Hope, Arkansas
“Even in the inevitable moments when all seems hopeless, men know that without hope they cannot really live, and in agonizing desperation they cry for the bread of hope.”
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Phillip found Nathaniel and he told him, “We have found the exact person that Moses and the other prophets predicted! He name is Jesus, Son of Joseph, He is from Nazareth.”
“Nazareth?” scoffed Nathaniel, “The messiah is from Nazareth? You can’t be serious.”
But Phillip was resolute, “Come, see for yourself.”
—From John 1:45-46
And his name will be the hope of all the world.
—From Mathew 12:21
Hope, Arkansas
Little places I have never heard of. That’s the way I used to think of small towns.
I grew up in one of these, “little places,” not too small, but small enough, adding to my child-like desire to move to the city. When people think of California, they think of L.A. and San Francisco—they don’t think of places like Chico. It literally means “little” in Spanish.
My childhood town was a college town, and anyone from a “college town” knows what I’m talking about. There are lots of universities across the country in all kinds of places, but a large one in a small place is what makes for a “college town.” A college town is where you can get a PhD and a breakfast burrito at 3 AM—and both might come with extra guac. And summer is a time when your small town becomes a ghost town.
The other thing about a small town is people don’t generally leave. I have over thirty close relatives and dozens of friends that still in this small town. Some of them haven’t left since Reagan was president. Others haven’t left since Reagan was governor.[1]
Most of the people I know there have never gone to college, even though the town is dominated by one. Most have gone “tubbing,” so it kinda balances out. Of nearly twenty first-cousins, I was the first to graduate from college. There are only two of us who have a four-year degree.
However, you don’t need a degree in a small town—you just get a job.
I’ve been to a lot of small towns in my life. Once in Colorado, I was speaking at three churches in one weekend—all “right on the highway.” In California, I once drove 4 hours to a church in a town of five hundred, where the main industry was sea urchin harvesting, which sounds glamorous until you realize it mostly involves poking spiky blobs with sticks and smelling like low tide.[2]
Fifteen people came to the morning service. That evening, at another church five hours further into the middle of nowhere, the pastor said, “Well, you and I are here. We’ll see if anyone else shows up.”
California has its share of small towns, but the South is their heartland—the kind of places where the local diner doubles as city hall, the high school football team is basically a religion and there’s always something going down at the Waffle house. Folks there tend to eye big cities with the same suspicion they reserve for tofu. Famous people rarely come from small towns—unless they do, and then the town renames a street, paints their face on the water tower, and adds a commemorative plaque to the Dairy Queen.
City folk often dismiss small towns as unimportant. But sometimes, even they are surprised.
Enter Nazareth
Having he regular opportunity to train students in the art of communicating the message of Jesus using the methods of Jesus, I have often begun with a question: What does Jesus use as an illustration more often than any other subject? Blank stares usually result, and minds churn trying to find a complex answer to a simple question.
“Farming,” I finally say, as looks of, “Oh, I knew that! I thought you were looking for something more spiritual,” spread across the room.
Jesus talked a lot about farming. Have you ever thought about why? The answer is simple.
Jesus was from Nazareth.
Nazareth. Hick town. Funny accents. Middle of nowhere. The industries were limited—farming and fishing.
Nazareth. A little farming community near a lake in the middle of nowhere, in a small, problematic province within the vast Roman Empire.
Hail to the Chief of Nowhere
I was driving through Arkansas one time on interstate 30 when the biggest road sign I’d ever seen came into view. It said, “HOPE, Arkansas – birthplace of President Clinton.” I wasn’t sure at first why the sign struck me like it did. It seemed so ironic. Then it hit me. The fact that the former “most powerful man in the world” came from this little blip on the map—this place to “stop and pee” on a long trip—was amazing indeed.
Hope, Arkansas. “A small, insignificant town in a small, insignificant state.” It’s what people must have thought when they heard the story of a presidential candidate’s place of birth. When, during a debate, Bill Clinton was asked what his qualifications to be president were, his response was that he was the Governor of Arkansas. Another candidate quipped, “Just because someone runs the corner store doesn’t mean you put them in charge of Walmart.” Pretty funny—unless you’re from Arkansas, then not so much. Especially because Walmart is, ironically, based in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Hope. Not A bad name for a place. I don’t know how Hope became Hope, but it’s a good name for a place.
Sometimes people name places for specific reasons. Boulder, Colorado, where I lived for two years after college, was named for the incredibly huge rock formations on the mountainside. City of Industry in southern California, a concrete jungle of warehouses and railroad tracks in the heart of the Los Angles metro area, was named for obvious reasons. Truth or Consequences, New Mexico re-named its city after a TV game show.
I don’t know why someone named Hope “Hope,” but it must’ve been a very optimistic person. For a small town in Arkansas to symbolize hope is a long shot, but the leader of the free world for a time, did come from there. Regardless of your feelings about any particular president, that’s not too bad.
Don’t think the teachers of every class, of every grade, of every school in Hope aren’t telling their students any one of them could grow up to be president. Teachers tell their students they can be anything. Regardless of how poor they are, regardless of their distinct Arkansan accent, and regardless of the fact their town is a “corner store in a world of Walmarts,” they can be president. It already happened once.
The Black Sheep
The Roman Empire of Jesus’ day was actually quite civilized and cosmopolitan. Education was commonplace; Literature, law, and philosophy were prevalent. The Roman Empire was the birth of western civilization as we know it; running water, democracy, and paved highways were made popular by the Romans. There were famous military heroes, but socialites, actors, musicians, and philosophers were also the celebrities of Greco-Roman society.
