Year B Proper 5 Mark 3:20-35

Growing up in a family is always both fraught and joyful. It can be a nuclear family or an extended one. Sometimes our family is one that has adopted us. There are a few who grow up in foster care or institutions, but later have families of their own. All of us have, in one way or another, experienced “family” with the support and expectations families bring. In my family, my Dad wanted me to be the first Kinney in my generation to graduate from college. That was doable. He also wanted me to marry a wealthy man. Well, one out of two isn’t bad.

Families have all sorts of expectations, hopes and dreams for their children. Some of these can be and are fulfilled, some not - but what happens when things don’t go anything like what the family has hoped for? What does a family do when the unexpected occurs, a disabling accident or injury, the announcement that a child is gay or transgender? What about the child whose politics veer suddenly into the unacceptable or even violent? We’ve seen it on the news, we know the upset and upheaval such deviations cause.

The crowd came together again, so that Jesus and his disciples could not even eat.

Today’s lesson gives us a rare glimpse into Jesus’ life. The Gospel of Mark, while placed after Matthew in our Bible, is nonetheless the earliest Gospel we have. In Mark there are glimpses of Jesus that we don’t necessarily find in Matthew, Luke and John – and like all writers, Gospel or otherwise, there are some things that are specific to Mark’s writings. The crowd is one of them. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is frequently surrounded by a crowd. They press in on Him, sometimes forcing Him to get into a boat in order to have room to speak to them. In today’s Gospel they are so close, so crushing, Jesus and His friends aren’t able to eat.

This is something we can picture, the huge crowd, pretty much mobbing our Lord, but it’s not the familiar way in which we normally think of Jesus, out on the hillside preaching, peacefully walking through towns and villages. It shows us what His life had become as His fame grew. The scene in today’s Gospel reminds us of paparazzi crowding in on a modern celebrity.

With most crowds Jesus was a popular figure, someone who would speak words of wisdom to them, who might heal them of their ills. But there were other crowds, the religious establishment, the scribes and Pharisees, with whom He was not at all popular. The crowds have become stifling, and because we have modern references with our own celebrities, the scene this morning is easy for us to imagine.

What does this crowd expect from Jesus? Unlike the often welcoming strangers Jesus encounters in His travels, this crowd is in His hometown. These people knew Him when He was a boy, and see what He has become as a man. As he was growing up they probably expected He’d be a carpenter like Joseph. Instead, He’s become a Rabbi, preaching radical ideas and doing things that go against the teachings and traditions of His Jewish faith. To these people, Jesus is an oddball, the local boy who as a man has deviated from the norm. This is not one of the friendly, welcoming crowds that Jesus so often encounters, in fact, the locals don’t hesitate to say they think Jesus has gone out of His mind.

When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him.

Of course they did. That’s what any family would do if the eldest son were to come home and cause a near riot. We can easily grasp what’s going on here, because we’ve seen it on TV. We’ve seen the errant young men and women who have run afoul of the authorities, and then seen their families, who come to their defense or rescue. Jesus hasn’t broken any law or done any violence, but He’s causing some serious unrest in the local community, and His family has come out to try to talk Him down. But, before they can get to Him, the accusations begin to fly.

The scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons."

Jesus responds with a parable, simple and to the point. The evil one will not cast out demons. Satan cannot cast out Satan. That’s self-defeating. What the scribes have said makes no sense. Then Jesus adds:

"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"

Very strong words, which deserve some explanation. Jesus begins by using the word “truly” which shows that He speaks with authority. Then He tells the scribes, the crowd, and us, that the only sin that lasts eternally, the unforgivable sin, is believing that the spirit in Jesus is “an unclean spirit” from Satan.

The Son of God, filled with love and compassion, has come home for a visit, only to be crushed by the crowd and heckled by scribes and others, some local, some who have had the gall to travel to Jesus’ hometown to confront Him there. What is interesting is that His family feels this is all Jesus’ fault. They would like nothing more than for Him to stop for a moment, to not be the “superstar”, not be the One called by God. They want to restrain Him, to have back the boy they remember.

But the boy they remember has become the man they no longer know. Perhaps Joseph hoped Jesus would follow in his footsteps and take up the carpentry business. Mary must have expected Jesus would live locally, looking after her as she grew old, as was the custom among Jewish families of the day. Family was everything in the Jewish community of Jesus’ time – life was centered on family and faith.

It must have been a disappointment for Jesus’ family when He left to become a rabbi, but this did happen in those days. At around age thirty, a man might feel called to such a life. What was shocking for Jesus relatives would have been His radical preaching, and the way He stirred up the crowds everywhere He went. Jesus is called by God to preach and teach and heal, and that is His focus. He knows His role, but it’s not necessarily a role of which His family or hometown approved. God is doing a new thing in Jesus, and new things are often not popular, especially not within traditional communities.

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."

We know Jesus loved His family. Even as He hung dying on the cross He entrusted His mother to the care of His beloved friend and disciple John. His brother James would carry on spreading the Good News after Jesus resurrection and ascension. Family was everything, but on the day in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus’ family is not on His side, not on the side of God and the Holy Spirit. They are acting as any family would, to protect Him, by trying to get Him to be who He was before His ministry began.

Jesus 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."

At first this response seems cold. We can imagine Jesus’ mother, outside with the rest of His siblings, feeling the sting of rejection from her eldest child. But when we think about it, we realize Jesus will welcome His family if they struggle into the small space where He is seated. He will welcome them, because He loves them. What He is making clear He will not do is be thwarted in His ministry, making clear that His ministry does not follow the cultural norms of His community.

When He declares, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,” it challenges the Jewish culture around Him. His is saying: No longer are you close to God because you were born into a Jewish household; no longer do you just take care of your own kind; instead, your family is being extended to anyone who does the will of God. God is expanding what it means to be bonded to another person the way we are in a family. God knows what is best for us, not the other way around.

To be Jesus’ follower means to embrace the upheaval of change, to be part of His larger family, a family completely directed and sustained by love. If we do not find ourselves struggling to change our attitudes, questioning our motives, shifting our point of view to be what Jesus wants, we are not doing our work as His followers.

Sometimes this will mean that we disagree with our societal norms, even with our own family, those we love, but with Jesus’ help, we will be able to love both those near and dear to us and also those in the extended family Jesus has given us. We will be able to love each and every person we meet and we will do this for Jesus. This is our calling.

This day may we begin anew, as the blessing from St. Clare says, to “live without fear: your Creator has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Go in peace to follow the good road, and may God’s blessing be with you always.”

Then Jesus will look at us and say, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, even when we understand Your will for our life, it doesn’t mean we find living according to Your will to be easy. To do what you ask, requires us to make many sacrifices. It is, in a way, like dying – both to ourselves and to the world. Lord, uphold us by Your Holy Spirit. Guide us through the challenges of life so that we may become witnesses to Your immense love. Amen.