Claiming His Big Family
Mark 3:19b-35
Rev. Dr. Mary Alice Mulligan
We already know Mark doesn’t give us any Advent or Christmas stories, but in the third chapter Mark gives us a glimpse of the Holy Family 30 years on. The set-up for the passage is odd. Mark intentionally shows masses of people eager for healing and listening to Jesus’ teaching crushing in on him inside the house. Meanwhile his mother, brothers, and sisters are always outside. The literary structure, the imagery, helps confuse us – who is on the inside with Jesus and who is outside? And to top it off, when his family comes to rescue him because people are saying, “He is out of his mind,” the literal translation is, “He has stood outside.” In other words, he has gotten separated from himself; he is one place and his mind is outside. So we are left wondering: Who is inside and who is outside? Who is close to God and who is distant? Our passage occurs just after Jesus has spent time up in the mountains (we can assume praying). Then he calls the Twelve to be with him, although he already has a huge crowd following him. When we listen carefully, Jesus often seems to be saying something different from what we thought we knew. From the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of Mark, listen for the word of God.
Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’ And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
‘Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’— for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’
Here’s something we don’t often consider. People think Jesus is crazy. Rumors spread; the hometown boy has gone nuts. Mark opens the scene with a crowd of listeners so large Jesus and his newly called disciples cannot even sit down to break bread together. People congregate, smashing inside to get healing, or to hear a word, or to see if his brain has come uncoupled. When his mother and siblings hear the rumors, they make way toward the house. The family worries he is out of his mind, so they go to restrain him, get him out of the limelight, escort him home. The word Mark uses for the family’s behavior is the same word used later in the Gospel meaning: “to seize him…by force.” Jesus’ family comes for Jesus, as Herod later would “seize” John the Baptizer to have him killed (6:17); and the guards would “seize” Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane (14:1, 44, 46, 49, 51) on the way to the Cross. Same word. His family, the people who know him better than anyone else, intend to seize him by force, because they think he might be crazy.
But before they arrive, the scribes enter. These religious authorities bring a verdict down from the Jerusalem-Temple big-wigs. They tell the crowd not to listen to Jesus, using the sharpest criticism they can think of. “He is, in fact,” they assert, “in league with the devil.” They describe his terrifying ability to draw demons out of people who have been tormented for years, claiming he must use satanic power to control satanic forces. In short, they say: “He is evil, masquerading as godly.” In first century Palestine, no label is more damaging than the one the family believes: “he’s crazy;” except the one the religious leaders believe: “he’s satanic.” People think Jesus is a pawn of Satan or crazy.
They think this because Jesus jumbles everything. He stands ideas on their head, claiming they are right-side-up. They know Jesus is a deeply Jewish person, yet he spouts ideas that rub, actually smash, against their treasured traditions. Like the widely accepted belief that wealth is a divine reward. Jesus rejects that. He claims the poor already possess God’s Realm. The wealthy are the ones farthest from God’s will. As Jesus defends himself against the accusation of palling around with Satan, he claims he is closely connected to God. But what image does he use? Jesus depicts himself as a thief; someone who breaks in to plunder the house of a trusted leader. He is threatening what people hold dear, claiming they are wrong. The scene is as dramatic as if someone dragged our pulpit out into the parking lot and set it on fire to indicate the preacher is absolutely wrong. And the someone doing the dragging and the setting on fire is Jesus.
But in addition to trampling on his religion; he tramples on family, too. He knows the value of family. He knows how when his ancestors came into the Promise Land each received parcels of land according to their tribal lineage. His own birthplace was a result of his heritage. We hear the story at this time every year. The Emperor declared a census requiring everyone to go to their family land to be counted. “Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David…While they were there, the time came for [Mary] to deliver her child.”[1]
The value of blood family was deeply ingrained in Jesus, but what do we hear today? The mass of people that theologian Wendy Farley calls “misfits, crazies,…demented, sick,…tax collectors, sexual outcasts…the diverse mess of humanity,”[2] these are the inner circle whom he calls his family, while those to whom he is biologically related are on the outside. It is as if Jesus says, “These smelly, shoving, desperate for my healing touch, oddballs are my family.” Jesus jumbles everything.
