Jesus is the One That Matters

1 August 2025  Matthew 13:47-53

“Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?” Matthew 13:54

The people of Nazareth rejected Jesus for reasons that had nothing to do with His teaching or His works of power, nothing to do with who He was.

Most of the people who reject Him now are doing the same thing.

The Nazarenes couldn’t get past the fact that they had known Jesus as a boy, and were still familiar with His family (even though they couldn’t seem to remember the name of His father, Joseph – him they referred to as just“the carpenter”). Maybe that was because they believed what everybody said about Nazareth – “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Maybe its because they had a kind of rural disdain for learning, and thought Jesus sounded “like one of them college boys.” Whatever it was, it didn’t mean that Jesus’ wisdom wasn’t wise, or His mighty deeds weren’t mighty. It didn’t mean Jesus wasn’t who many people were saying He was, viz., the Messiah. But whatever it was, the Nazarenes couldn’t get past the fact that they knew Him when He was a boy.

They couldn’t get past the things that didn’t matter.

There are people today who reject Jesus because He doesn’t sound enough like a scientist, because people who are scientists don’t follow Him. There are people today who reject Jesus because of the “awful things the Church has done,” or because they knew some people who followed Jesus, and they weren’t very nice. To be sure, the Church has committed some very grave sins, and some religious people aren’t very nice. To be sure, the credibility of the Church, and of Christian people has suffered some pretty horrible self-inflicted wounds, and there is a lot of repenting to do. But it isn’t Christian people who save. It isn’t the Church that saves. The Church and Christian people are not “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Jesus does. Jesus is. What do you say about Him?

Jesus is the one that matters.

The people who complain, even complain rightly, about the sins of the Church and the sins of Christian people often lose sight of the fact that everything and everyone comes in defective packaging. Our best deeds, our best thoughts are all corrupted by sin. Many of the products we buy day after day, buy without a second thought, have been produced by people who have been treated unjustly. Does buying them implicate us, however slightly, in a corrupt economic system? Of course it does. Can we avoid buying them all? Not really, no. Many parishes and dioceses have schools that are better, often much better, than the public alternatives. But those schools are expensive, so the people who attend are mostly from families of means. There is some financial assistance so that some poor students can attend, but no parish, no diocese can afford to teach all the poor. Do those schools then privilege people of means? Of course they do. Should we close the schools on that account? And surrender all those children to a public system that ignores God, sometimes even ignores reason? Of course not. Everything, and everyone, comes in defective, damaged packaging, including the ones who complain, often rightly, about the sins of the Church and Christian people.

“If I give away all that I have and deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (I Corinthians 13:3). Who has enough love to give to save my soul? To save yours?

Jesus does. That’s why He matters. That’s why, in the end, He’s the only One who matters.

“Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?” Isn’t He one of us? Don’t we know His family? The Nazarenes couldn’t get past the things that didn’t matter.

Will you?