No-one special

The family lived at Nazareth,

his mother, sisters and brothers;

plus all the in-laws, nieces and nephews.

It was where he had been raised,

where he had been taught the law

with his schoolmates

at the feet of the local Rabbi.

They recalled how he had learned his trade

at his father’s workshop;

and everyone agreed he had done all right

with the mallet and saw.

Most people had liked him well enough;

his life had been quiet, uneventful.

He should have taken a wife, by now;

and more than one of the village girls

had eyed him off. And then,

without any apparent reason,

he had simply left town

to set up home in Capernaum.

What was he running from?

No-one had any answers,

and no sign of scandal had ever turned up.

Until now.

The reports from surrounding towns

of a miracle-working teacher

had not struck anyone as that unusual.

They were intrigued, and a little curious,

but there must have been thousands of men

by the same name, and it took a while

for them to realise that he was theirs.

He’d arrived back home affecting the teacher,

pretending to knowledge and understanding

way beyond his village-school education.

He had the gall to turn up at the synagogue

to regale his captive audience

with his feigned wisdom and insight.

They had to concede that he had spoken quite well,

but that was beside the point.

He might convince the uninformed

in any of a hundred other towns across Galilee,

but he wasn’t going to fool them.

They knew he was nobody special,

just like themselves, so they told him to go.

© Ken Rookes 2012