The phrase “to turn something inside out” springs to mind this week. It is a sense that begins with the opening words of the Gospel text: “Jesus went home.” We think of home as a place of safety, acceptance, and belonging. And given all that has happened in Mark 2, we might imagine that Jesus might find some respite here. (Chapter 2 describes the blowback Jesus received from the scribes when he forgave the sins of the paralytic man lowered through the roof of the house by his friends; and the accusation of lawlessness made by the Pharisees when Jesus provided sustenance to his disciples by plucking heads of grain on the sabbath.) Instead, Jesus is accused of being “out of his mind” (exestēkota) by the people – a description which Jesus’ family seems to agree with for they journey to Jesus (“set out”), intending to make him stop whatever it is that is causing them embarrassment and concern – by forcefully constraining him if necessary (vs. 20-21).
The scribes journeyed all the way from Jerusalem (around a hundred miles away!) to accuse Jesus of being in the sway of a foreign deity (Beelzebul – a variant of Baal the Prince, or the Lord of the Flies referred to in 2 Kings 1:3,6), or of being satanic (ha-satan, the Accuser/Adversary) or of being possessed by demons (vs. 22-26).
Jesus responds using parables (parabolē), which in Mark’s Gospel consists of short metaphorical sayings, rather than the longer, more complex teaching stories and images of the other Gospel accounts. Why, asks Jesus, would Satan cast out Satan, or why would he rise up against himself and thereby divide his followers and threaten his own nefarious plans? (vs. 22b-26). It is here that Jesus describes the ‘unforgivable sin’ (the sin that is eternal/for all eternity, vs. 29) which arguably consists of abusing/insulting (the meaning of ‘blasphemy’ in this context) the Holy Spirit by accusing her of being the source of evil. This passage becomes the epitome of ‘inside out’ (and of upside down, topsy-turvey, or whatever other phrase springs to mind!).
The climax comes in verses 31-35, when Jesus’ family arrives, and sends a group to him to arrange a meeting. (Apesteilan, conveys here a sense of an ‘official delegation.’) But Jesus will have none of it. Breaking (scandalously!) with the familial conventions of his society and culture, Jesus asks, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” He then answers his own question: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (vs. 33, 35). Those gathered around him in faith and trust (”Here are my mother and brothers”) are his family.
The radical nature of Jesus’ teaching (indeed of his incarnation and ministry) is laid bare in this text. The family is reconstituted in terms of faith instead of blood. Or, as one scholar puts it, “Solidarity with Jesus in suffering makes a person a sister or brother… Such solidarity involves membership in a new family not determined by blood ties but by the shedding of the blood of Christ.”
