From Nazareth to Capernaum: Lessons from the Jesus Trail (Part I)

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 61; Luke 4:14-30

A couple of years ago, I came across an article in Backpacker magazine about The Jesus Trail, which was established 8 years ago by an Israeli couple, Maoz and Schlomit Inon along with an American named David Landis. Their idea was to put together a hike that would not only incorporate some of the key sites in the region, but would also give people a chance to be immersed in the various cultures that live beside one another in the towns and villages of northern Israel. Having been to Israel 5 times with tour groups, I immediately wanted to hike this trail and spend some time on the ground going to places that tourists rarely see. Thanks to our SPRC and the grant of some additional study leave, I was able to do this bucket list trip and during this mini sermon series I want to share with you some of what I learned on the way while following in the footsteps of Jesus.

The trail begins in Nazareth, his hometown. My friend and Asbury Seminary classmate Chris Howlett, and I pulled into town late on a Thursday afternoon after our group from TLUMC departed for home and after we took a chaotic ride on a public bus from Jerusalem to begin our trek. The hometown of Jesus is perched precariously among several steep hills in the north of Israel and while it was a small village of a few hundred in Jesus’ day, Nazareth is a lot larger today with about 70,000 residents, 70% of whom are Arab Muslims and 30% Arab Christians with a small number of Jews as well. The main attractions there today have to do with the early life of its most famous resident, which is why it has more Christians than most towns (Christians make up only 2% of the population of Israel). In Nazareth you can hear the sound of the bells intermingled with the sounds of the Muslim call to prayer via the loudspeakers on the minarets. The trailhead is right about where the story in Luke begins, near the Church of the Annunciation—which commemorates the visit of the angel Gabriel to the virgin Mary, who told her she would be the one to bear the Son of God.

Before shouldering our packs for the journey, however, we were scheduled to spend a day in Nazareth checking out some of the sights and getting a feel for the place where Jesus grew up. Our home base for a couple of nights would be the Fauzi Azar Inn, an old Arab Inn that had been repurposed primarily as a hostel for those who would be hiking the trail. The Inn was built in the 19th century and modeled after the kind of homes that were common in the region both then and now—a non-descript entrance off of a backstreet takes you into an open courtyard surrounded by rooms. In fact, this is exactly the kind of home you would have seen here in Nazareth at the time of Jesus—a place where several generations of a family would live life in common in a walled compound centered around a central courtyard where the cooking and family life took place. It was like stepping back in time and provided a good atmosphere for the start of our trek on the Jesus Trail.

The next day we set out to explore Nazareth and one of the places we visited was old Nazareth Village, the site of an excavated part of the old village that has been turned into a living history center to give visitors a look at what life might have been like there at the time of Jesus. Stepping away from the insane traffic, dirt, and noise of modern Nazareth for a bit, we saw it the way Jesus may have experienced it—a small village built into the side of a hill where crops had to be grown via terrace farming. Here we got a sampling of the kinds of places and people the young Jesus would have known well—shepherds tending their flocks, farmers threshing out wheat, servants and children stomping out grapes in a wine press, women spinning and dyeing wool by hand for weaving, the discussions in the local synagogue. The fact that some of the people dressed in traditional first century garb were actually American interns was a little off-putting (the carpenter had a Texas drawl, for example), but the images were still interesting.

For example, we’ve always thought of the young Jesus as working in a carpenter shop with his father, Joseph. That image may be more the product of medieval assumption, since the Greek word used to describe his profession is tekton or builder, which could describe a variety of occupations. Some scholars have suggested that Jesus and Joseph were actually stone masons who worked at rebuilding the town of Sepphoris some four miles away—a town that had been destroyed by the Romans during a tax revolt there just after Jesus was born. Some suggest that Jesus and Joseph walked those four miles each way every day but, after having walked up and down the steep hills to Sepphoris myself, I have my doubts. Even though they were no doubt in good shape, it’s still no small hike. Maybe they stayed in Sepphoris and came home for the Sabbath, or maybe they only went there for short periods of time. Or maybe Jesus was, in fact, a carpenter because even though most buildings and furnishings were made out of stone, carpenters were still necessary for manufacturing tools for the farm, the home, and even the stone quarry. One could see Jesus and Joseph doing a brisk business selling plows and rakes, hammers, and shovels, making and selling them in the family shop or taking them on the road for sale to the workers at Sepphoris.

Whatever his occupation for the first couple of decades of his life, you can see where Jesus gathered a lot of the imagery for his ministry—sowers who go out to sow seed, yolked oxen, vineyards, grain fields, and the like. He would have learned to read the Scriptures in the synagogue and known the presence of family and friends. He would have lived the daily rhythm of life in the household, the oikos in Greek, a word that refers to both the house and the people in it. He would have known the presence of grandparents and cousins, the gentle scolding of his mother, the strong rough hands of his father. He would have seen death in all its forms, given that the life expectancy in that environment and time was about 35 years; maybe even the death of Joseph, who disappears from the narrative pretty early on. The point is that the hidden years of Jesus’ life weren’t just spent in holy contemplation, they were spent learning and living a thoroughly human life in a very real hometown.

