they had not even noticed was beginning to hang from the walls of Israel like worn out wallpaper. Cast out into the deep, says Jesus to the disciples in Luke 5:4. Cast out into the deep.

We cast out into the deep precisely through faith which makes us ready to face the strangely disconcerting attentions of a God who not only offers us salvation freely but who wants us to learn to accept His gifts. He offers us the feast, but He also helps us to the table and to eat. And yet He does not want our enthusiasm.

At the opposite end of the scale from the indifference of Nazareth comes the enthusiasm of the crowds who wanted to make Him king after He fed them miraculously. These had had their physical hunger satisfied and responded with an enthusiasm that was wholly of this world. Yet, oddly, perhaps, this too was a lack of faith, averse to the miraculous work of God. While indifference fosters no relationship, enthusiasm fosters a self-centred relationship. While the indifferent yawn and return to their indulgences, the enthusiasts clamour and unwittingly remake God in their own image. They did not want to make Jesus king of their hearts but to have him strike down their Roman overlords. Instead of opening up to the power of the Holy Spirit, they were indulging in a human power grab.

And lest we imagine that we would not stoop so low ourselves, we only need to reflect that it is too easy to let our unconscious, dissonant needs - those motives we often only see in the rear-view mirror of reflection -  leverage the good that God would work in us into our service instead of His. God has no need for our enthusiasm and satisfaction. He is calling us to the fullness of life and love that surpasses our imaginations; not to a cheap starring role in The Me Show.

Jesus did not work many miracles in Nazareth because of their lack of faith, but he did work some: probably miracles of nature, undoubtedly miracles of grace. And they are there for those who put aside human astonishment and the comforts of self-centred familiarity in order to encounter the God they are yet to know.