With Jesus' visit to preach in his hometown, Nazareth of Galilee from which he came to be baptized by John in the Jordan (Mk 1:9), he has come full circle, the rough journey of a "Son of Man" prophet to a rebellious people (Ezekiel) among whom he is not without honor, except in his very own hometown. Folks elsewhere may have "fantasic notion" (S. Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity) of his humanity, but these do not, knowing the vocation in which he was brought up, and both his single parent (disfunctional!) family and the members thereof. They are offended, not by this wisdom, not by this might, and not by him per se, but by him as the possessor of this wisdom and might, the humanity which is this wisdom and is this might in repentance, and this wisdom and this might which is a man turning toward God from self-centered, home-town centered, rebellion.  In him there preaching and active in power, the Gospel hit home! God's own call to glad human repentance cannot be avoided through an idealism (fantasy, as S.K. saw it) in which either the humanity of the divinity of Jesus Christ can be ignored; they did not ignore Jesus, they were offended by him, they rebelled from him, they rejected his call to faith in the Gospel, they refused to repent. Prophets are God's ultimate challenge to the rebellious people, for the prophets themselves are the embodiment of the gospel that is law, of the gift and truth of repentance in the existence of a repentant individual addressing his or her people in a call to repentance.  And thus "he could do no deed of power there , except lay his hands on a few sick and heal them;" he could only confirm, in the truth of his own merciful existence, their alienation from the humanity of God and from God in humanity, their rebellion in their offence, their offence in the face of God's merciful embrace of lost humanity!" Indeed, he was amazed at their faithlessness, the senselessness of the hometown  to whom the grace of God in humanity was manifested in the flesh. And he moved on to other villages, having been amazingly confirmed in his identity as "prophet."

The Son of God did not become an idea, or an ideal or a principle, or an ideology, or a feeling or a stae of being, he became a man, the son of Mary, Jesus of Nazareth. Not is this man anything less than the Son of God himself. For all their offence, in their very offence the hometown crowd bears witness to this one who is True God and True man, the mediator. He himself is the one in whom God and our good neighbor are one: I will be your God and you will be my people! We shall love this God in wholehearted integrity and we shall love this neighbor as ourselves.

The second section of the pericope launches a new stage in Jesus' ministry. The twelve selected as the heads of redeemed Israel have heard and seen him preach and heal, heard and seen his being acknowledged and rejected by the authorities, and ultimately by his very hometown, and now they themselves are to take an active role  in bearing witness to him through their authoritative words and deeds of healing from unclean spirits. They too are to bear witness to the now homeless Jesus by themselves becoming the needy stranger the world who has left behind all help save God and the human community itself, offering only the wonderful words and deeds of witness to the kingdom of God., "proclaiming that ALL should repent."  

Again, the twelve did not become other-worldly monks, rather, they became apostles to the community of God, the flesh and blood church. Karl Barth once said that the trick is not believing in "the one holy catholic and apostolic church", the trick is believing that one's own congregation is "the one holy cathoic and apostoolic church." There is no ideal church, there is for us only the power of God manifested in the midst of our weakness, sustaining us unto eternal life in that heavenly Kingdom of Peace which has already been prepared for us through Jesus Christ our Lord.