Which leads us to the story I read for you just a bit ago—the story of Jesus’ homecoming to Nazareth after he had spend some time with his cousin John the Baptizer down at the Jordan River and then been tempted for forty days in the Judean wilderness some 90 miles away. After some time spent around the Sea of Galilee, Luke tells us that Jesus “went to Nazareth, where he had been raised” and went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, just like he had done every Sabbath since he was a boy. In verses 14 and 15 we learn that news had spread about him as he taught in the local synagogues in Galilee, and now he had returned home—the local boy made good.

It made sense, then, that when the Sabbath came he was invited to read the scroll and preach from the text. You can imagine Mary just beaming, his younger siblings feeling a bit jealous, proud grandparents getting pats on the back from the neighbors as they sat in the synagogue (men and women on separate sides, of course). The attendant brought out the scroll of Isaiah (all the books of the Hebrew Bible were on separate scrolls), which was likely the reading for the day. The custom was that the reader stood to read the text and then sat down to interpret it, and Jesus unrolled the scroll to the place we now know as Isaiah 61 (of course, there were no chapter and verse numbers then, he just knew the passage he was looking for).

He read those words we’ve heard read twice already this morning: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” These were the prophet’s proclamation of the jubilee year, a reference to Leviticus 25 and the release of debts and slaves which was to occur every 50 years. There’s no evidence that Israel actually practiced this, however, but Isaiah picks up the image anyway as a sign of what will happen when Israel is finally redeemed. For many Jews in Jesus’ day, especially those in Roman occupied Galilee, the text was a sign of hope that the foreign oppressors would be expelled, which is why they would have waited anxiously for the next line—the proclamation of “the day of vengeance of our God.” The Messiah would be the anointed one who would usher this jubilee into reality by leading the opposition against the oppressors.

But Jesus didn’t read that line. Luke says that he stopped reading, rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. And then Jesus uttered the words that began a revolution: “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Today—the messianic era has begun. Today, Jesus says, the messiah is before you.

I almost imagine Jesus’ family, his oikos burying their heads in their hands at this point. “He’s always been a little strange,” his brothers and sisters may have thought. “I knew he was special,” Mary may have whispered, “but he’s gone too far.” The small crowd of extended family and family friends began to murmur. “What about vengeance on our enemies?” What did he say? Does he think he’s the Messiah? Isn’t this the same snot-nosed kid who used to run by my shop in the mornings? He just cut me a new handle for a rake, and now he’s the Messiah? Unbelievable!

But Luke has already hinted to us, the reader, that this was the agenda of the one born in a manger all along. The old man Simeon had seen it when Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple to be dedicated. “My eyes of seen your salvation,” Simeon prayed, “which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (2:29-32). The servant Messiah has not come to inflict punishment on the nations, not even on the occupying Gentile Romans, but to bring God’s love and mercy to them. This was Israel’s original mission, and now that mission was to be fulfilled by a Messiah who grew up making tools and not swords.

In Nazareth today that’s still an inconceivable mission. Some boundaries just seem impossible to cross. Walking down the street from the Church of the Annunciation, a Muslim evangelist thrusts a tract in my hand about how the Koran is more accurate than the New Testament. A sign in English entreats visitors to the church to not say that God has a Son, that there is no such thing as the Trinity. The churches have walls and iron gates. Razor wire dominates the landscape in many places. No matter our tribe or religion, we’d rather keep things separated—it’s much easier to live in an us vs. them world.

But Jesus will bring to his hometown the radical message that God’s love and grace transcends boundaries—that the grace of God can actually turn enemies into friends if we allow it to work; that transformation is possible for even the most egregious of sinners; that outsiders can become insiders. Indeed, Jesus goes a step further by pointing out two incidents from Israel’s history where God gave preference, healing, and grace to outsiders: the widow from Zarephath in Sidon who gave bread to Elijah during a famine and who, in turn, received the blessing of food that wouldn’t run out, and Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army, whom Elisha cured of leprosy. There were plenty of people in Israel suffering from hunger and from leprosy, says Jesus, but the prophets were sent to these outsiders, who received the grace of God. Jesus’ point? His own people, his own family, his own town won’t receive this message, nor will they receive him, but the Gentiles will.

I thought about that as I walked around Nazareth and as I walked the 40 miles of the Jesus Trail. Chris and I were definite minority here—Christians, Americans, English-speakers (what do you call a person who only speaks one language? American)—but all along the way, as we experienced the hospitality of strangers, outsiders to the Christian faith, I began to think about Jesus’ own mission—the mission of spreading the good news of the kingdom of God through his life and work. Later on, in Luke 10, he would send out seventy others to go and take the message of the kingdom to people in the towns of Israel—to be people who offer peace and, in turn, could be received by people of peace. It’s there, when peace rests between people, that God’s grace can begin to work. It’s there that conversations take place, new understanding emerges, and avenues for sharing the message of the kingdom abound. The gospel can cross boundaries, even the boundaries between enemies, if we are willing to embrace it. Jesus’ ministry is testimony to that, as we will see.