Most of the small countries conquered by Rome were thriving. The culture of the day changed little from place to place in your average Roman province.
Unless you were Jewish. In a culture where society and religion were deeply infused, having the wrong religion made it difficult to fit in. Most parties, business transactions, and other staples of social life revolved around religion. If you were Jewish, you couldn’t participate in the most important parts of Roman society.
The pagan religion of Rome was sort of a catch-all. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Gods were worshiped (not so much worshiped but appeased) in an effort to avoid natural disasters, overcome infertility, bring wealth and just about anything else you could think of. Name a situation and there was a God for it. Making matters worse, many of the religious rites involved prostitution, wild orgies, alcohol abuse, and other lewd behavior.
All of this made the little Roman province of Israel, where the religious rituals weren’t practiced, stick out quite substantially.
Israel didn’t fit into the Roman Empire well, and it was obvious to everyone. The Jews frequently revolted—they didn’t want to fit in—and the rest of the known world looked down on them.
It was bad enough to be Jewish, but Jesus was from the Galilean countryside. Most of his ministry was traveling from small town to small town—usually on foot, sometimes in a boat. We know of only a few times he traveled to Jerusalem, and when He did, they knew he was from the sticks by his accent.[3]
Apparently, even those who lived in the Galilean area weren’t too impressed with the small village of Nazareth.
One of Jesus’ own future disciples, Nathaniel, thought it must be a joke when he heard about this possible Messiah being a Nazarene. When Philip attempted to get his friend to come meet Jesus, he identified Him as “the son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathaniel’s response was a sarcastic one: “Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding.”[4]
From a lowly little farming town in a backwards little part of an out-of-touch Roman province, comes the Messiah. It’s about as likely as the leader of the free world coming from a little town, in a little southern state, where even other southerners make fun of their accent (believe me, they do).
Maybe they should have named Nazareth, “Hope, Israel.”
Because it really is amazing the messiah, the hope of humanity, came from such a place.
No Hometown Hero
It’s no wonder Jesus wasn’t impressed with the rich and powerful. Country folk seldom are. Small town people don’t tend to care much about what’s in and what’s out. They don’t usually revere the rich and powerful. They aren’t normally too concerned with the comings and goings of celebrities.
They seem to be more interested in the normal people—the people who cut their hair and fix their cars. Jesus always walked right past the important people to find the people who didn’t matter to anyone else.
I think it’s why he spent so little time in Jerusalem. He didn’t care about the politicians. He wasn’t interested in what the religious people thought of him. It’s probably why they didn’t trust him. It might be why the important people had him killed.
The Messiah was supposed to be like them, not a hick from the sticks. It didn’t make sense. It was the cosmopolitan citizens of Jerusalem who called out for his crucifixion.
Jesus didn’t fare much better in his own hometown either:
Jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. The next Sabbath, he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They asked, “Where did he get all his wisdom and the power to perform miracles? He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.
Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.”
And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any mighty miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them.
He was amazed at their unbelief. [5]
One of the blind spots of people who aren’t impressed by what other people seem to think is important is that sometimes they miss that which is truly “important” when it really is.
Jerusalemites may not have been impressed with Jesus’ pedigree, but Nazarenes weren’t impressed so many people were so impressed with Jesus.
Jesus’ family and former peers couldn’t handle Jesus’ new status and they thought that maybe it was time to knock him down a few notches. He was a construction worker after all. The crowds might have been in awe of Jesus, but not his hometown. There would be no hero’s return.
Jesus, they reasoned, was a normal guy from a small town in the Judean countryside. It was the same thing the rest of the Roman Empire thought.
But the political strategists were wrong. The President of the United States can come from Hope, Arkansas—and the Savior of the world can come from a little town in Galilee called Nazareth. From the most unlikely places, hope springs eternal.
Like you, I want my life to count. I’m the middle son of an electrician, from a small college town in the middle of nowhere; no one ever expected too much from me. Maybe they never even noticed me enough to expect anything. I don’t know.
Every time I think of Jesus’ humble beginnings as a Nazarene, I think maybe I could be something. Maybe I can leave a mark and change the world for the better. It can happen.
Just ask any fourth grader from a little town off interstate 30—at Hope Elementary School, they teach it all the time.
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Have you ever thought about how Jesus was a blue-collar, small-town guy with a rural accent? The most important person in history wasn’t a lawyer or politician or actor, he was a construction worker.
He didn’t grow up in Rome, Athens, or even Jerusalem—he grew up in Nazareth.
He was born in a stable to poor parents.
He traveled by foot, not private jet.
In a world of celebrity preachers (or preachers who want to become famous but find fame elusive), Jesus did everything he could to avoid fame, while maintaining his impact.
Change how You Think About Jesus:
Jesus was a hick from the sticks, but he changed the world. He said his followers would do greater things than he did. What amazing things is he calling you to do?
Challenge your Assumptions:
In what ways do you disqualify yourself as not good enough or not having the right background?
Choose to Live Differently:
What if you lived with the humble confidence knowing God uses all kinds of people, from all kinds of places? How would you live differently?
[1] Yes, Ronald Reagan was the governor of California.
[2] I have no idea what sea urchin harvesting actually involves
[3] The Galileans had a distinct accent as demonstrated when bystanders correctly identify Peter as Galilean in Matthew 26.73 because of his accent.
[4] John 1:46 MSG
[5] Mark 6:1-6 NLT