A Prophet in his Hometown

24″I tell you the truth,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

Luke 4:24-27

I see two main points here:

1. Prophets need to be prepared for rejection in their hometowns
2. Hometowns really need Prophets

Elijah and Zarephath

When I usually read this passage, I think of that first point. But Jesus really emphasizes the second point as well. Israel has widows and lepers, people who really need help. Not everything is perfect in their world – they are really suffering. Despite this, they reject their own prophets.

Jesus longs for Israel to see their need for him, but until they do he will go elsewhere. Similarly, America has become a ‘hometown’ for Christians. It is so easy to reject Christianity in America simply because it is so ordinary. People in Jesus’ hometown asked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” People in America ask, “Isn’t this just western religion?”