“Familiarity breeds contempt” so goes the saying. The collective mind of a society normally shuts off its mind to the realistic evaluation of a member of its own community. This is a phenomenon that we have inherited and hence it goes on unabated. A person from our own community knows us well and that truth hurts us much. The attitude - ‘We know him, therefore he cannot tell us anything new’ controls our ability to process the reality.

The truth of our contradictory existence frightens us and hence we wish to live in secrecy and denial. We are afraid of ourselves. We seldom realize that we can be saved only by our own prophets and that only one who really loves us has the commitment to our enlightenment. A community that rejects its own Messiahs is truly in danger of decadence and death.

An alien prophet on the contrary has more chances of our recognition and approval. He or she is not a threat to us and do not in any way deprive us of our self-esteem or privileges in the society. He or she is not a real threat to our conceptual existence. He or she is perceived as non-judgmental and impersonal and would leave us to continue live out our routine world of false perceptions and ideologies. The alien would preach without hurting and confronting us. By praising him/her we don’t risk our self-esteem or get challenged. After all we know he is an alien prophet.

The people of Nazareth reject her own native son. They are happy with His miracles and preaching style. They move from initial enthusiasm into skepticism, then opposition and later disbelief. The questions they raised are expressive and loaded with their emotional reactions. “Where did this man get all this?”, “Is this not this carpenter, the son of Mary….and are not his sisters here with us?” are questions of contempt and disrespect. Addressing Jesus as ‘son of Mary’ is an insult. It was Jewish custom to refer to a man as the son of his father.

The prophets are called and they are fired with a mission. They are aware of the process of change – the transition from resistance to renewal or total rejection and violence. Jesus is fully aware of the resistance of his own family and community. He is aware of the human tendency to cling to their customary modes of thinking and practices. He knows that human resistance to change is a natural protection against the insecurity one feels in changing his or her traditional beliefs and rituals. But Jesus loves His people. He has a mission of establishing world order without the narrow boundaries of caste, creed, race, gender and class. He has to preach spirituality without the deformities of religion – a spirituality without religion.

Every change confronts itself with the dynamics of resistance. The Gospel proclamation is not something that all would accept. Its power is displayed by the strength of its messengers. The messengers’ strength is measured by the criteria of fidelity to their mission. Opposition and resistance offer a rare opportunity to experience the power the Spirit present in them. “No one is a prophet in his home land” is a powerful realization of the enlightened mind. Besides, as Paul tells us, it is when we appear weak that we are strong ( 2 Cor 12:10).

Fear of confrontation, fear of encounter with reality and resistance to change does not allow us to be a transforming society. The culture of collective denial and minimization is at the root of the violence inflicted on our prophets. A mature community is expected to distinguish between what is said, how it is said, and who says it. However, it is not an easy thing to do. A child, a beggar, a neighbor, a coworker or any person without formal education can teach us the truth. Truth is not the monopoly of any other. It is the birth right of every human being. Call your prophets now to open the doors of heaven.