06/06/2021
In today’s Gospel reading, Mark records a story of fear-filled name calling. Jesus’ mother and siblings rush to his defense as the hometown crowds call him crazy, insane, beside himself. They also wince at the disrespect from the scribes who call him Beelzebul (another name for Satan).
As I sat on my couch, this week, virtually watching my granddaughter graduate from High School, I found myself waiting with anticipation to hear her name called as she walked across the stage. Today, we recognize several members of our church family by name for the same accomplishments with excitement! What honor! But name calling isn’t always so endearing.
Do you remember any of the names we used to hurl at one another as children? Many times, we didn’t even know what we were saying, but simply shouting a word that made us feel superior. I remember repeating a name my mother used to describe an older boy in elementary school and almost getting beat up! The name was “brainy.” I won’t list the specific monikers we might have used. Suffice it to say they are painful to the ear, humiliating to the memory, destructive to those at whom they were launched. When we regard the other as “less-than,” or when we know we have been bested; we go low.
What defense do the manic masses and the skeptical scribes have against such a one as Jesus? They cannot challenge his critical explanations or interpretations of scripture. They cannot replicate his miracles. They cannot draw his crowds. So, he terrifies them, and they mock him!
If anyone were paying attention, they would realize that, already, at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he is unassailable. After all, if he had a weakness, an Achilles heel, the nervous neighbors and restless religious leaders would exploit it, dismiss him, even close the book on his ministry. But there is no weakness, no fatal flaw, and they have been spying! So, they call him names!
As Jesus has already done so many times in his earthly life, he is called to respond to the confusion about his ministry by family, friend, and foe alike. So, he teaches, in a parable about Satan, and calls the scribes, his family and the crowd to account.
The very structure of our passage is interesting, important, and enlightening. We have a story within a story: the controversy with the scribes about exorcism and the parable about defeating Satan are inserted into an episode about Jesus’ family. This structure is called “chiastic,” meaning that ideas are introduced in order, then developed in reverse order. In this case, Mark introduces the crowd, family, and scribes in that order. The parable of Satan is the story in the center. Then, Mark reverses the order to scribes, family, and crowd.
This structure is important and illuminating for the way that it focuses on the central idea at the heart of the pattern – the conflict with Satan, the cosmic battle of good and evil. First the crowd gathers, followers of Way of Jesus and witnesses to his deeds and teaching. Then, family and scribes put forth the misguided, mistaken accusation that his power to exorcise demons comes from Beelzebul. You can almost hear the frustration in his words. “How can Satan cast out Satan? He carefully explains; Satan is divided and by casting out unclean spirits – Jesus defeats the evil bit by bit, undermining its power. But Jesus draws the line at confusing Satan with the Holy Spirit. Being misguided, blind, mistaken can be forgiven. The people may be slow to understand that Jesus, the man who heals, is in fact the Christ, the Son of God. Thus, Jesus’ healing power comes from the Holy Spirit. To call the Holy Spirit an unclean spirit is a blasphemy too far! Jesus has to speak with authority once again. So, in reverse order now – he reprimands the scribes, then his family, and he resolves the passage addressing the crowd.
Now, does Jesus reject his family, his mother, his brothers, and his sisters, when he rhetorically asks, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” I’d like to posit that, as he looks at the crowd and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers!”, he is instead connecting his earthly self with his divine self. Jesus has a human family, and he has a spiritual family. That spiritual family includes us, part of the crowd, followers of Jesus and witnesses to his Gospel.
Today’s complex and rich passage from Mark’s gospel reveals the tension between the human and divine natures of Jesus. He has a family that doesn’t understand him, that doesn’t see him clearly or fully. A family, friends, and a religious establishment, that do not see that he goes beyond humanity, and is the Christ of faith empowered by the Holy Spirit. A healer of bodies; of souls; a destroyer of evil, the Messiah who overcomes death to usher in the Realm of God.
Jesus’ ministry is outward – looking, expansive, as he welcomes all who do the will of God into his family spiritual brothers and sisters. It is God, through Christ and fully present in the Holy Spirit that abides in us, call us by name, helps and empowers us in our struggles against faithfulness, injustice, and exclusion.
“Will you come and follow me if I but call your name? Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same? Will you let my love be shown, will you let my name be known, will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?”
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus: there’s just something about that name! Master, Savior, Jesus, like the fragrance after the rain; Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, let all heaven and earth proclaim: Kings and kingdoms will all pass away, but there’s something about that name!”