2012年7月8日 星期日

Aliens in their homeland (Mk 6:1-6)

    Jesus’ being rejected by his town is best described as an alien in his native town. Alien here is not related to the movie Alien about external invasion to the earth. Neither is this related to one's immigration status. But rather it is an experience of being rejected, marginalized and exclusion. Jesus’ experience strikes me in two ways. First, what is the purpose of Mark to give a record of this story? Second, why isn’t Jesus honored by his town? Regarding the first question, it seems to me that Mark intends to use this Jesus’ particular experience to establish a thesis that Jesus is not only not honored by his town, but also by the Jews and even his created world. Although this is not explicitly expressed in Mark’s Gospel, this thesis is fully articulated in John’s Gospel. John writes,

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. (Jn 1:10-11)

Jesus’ historical experience of being not honored by his town is one of the his many, and finally, Jesus is ended up in crucifixion. Mark reminds us that this is the Lord whom we follow, and we Christians share the same destiny of our Lord Jesus.

    Apart from the theological implication of that Jesus is not honored by his town, there are political reasons. For instance, there is a suggestion that the radicalness of Jesus makes the people of his town hesitate to ally with him, for they do not want to be involved in the conflict with Pharisees. Another suggestion considers that there may be some people in Nazareth that have a high social status, and therefore, Jesus’ high reputation would be considered as a threat to them. These are possible reasons. But having an experience of my native land being colonized, I would suggest that Jesus not being honored is due to a kind of colonialized mentality found in Nazareth. Let me explain this. During the time of being colonized, the people of Hong Kong, 96% are Chinese, struggled to enter English-speaking schools, gave priority to purchase western products, and looked up to the Westerners. Ironically, the people of Hong Kong looked down on the Chinese language, the Chinese products and even the Chinese people. This may be because China was weak and uncompetitive at that time. There is truth in it. Nevertheless, the post-colonial theory reminds us that the experience of looking up on the West has been turned into a discourse that shapes our mind and even becomes our life, and as a result, we no longer question the discourse and accept this as the right and reasonable thing to do. Even though Hong Kong is no more a colony, the colonial mentality of looking up to the West and the Chinese authorities has not been challenged.

    In the light of the post-colonial theory, we have a different understanding of Jesus' experience of being rejected by his home town. At the time of Jesus, Nazareth was a small town with a population of around 600-800 people. It is definitely incomparable with a big city like Jerusalem in terms of opportunities, prosperities and civilization. It is common for the people of Nazareth to admire a big city. Therefore, they do not honor Jesus, not just because they do not have trust in him, but also because they do not have confidence in themselves. They are looking up to the big city, and believe that everything from big city is better than the local. Thus, Jesus’ experience reminds us that first, the colonial discourse is not only taken place in a colonial status, but at anytime and anyplace. Second, the colonial discourse is not just a belief, but it can deprive one’s potentiality, and even one’s identity. The Bible says

Jesus could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.

    If my introduction to the post-colonial theory to understand Jesus’ experience is acceptable as one of the reasons of Jesus’ being rejected, our immediate concern is what this would mean for the followers of Jesus. First, we should be aware of and critical of different kinds of colonial mentality featured by both Chinese and western cultures, capitalism and liberalism that limits the freedom of our faith in Jesus. Second, we should have self-confidence so that we can have faith in our brothers and sisters, and their life can be blossomed. It is not their untrustful, but rather it is our suspicious that makes us disbelief.

    Being alien in his home is the experience of Jesus in Nazareth. We have seen how such status can deprive his potentiality and even his life finally. In fact, Jesus’ experience is found in different corners of our world, such as, Palestinians in the so-called Israelite land, ethics groups in Myanmar, people like Liu Xiaoboa and Ai Weiwei in China, homosexuals in Hong Kong. When the disciples at the time of Jesus are sent to teach, heal and cast out demons, let us go to teach the gospel of grace and embrace, heal the wound caused by exclusion and cast out the demon of ideology represented by suspicious and post-colonial mentality.

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