Marking the Gospel. Jody Seymour
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of “demons.” The people seemed to really respond to the sermon. That was not always the case. Most of the people kept telling me that I was not preaching “hard enough.” One big, strapping man had told me that “We don’t need a preacher to remind us of how good we are. We need a preacher to tell us how bad we are.”
In any case, this particular Sunday I seemed to have struck a receptive chord. I was feeling good until one enthusiastic man came out, shook my hand and said, “I’m glad you finally preached about them demons, preacher. I’ve got two of them in my closet.” Some demythologizing is a waste of time. Jesus probably knew that before I did.
The crowd in these verses is clamoring around Jesus because he can manhandle the demons; the ones in their bodies and the ones in their closets. The crowd may be there for the wrong reasons (they aren’t yet able to glimpse the larger picture), but they are there and in great numbers. Despite the fact that they are working for the dark side, the demons are the ones who are able to recognize Jesus’ significance. In Mark’s Gospel it seems that everybody is having a hard time understanding what Jesus is really about, including the disciples he is getting ready to choose.
Mark 3:13–19a Choosing the Twelve
Jesus selects and then commissions. He does it in these verses and he does it today. The selection does not make those who have been appointed special, but it does make them needed. In Mark these twelve named disciples are not prominent characters. They are simply the ones chosen for the specific tasks of healing and proclaiming. Jesus needs help. It was and is that simple.
Those who are still waiting for Jesus to operate in a manner that is different from this are going to be left waiting. People have been waiting ever since he spoke the words of calling that we now have before us in these verses. Jesus makes it clear in these verses that he expects those whom he calls to do some definite things in his name. He will not do it all. He calls others to carry on his work.
It is interesting that the names of the twelve differ in different Gospels. What makes them special is not their names or their individuality, but their willingness to follow Jesus and do what he commands. Amazing things can happen when ordinary people respond to the call of Jesus.
The text implies that a few of the twelve were distinguished by nicknames. These few have a reputation in the early church. Peter becomes “the rock,” James and John are “the sons of thunder,” the rowdy bunch, and Judas is “the betrayer,” which is about as bad a nickname as you can get.
In Mark’s Gospel, the disciples are, for the most part, background figures who help the story move along. Jesus is primary. In a day where individuality has become primary we need to again hear Mark’s version of the story. There is a bigger plan. Jesus is primary. The community of believers is next. And coming in last is the individual. It seems that often in the modern-day church the order is reversed. Could it be that is part of our problem?
Mark 3:19b–27 Jesus and Beelzebul: The Devil Made Him Do It
Now we reach an interesting few verses. Jesus returns “home.” A crowd again gathers around him, but this time his family becomes concerned both for and about Jesus. Mark cuts to the chase and says that his family thinks he is mad. This time we are not talking about anger, we are talking about crazy.
Already we understand that Mark is presenting a Jesus who is not understood by the crowds. We have a Jesus who has set up Messianic expectations but who is going to present a far different picture than the one the Jewish people want. Now we have Jesus’ own family thinking he has gone off the deep end.
What are members of his family expecting? We have no Christmas story in Mark where Jesus’ mother goes through a virgin birth and is assured that her son is the one.
Why does Jesus’ family now think his actions are crazy? Could it be that his own family is not ready for the radical nature of what he is doing and saying?
Why does Mary not stand up for her boy? Why does she not say, “He seems crazy because the ways of God are crazy. I ought to know”?
There is the temptation to mix the Gospels and try to explain one of them by using another. We simply cannot do it. Mark is using his own sources. We have to let the Gospel of Mark stand on its own whether we like the picture or not. Mark is telling about a man who is not even understood by his own family. A picture of growing isolation is being painted.
The religious leaders chime in and accuse Jesus of being possessed by the devil. Jesus counters with a kind of parable in which he says something along the lines of, “Why would the devil commit suicide by shooting himself?”
Oftentimes Mark does not give the reaction to what Jesus does. I for one would like to know what his family says about all this. Are they reassured by Jesus words? Do they share in the fear that he is possessed by some spirit?
Mark is saying clearly that being a follower of Jesus is not going to be easy. Being called crazy is going to be part of the package. Remember that the folks hearing Mark’s Gospel for the first time are probably being called crazy for lining up to follow a crucified Messiah.
I often think that we domesticate and tame our modern version of Christianity, so perhaps we need to reintroduce the craziness of faith. There should be an element of faith that leaves one feeling a bit crazy. It is the part that makes us wonder if we are really going to follow a man who talks about “losing to find, dying to live, and forsaking all in order to have.” Have we turned the sayings into poetry? Some of them are crazy. He intended them to be that way. This foolish craziness is the new way of life for a world whose “wisdom” has a bankrupt element within it.
The “over-againstness” of Jesus’ words is met by the accusation of insanity by even his own family. Let us not lose this early reality that Mark preserves for us. Jesus is pushing against what people expect to be normative. The real spirituality of Jesus has a fire about it. Some religious practice attempts to contain the fire into a small flame to be placed in a lamp, a lamp for individual devotional reading.
Jesus comes to set the woods on fire. He once said that he came to bring fire to the earth. He is crazy. Within him burns the flame of God. His frame contains what has never been pulled off before or since. He is the “God-Man.” He is a delicate balance of the divine and the human.
I wonder sometimes if such a high octane blend would not have felt crazy. Maybe what Jesus is really saying is, “Yes, I am crazy but it is not the devil that makes me so. The source is none other than my Father in heaven. Want to be crazy with me?”
Close examination often shows that family units have within them an internal kind of craziness that only the family can really comprehend. Jesus offers those who will follow him an opportunity to be part of his family. His biological family has to realize that Jesus’ understanding of family is much bigger than the family tree. Under the shade of Jesus’ father’s family tree there will stand all types of people. When the religious types of the day realize just how inclusive the shade of the tree will be, they know Jesus has to be crazy. Their solution is to either cut down the family tree or hang Jesus from one of its branches.
Mark 3:28–35 The Unpardonable Sin/Jesus’ Real Family
Guilt is feeling bad about what you have done. Shame is feeling bad about who you are. Jesus expects that his followers will sometimes experience guilt because the expectations of being a disciple are challenging enough that guilt is sometimes the consequence, but Jesus has no room for shame. He has the divine quality of seeing each person as a child of God with infinite worth simply because they are. All the titles and good deeds are not important. Grace is the new norm by which people are measured. We all start the same, and we all mess up eventually. The law cannot save us. The many religious laws in Jesus’ day that were intended to be life-giving so often led beyond guilt to shame.
Jesus offers forgiveness for sins, but in this passage we read Jesus’ statement about an “eternal sin,” sometimes translated as the “unpardonable sin,” which is committed by “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit.” People who think that maybe they have committed the unpardonable sin experience all kind of shame. They may have a mental picture of a God who suddenly says at the Heavenly