The gospel message for this week is usually related about the danger of becoming overly familiar with the messengers of God.  This is what happened to those in the Gospel reading,  they became familiar even with Jesus himself.  They knew him or so they thought, and they took offense at him.  However, the message is more about how damaging envy can be in the life of a person. What is envy is shown in the Gospel reading.  These people wanted to classify Jesus as “this man.”  Emphasizing Jesus was no better than they were.  For them he was simply a man. And not only just a man, but a lowly man with a limited background.  They could not understand how a lowly son of a carpenter could speak in such a way.  The envy they had of Jesus was overwhelming, they needed to find something to bring him down.  Envy is still present today for the messengers of God.  There is the story of the crabs in a bucket.  There can be so many crabs in a bucket but when one tries to get out, the other crabs make sure they pull them back into the bucket.  For every person who wants to try something different, who tries to pursue their dreams, who tries to implement a good deed, there will be other persons who will try to bring that person down. There are people who will do everything to undermine what another person of good will wants to do for the good of the church.  How can a person with so lowly origins become smarter than we who have studied so much?  Where those this person get all this knowledge?  Why did we not beat that person to that idea? Sometimes the envy is spilling over so much it is physically evident with a face full of anger, so evident with a frown, and with the harsh words coming out of the mouth. Envy is so latent even among those closest in the church. How many times have we heard the expression: this is how we have done it for years, who is this father to do things differently?  He is only a priest. He is only a man like you and me.  Offense is taken so nothing can be changed, and the status quo can remain. We choose not to understand where a person proposing is coming from, because it means more commitment.  In the past it has been said, “Don’t like the message, kill the messenger.”  But killing is more than wounding someone mortally.  Killing also happens with the mouth.  God has a message, and then there is a tendency for a counter message.   God has something to say, and then there is always a ready reply, why things should stay the same.  God speaks, humans remain unmoved.  The people of the Gospel can be us people whenever we close our hearts because of envy.   The main problem with the people of the Gospel is not that they were too familiar with Jesus, but they had envy of Jesus. Envy distorts the message from God and does so much harm to us.  We do not grow, we do not flourish, we do not learn anything new. Instead of listening to the message, we ask out of envy: Why is this knowledge given to this person, and not me?  Why is this person given an opportunity, and not me? We are envious because mighty deeds are being performed, changes are happening, but it was not me who is making them happen.  We want to stifle any progress by putting the person in his or her place.  This person is only a carpenter.  This person is just a commoner.  We want to find some dirt based on family origins.  Someone from the family must have some shady past that can only damage this person.   Envy kills relationships. It really does a lot of harm (more so to the person with it).  A person who has envy in life, becomes a thorn in the side, an obstacle to the plan of God.  One can only feel sorry for such persons with envy, they will never be happy because they are always comparing themselves to others. The malice of envy takes them too far, plotting against good, always complaining.  They become bitter, always contradicting, always the opposition. At the end, envy will consume them. In the life of the church, we can be like two people. One proposing, the other opposing.  One encouraging, the other discouraging.  One promoting, the other disparaging. We will be either one, depending on the measure of envy in our lives.  Let us pray that we can come to know our value before God.  Let us pray that we may be free of envy in our lives, so we don’t destroy ourselves.  Let us pray we can listen to God’s messengers who can bring something new, something good to our lives.