Thoughts for the Day

Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's home town..... There were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian."

When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

(Church in Wales Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Did you know that Walt Disney was once fired from the Kansas City Star newspaper in 1919 because, his editor said, he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”? Well, he subsequently proved his editor completely wrong as we all know from the wonderfully imaginative films that he went on to produce. Or how about this - after a performance in Nashville, Elvis was told by the concert hall manager that he was better off returning to Memphis and driving trucks (his former career)?

Now this may not be the same as a prophet (or Jesus) going to their own people, but we get the idea. Many people are simply not accepted initially, and in the case of Jesus, those who had seen him grow up from a toddler to an adult, thought of him as Joseph and Mary's son, and the elder brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. Jesus was constantly rejected by his own people, and in Luke's gospel we see him indicating that if his people won't accept him, then like Elisha he will go those outside Judaism.

We may not be an Elisha, or Walt Disney, but when we believe God is calling us to do something, then we should keep praying and persevere whatever lies ahead.

Lord Jesus,
as you were rejected
by Your own people,
help us to accept that our ideas
might not always be acceptable
to others.
But may we have the courage
to take our ideas to You,
and then to persevere in doing Your work.
Amen.