Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!
It wasn't enough to live in ostensibly holy places. What mattered was being holy people. The fact that one could see Jesus at work nearby was not inherently confirmation that one was in the right place, that nothing more was required. Observing Jesus at a distance was not enough. A response was required. In our own day an individual could spend a lifetime in Church, witnessing Jesus minister his healing power to members of the congregation, and assume things must be fine, but without having made a personal response himself. It wouldn't matter what kind of healings were happening even to the person next to him in the pew if his own heart was never touched or transformed.
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst
had been done in Tyre and Sidon,
they would long ago have repented,
sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
The mere fact of being from a background in which it was normal to reject God and his ways by no means implied anyone is disqualified from receiving salvation. When people did not think to regard their lands as holy it sometimes meant they were less likely to be presumptuous about the condition of their souls. When they heard about Jesus they might more readily decide that he ought to be more to them than a mere confirmation that they were already in good shape. They might, as in fact some from Tyre and Sion did, desire to hear Jesus, and possibly to be changed by what they heard. They would not necessarily assume that they were in the light, that they were already able to see, and might more easily discern the true light who had come into the world when he crossed paths with them.
And as for you, Capernaum, 'Will you be exalted to heaven?
You will go down to the netherworld.'
There is nothing automatic about discipleship. One can gain much by the circumstance of being born into a devout family. But if that devotion is never embraced by an individual choice it will not profit anyone who reaches the age of reason. Jesus did not say that it was necessary to be in the crowd who heard him. He said it was necessary to listen to him, and to the disciples who spoke in his name. We may balk at that second part, at the idea that the Church can make such definite demands of those who would follow Christ. But that is only to say that Christ represents something so real and definite that a self-defined response is insufficient. He is not something we made up ourselves, or someone whose parameters we determined on our own, and we therefore need more than arbitrarily or subjectively determined response. We need true conversion and repentance. His presence nearby makes us not less accountable, but more. As is evidenced by the lives we do see Jesus touch, he has come to bring healing. But we too stand as beggars in need of this mercy. The only reason we will miss out is if we stubbornly insist on refusing his invitation, which may well happen if we persist in denying we need it. May we instead welcome all the grace he desires to give us.
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