But his jumbled messages are calling us to loving action. Jesus wants us to draw closer to God’s will. Granted, the teaching style Jesus uses is tough love, sort of like getting us to clean out the closet by dumping everything onto the floor. He’s calling us to throw away the junk; keep what is worthwhile.
Jesus knows evil is real in the world. People sin, against the will of God and against each other. But evil doesn’t bring about good. So, when Jesus releases people from what the 1st century knew as demon-possession, obviously he isn’t healing them using the power of evil. The healing comes from his goodness, his Godliness. Only what is “of God” can mend the world.
But then Jesus gives one of his most difficult teachings: To blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable. Christians have fretted for millennia about “unforgivable sin.” We scratch our heads, pray for protection, but end up saying, “Whatever ‘blaspheming the Holy Spirit’ means, I hope I don’t do it.” But if we look at the context, Jesus is referring to the specific instance of crediting to Satan something performed by God’s power. When the Spirit of God acts through anyone, it is blasphemy to credit it to the power of evil. No matter whose action makes the world better, the source is the Holy Spirit. Jesus acknowledges that even those considered unclean (women, eunuchs, gentiles, Samaritans) could perform holy actions. Whenever a good act is performed, no matter by whom, the source is the Spirit, and God deserves the praise.
These days, all around, society seems seeped in a narrative of hate. One group hates another group. And even Christians find it easy to say, “I hate that guy.” Hatred is easy to feel when so much of it is bubbling around. But Christ calls us to reject the narrative of hate and embrace a narrative of divine love. When a disagreement tempts us to let hate swell up, Jesus calls us to let love swell up. Our opinions may differ, but we must approach the person from a place of love. Jesus is calling us to loving action.
Because he wants everyone as family. Jesus doesn’t want anyone outside his family tree. And how does someone get into Jesus’ family? Jesus says, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Jesus is not interested in what people say; he cares if they are participating in what God wills for the well-being of the world Jesus loves. We might wish Jesus would give us an easier way to determine who is in and who is out of his family – like having membership in a church be a test. Basing family membership on whether we are making the world more like what God wants is often more difficult to determine.
Consider the woman visiting a new town on vacation. She noticed several private Christian schools. She admired the Church community’s ability to support three schools, until she looked more closely at the big signs on the lawns. In front of each school, a sign announced the school’s name, its Christian commitment, and the year it was founded. The schools were founded just after 1954 – the year the Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” ruling. It seems these private, so-called Christian schools were started to keep white children segregated. That doesn’t seem like Jesus’ family.
Just a few years earlier, during the 1940’s and 50’s, Sargent Shriver and some other “radicals” were working to integrate the Catholic schools and hospitals in Chicago. So, let’s consider: Energy going into new schools to keep children segregated or energy expended working to bring racial equality into schools. Which actions show brothers and sisters of Jesus?
Jesus claims his family exists wherever good is being carried out, which means when the Muslim Red Crescent brings food and medical supplies to struggling people, Jesus claims them as relatives, too, no matter what they think of him. Wherever the Holy Spirit empowers acts of compassion, there is family. If Jesus had a car, I bet he would have that bumper sticker: “Hate is not a family value.” And by the way, this also means if we want to be in Jesus’ family, we can’t hate Muslims, or people with green hair, or even orange. We can’t reject people just because they aren’t like us, even if we don’t think they are living toward God’s purposes. Who knows what might happen if we love them? We are to live toward what God envisions. Love is the ultimate family value and those who live according to God’s good purposes are spreading the love, working for the well-being of others, and finding God’s family bigger than we might have imagined. It might even include us, because Jesus wants everyone in his great big, world-wide family.
[1] Luke 2:4, 6 (see 1-7).
[2] Wendy Farley, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, yr. B, vol. 1, 116.