In Their Cities

Matthew 11:1 (ESV)
When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities.
He went on to teach and preach in “their cities.” It doesn’t look like much, but there seems to me to be a profound lesson there. Jesus didn’t send them home. He sent them elsewhere. He sent them to other towns. He sent them to where they weren’t known. He sent them to cities where their former baby sitters would not be in the congregation. Jesus went to his own hometown once, and it was there that he prophesied that a prophet is not received in his hometown. His own brothers, his mother even rejected him at the beginning of his ministry.
I suppose it is somewhat the cross a man bears that he does not get to return home when he is a pastor. We go where we are sent. It may even be harder on the family who never get to know what it is like to go to school with cousins. Who never get to know what it is like to have an uncle coaching the football team. And sometimes young candidates chafe that they don’t get placed in their backyard. But in the end it is a good thing. Every town has one of them there cliffs for throwing prophets, or a school bus one can be thrown under. And we must remember it is enough for the disciple…