The Superintendent of Schools was having a bad year. Some contentious issues were being dealt with by the school board. One Sunday, during the coffee hour after church, I heard the Superintendent say in a particularly loud voice, "For crying out loud, it's my day of rest, too!" Someone had approached him about a concern in the school district, and he felt that there was no place he could go to get away from it. I learned right then not to approach people about business matters when they are not on duty. 

Jesus was able to deal with such intrusions more graciously. In the passage we are looking at, Jesus has been rejected by the people of his hometown, his disciples have just returned from a mission he sent them on, and he has been informed about the murder of his cousin, John the Baptist.…