Mark 3: 20-35
In today’s Gospel we have two very different groups in conflict with Jesus. They do, however, share a common goal. They want to make Jesus fit their image of who they think he should be. They have been the predecessors of this same frequent endeavor down through Christian history. We continually are trying to make Jesus in our image. We are relentless in making Jesus a more comfortable fit. We consistently like to take the sting out of his message. We never are quite up to his challenge and his persistent effort to tear down our fences of false security and exclusion. This is how we end up with the Gospel of Prosperity or a Jesus locked into the almost tribal limits of a culture or ethnic group. There are seemingly endless falsehoods of the Jesus of the Gospels.
In the world of Jesus’ time, people felt the demons were in charge. The evil spirits controlled a world of sickness and sin, oppression and poverty, division and isolation. Jesus’ exorcisms were a clear sign that the dominion of Satan was being destroyed by the Strong Man who was Jesus. All the signs pointed to the breakthrough of God’s new day. The Kingdom of God was, indeed, at hand.
The Scribes responded with a rigidity and childish argument easily refuted by Jesus. Their own opinion and mindset was the measure of reality. They had no room for Jesus’ deeds of healing and casting out of the demonic forces. They were obstinate. They would not be changed by factual reality.
Their great sin was to identify the power of God’s Spirit in Jesus’ action against the demons as the actual power of the demons. This is the rejection of the Holy Spirit and the total distortion of Jesus.
The family had another problem. They felt Jesus was out of his mind. The local boy from Nazareth was shattering all kinds of traditions and religious practices. Jesus had become a controversial figure challenging all the authorities, big and small. He was tearing down barriers and opening up to all manner of strange religious activity.
The family hoped to bring him home and talk some sense into him. They wanted none of his new changes. The simple the traditional way of Nazareth was quite sufficient.
Jesus responded to his family as he did to all of Israel waiting for the Messiah. He shared that his beliefs were not rooted in family ties or unbending religious traditions. His true family were those who accepted his message of good news and the coming Kingdom. These were those who transcend the natural bonds and now walked in the new light and truth of his Father’s Kingdom. Normal would never be the same.
Today we face the same challenge as the Scribes and his relatives from Nazareth. Our task is to accept Jesus on his terms. We need to live outside the protection of an inflexible doctrine. Our call is to embrace the ever-expanding boundaries of his message of inclusion. We need to accept the uncertainty that comes with Jesus call. It is only overcome by a trusting faith that guides one in the darkness that only turns into light gradually on the road to Jerusalem. Becoming part of Jesus new family means we face the daily task of finding our new brothers and sisters who Jesus calls “the least of my brothers.” (Mt. 25: 40) Our task is to be able to hear Jesus call us mother, brother and sister in the midst of life’s ever troubling challenges to our faith and search for God.