Jesus was inviting his family, his oikos, to take on that mission, but they will not hear it from him. It is much safer, much easier, much more self-righteous, to stay secluded in the hills, to stick with our own tribe, to keep things within the family. Jesus’ message of grace brought about a violent reaction in his hometown, and it still does so today when it challenges all interests and agendas with God’s surprising grace. Grace challenges tribalism, nationalism, racism, sexism, and a whole lot of other -isms that keep people separated from one another. Grace forces us to get out and take a walk and explore the places where Jesus wants to lead us and engage the people who may not be like us but who are important to the one who is the Lord of all the nations.

But Nazareth won’t hear it. They drag Jesus out to the edge of town to the edge of cliff to throw him off it. That’s how you stoned people in the ancient world—you throw them off a cliff and then rain large rocks on them to finish the job. The people of Nazareth have no authority to do this, but they have a mob mentality and will not be stopped—even if Jesus’ own family, members of the community, try to intervene. It’s interesting and instructive that Luke does not tell us that they tried to do so. Indeed, Jesus’ whole oikos is silent, or it least it seems that way. I would expect Luke to at least tell us that Mary hung on to him to protect him, but he doesn’t. It’s hard to say why. Maybe she and the rest of the family didn’t get it, either. Maybe they thought Jesus had lost his mind (they certainly think that later in Gospel story as we will see). Maybe they were too afraid of what it would cost them to intervene, given that they still had to live in the community. Whatever the reason, this incident exposes the truth that we see throughout the Gospel narrative—following Jesus is going to cost you something.

The Mount of Precipice outside of Nazareth is the traditional site of the cliff. It’s a stunning view from there overlooking the Jezreel Valley. From there you can see landmarks that were important in Israel’s history: to the east, Mount Tabor, site of Deborah’s victory in the book of Judges, to the west, Megiddo and Mount Carmel, site of Elijah’s victory over the prophets of Baal, and to the south the hill of Moreh where Gideon defeated the Midianites with 300 men carrying torches. All were sites of Israelite triumph. It seems fitting  that the Nazarenes would want to throw him off the cliff there for extending grace to Israel’s enemies.

But Luke says that Jesus simply “passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” I wonder how that worked? Did they get to arguing with one another? Did they lose Jesus on the way? Did, in fact, his family finally intervene? We don’t know. What we do know, however, is that Jesus will leave Nazareth and not return. He will go down to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, a hike that will change the world forever. There he will establish a new family, a family through whom boundaries are broken, grace extended, and peace offered to all the nations.

We would get to Capernaum ourselves about 40 miles later at the end of the trail. We began the journey the next day, navigating up and down the steep hills of Nazareth, stepping around piles of illegally dumped construction garbage, and walking through some farm fields on the way to Sepphoris and then to Cana, our first stop on the way. On the trail on the way out of town was a huge dead snake, it’s head crushed. Schlomit later told me that it’s the shepherds who roam the fields outside of these towns that kill the snakes. I could only think of Genesis 3, where God says that the offspring of Adam will crush the serpent’s head. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, leaves Nazareth so that he can go and begin to do the job of crushing evil once and for all.

As I hiked out of Nazareth, however, I couldn’t help but think about how Jesus felt as he left everything and everyone behind. Did he look back, as we did, at the hills behind him or did he “set his face” on what was ahead. That was the choice before him, and I think it’s the choice that following him gives us as well. Will we always settle for the familiar, the comfortable, the known? Will we always prefer to be with people who are like us, who love us, who want to keep us where we are? Or, for the sake of following Jesus, are we willing to step out, to go and be among strangers, foreigners, outcasts, infidels, and even our enemies? Are we willing to take a long walk of faith, trusting that he will lead us in places we would never have dreamed of going on our own? Are we prepared for people to want to throw us off a cliff because the Christ we follow challenges their worldview, their norms, their assumptions?

Alyce McKenzie tells the story of a young American who became a tour guide in Israel and while he studied a lot, it’s difficult for a guide starting out to know every answer to every question. While in a bus going up to Nazareth, he pointed out to the group the cliff that may be the site where the people sought to throw Jesus off. A voice in the back of the bus asked, “What’s it called?” The young guide couldn’t think of the official name, so he blurted out, “It’s called the Mount of Jumpification.”

Says McKenzie: “Everybody has their own internal Mount of Jumpification—where they have the choice to reject [Jesus] and his message and his gifts. Or not. Where they have the opportunity to give up prejudice and celebrate the fact that God’s mercy and liberation are meant for all. Where they give up defensiveness, accept the prophetic critique, and commit themselves to Jesus’ kingdom of righteousness and justice…Between what Jesus says and how we respond, there is a question mark, there is suspense. We ourselves hang from a cliff—will we accept the hard truth about our lives and our acceptance or rejection of God through Jesus, or will we close our ears?”

It’s the choice given to every hiker on the Jesus Trail and the choice given to every would-be follower of Jesus.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he says. “He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Will you stay in Nazareth, or will you join him on the trail?