URC Daily Devotion 17 January 2026

St Matthew 13: 53 – 58
 
When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there.  Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked.  “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?  Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?”  And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town and in his own home.” And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
 
Reflection
 
Jesus, the carpenter’s boy
 
How often do we look at people in positions of power and think: “Well, they must know what they’re doing — after all, they’re in charge for a reason”?
 
Jesus’ authority did not rest on the usual foundations of power. He wasn’t trained in rabbinic schools, nor sanctioned by Temple authorities, nor born into elite circles. He’s the son of Mary, the carpenter’s boy, who comes from the countryside. I guess today we would call him working class.  He is dismissed by the people who supposedly know him because he comes from the margins of his own community. Think of those in power today: CEOs of multinationals, kings, politicians. The vast majority of the time the elite come from the elite. Outsiders are often silenced or ignored. Jesus disrupts this.
 
The people of Nazareth could only see Jesus as ‘the carpenter’s son.’ How on earth could God’s liberating reign be announced through someone poor and ordinary? Yet God often works through those on the margins. The upside-down kingdom that we work towards is about flipping the domination of authorities – maybe it’s about supporting Palestine Action, or the flotillas trying to break the siege of Gaza. 
 
And Jesus didn’t do many deeds of power there – is this a weakness, or a refusal? The Kingdom cannot be coerced, forced through with violence, manipulation or oppression that we see in Christian Nationalism. It emerges through openness. How often is the church quick to dismiss outsider radical voices? How often do we hear the preacher with a middle-class voice and think, “they must know what they are talking about”? 
 
Jesus came from the margins to show us the promise of God’s reign. Let’s not ignore those who offer much but are rarely heard.
 
Prayer
 
God of the margins,
You choose the ordinary to speak your truth.
Forgive us when we trust the powerful and ignore the prophets in our midst.
Open our ears to voices long silenced,
our eyes to your kingdom breaking in where we least expect it,
and our hearts to stand in solidarity with the oppressed.
Through Jesus, the carpenter’s son, our Liberator.
Amen.