Prophets get no respect back home.

John 4.43-45.

Right after Jesus spent two days with the Samaritans of Sykhár, sharing the gospel of God’s kingdom with ’em, he needed a break. So he returned to his homeland—the western side of the Roman province of the Galilee. More precisely Cana (today’s Kfar Kanna), 4 kilometers north of Nazareth, where he’d done the water-to-wine thingy.

Time to quote the gospel.

John 4.43-45 KWL

43 After the two days, Jesus comes out of Samaria,

and he goes into the Galilee.

44 For Jesus himself testifies that prophets,

in their own homeland, have no respect.

45 So when Jesus comes to the Galilee,

the Galileans receive him:

They saw everything he did in Jerusalem at the festival,

for they likewise went to the festival.

The part which tends to throw us Christians is Jesus’s comment “that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.” Jn 4.44 KJV Because in the synoptic gospels, Jesus says it like it’s a bad thing—

Mark 6.4 KWL

Jesus tells them this:

“A prophet isn’t really disrespected

till he’s in his homeland,

and with his relatives,

and in his own home.”

 

Matthew 13.57 KWL

They’re offended by him, and Jesus tells them,

“A prophet isn’t really disrespected

till he’s in his homeland,

and in his own home.”

 

Luke 4.24 KWL

Jesus says, “Amen! I promise you this:

A prophet never gets approval in his homeland.”

—because in those contexts, it was a bad thing. In each of these gospels, Jesus was teaching in the Nazareth synagogue, Lk 4.16 and his neighbors couldn’t handle the fact these teachings and revelations were coming out of him. Who’s he? What’s the handyman Mk 6.1 (or handyman’s son Mt 13.55) doing announcing God’s kingdom has arrived? In Luke they even tried to push him off a cliff. Lk 4.29

I don’t know whether the incident at the Nazareth synagogue took place before this John passage. It might have, but I don’t think so: One of the Nazarenes’ objections was they wanted Jesus to duplicate the miracles he’d done in Capharnaum, Lk 4.23 and in John he’s not even been to Capharnaum yet, and done no such miracles. Jn 4.54 But by that point it appears he already had made the quip that prophets get no respect back home.

Historically, Christians have interpreted this to mean familiarity breeds contempt. Jesus’s neighbors presumed they knew him—and “knew” he wasn’t anyone important. And took offense at the very idea he might be. Who’d he think he was? What, did he think he was better than them? How dare he.

John’s slightly different slant.

Christians aren’t always aware a saying can change meaning depending on its context. Too many of us assume it always means the same thing no matter where we find it in the bible. Too many of us will actually distort what it means in context, ’cause we’ll borrow the context of the other bible passage, and try to claim that’s the context of this bible passage. And ’tain’t always so.

So they presume because Jesus’s “Prophets get no respect back home” statement was negative in the synoptic gospels, it must be negative in John. Hence their interpretations of John get all loopy.

John says Jesus and his students went from Samaria to the Galilee “for Jesus himself testifies that prophets, in their own homeland, have no respect.” They went for that reason; because prophets get no respect in their homeland. They went to escape.

Remember what’d been happening in John? First Jesus was in Jerusalem, speaking with Nicodemus, gradually getting famous; then he stopped near Sychár and wound up evangelizing an entire town of Samaritans; and now what’s he up to? Right: He’s looking for a break. Where better than back home in west Galilee?—where they don’t think he’s a prophet.

But of course Christians have historically overlaid Jesus’s negative spin on John, and claim Jesus went to the Galilee because they were hostile to him. Because Jesus wanted to start something. He was looking to pick a fight. St. Augustine figured the Galileans were irritated at Jesus for hanging out with Samaritan heretics, so Jesus went there to challenge their preconceptions.

Both John Calvin and John Wesley figured only Nazareth counts as Jesus’s homeland. Not the neighboring towns, like Cana; just Nazareth—and that’s why he went to Cana, to dodge Nazareth. But I already explained in my article on Cana how it’s also his homeland. It’s like saying a New Yorker who grew up in Brooklyn wouldn’t likewise consider Manhattan home. It may not be as much home as Brooklyn, but it’s still home. Heck, I live in California, and when I touched down in New York after my first time in Asia, I was thrilled to be “home”—because I consider the entire United States my homeland.

In any event, Augustine, Calvin, and Wesley’s interpretations keep skipping the “for” at the beginning of verse 44. Jesus went to his homeland—and Cana is likewise his homeland—because they’d share the “you’re nothing special” attitude about him. And right about now, he didn’t wanna be anything special.

Jesus’s “Prophets get no respect back home” saying isn’t necessarily a negative one! Yes, when the locals are trying to whack you for daring to prophesy, okay it’s kinda negative. But when you just wanna kick back and teach your students, and for once not be “Jesus the Prophet” or “Jesus the Messiah,” it’s kinda nice.

So that’s how I interpret it. When Jesus removed his students from controversy in Judea and ministry in Samaria, they went home for a break. Where he was nothing more than Jesus bar Joseph, the handyman from Nazareth. Where they could hang out with Jesus’s non-dysfunctional family, without crowds of people testing your theology every waking moment, without gawkers speculating what kind of Messiah you might be, without sick people begging you to cure ’em.

Well, till a certain royal showed up. But that comes next.