JESUS WITHDREW WITH his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8When they heard all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. 9Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12But he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was.
13Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14He appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15and to have authority to drive out demons. 16These are the twelve he appointed: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); 17James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder); 18Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot 19and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
20Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
22And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”
23So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? 24If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house. 28I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. 29But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.”
30He said this because they were saying, “He has an evil spirit.”
31Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
33“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
34Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
Original Meaning
IN THIS SECTION, Jesus’ demanding pace of ministry continues as the crowds still flock to him in droves to be healed and as the demons still cringe in alarm (3:7–12). He creates the Twelve, who will help extend his ministry of preaching and exorcisms and who will be prepared to supplant the current leadership of Israel (3:13–19). Members of Jesus’ family try to curtail his ministry, and teachers of the law from Jerusalem engage in a smear campaign in an attempt to check his surging popularity. Jesus’ response to them insinuates that they are guilty of committing the unpardonable sin of blaspheming against the Spirit of God, who is working in and through him (3:20–35). Those who have assumed jurisdiction over teaching and wisdom in Israel demonstrate themselves to be spiritually unfit.
The official challenge of the teachers of the law to Jesus compels the reader to decide who the true leaders of Israel are. Jesus’ announcement in 3:35 also raises the question of who are the true people of God, the members of the family of the Messiah.
Summary of Jesus’ Ministry (3:7–12)
JESUS RETREATS FROM the threat posed by the Pharisees and Herodians (3:6) and returns to the sea with his disciples (3:7, 9).1 Mark’s brief summary of Jesus’ mission reiterates themes from the previous sections: his extraordinary magnetism, his amazing power to heal, and the demons’ nervous recognition of him.
Jesus may withdraw to elude the conspirators, but he cannot escape his immense popularity.2 Throngs flocked to John the Baptist from all Judea and Jerusalem (1:5), but they come to Jesus from even more far-flung regions: Galilee, Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, across the Jordan, and Tyre and Sidon (3:8)—a geographical area that matches that of the Israel of old (see Isa. 43:5–6). The sick and downcast no longer wait for his touch but now throw themselves upon him. This exuberant crush of people stands in stark contrast to the grim verdict of the teachers of the law from Jerusalem and also explains why they are so worried about Jesus. His surging popularity threatens to undermine their leverage with the crowds.
The great crowds (emphasized twice, 3:7, 8) converge on him because of what they have heard, but it is fair to suggest that Mark believes that they are more interested in what “he does” (3:8) than what he says. Crowds by their very nature are seldom able to grasp truth. Only the demons and the reader have access to the secret information of who Jesus really is and by what power he is working. Nevertheless, the crowds are hearing (3:8). People respond by hearing, which makes the sending out of disciples to preach so crucial (3:14). The word about Jesus will be broadcast by authorized representatives and will reach even wider audiences. The question of how they hear is to be taken up in 4:1–34.
The unclean spirits continue to know him immediately, fall before him in surrender,3 and blurt out his identity. Unlike the demon who hailed him as the “Holy One of God” (1:24), their cry of recognition acknowledges him as “the Son of God” and more closely echoes the heavenly voice at the baptism (1:11). The voices of demons are always off key. The demons utter orthodox confession but are by no means “well pleased” by the presence of the Son of God. Mark does not narrate what effect, if any, their cries have on the crowds or the disciples in the story. He is more interested in the secrecy motif, as Jesus continues to prevent them from making him known.
More is at stake than an attempt to avert a premature disclosure of his identity.4 The ravings of demons can never be an agent of revelation. And his rebuke of the demons shows his power over them. In the first-century context, it would have been considered ominous for demons to shout out a name in recognition. The original readers would not necessarily assume that the demons were paying him homage, but instead might imagine that they were attempting to control him by pronouncing his divine name, thereby hoping to impede his deliverance of the persons in their clutches. The translation, “he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was,” is too mild. Jesus is not merely putting them under a gag order. The verb epitimao is frequently translated “rebuke,” but even this does not adequately capture its meaning.5 He also “rebukes” the wind and sea to “be still” (4:39), and the muzzling of the demons, like the quelling of the storm, is a sign that Jesus has overmastered them. He therefore both expels and silences the demons with a word.
Creating the Twelve (3:13–19)
THE SCENE SHIFTS from the sea to a mountain. The huge multitude is thinned as Jesus invites “those he wanted” to come with him. This call creates a distinction between those who follow after him desperately seeking healing, those who are only caught up in the spectacle of these strange events, and those who are summoned to follow after him as disciples with a particular task. Jesus “appointed twelve” out of this group who came to him. The verb poieo means “to make” or “to create” and recalls biblical themes. The Lord “appointed” Moses and Aaron to lead Israel (1 Sam. 12:6), and Moses “appointed” able men as heads over the people (Ex. 18:25). The initiative in creating and naming the Twelve belongs to Jesus, as it belongs to God in creating, naming, and choosing humans (Isa. 43:1, the Lord “created” and “summoned by name”).6 The Twelve have symbolic significance, pointing to the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel, and Jesus stands over them as leader.7 Implicit in the choice of the Twelve is a renunciation of the powers that be in Jerusalem.
The list of the names of the Twelve gives us scant clues as to their status, background, or religious training, but Jesus gives the first three striking nicknames. Simon is given the name Peter (petros, meaning “rock”), and James and John, formerly introduced as the sons of Zebedee, are called the “Sons of Thunder.” One can only speculate what occasioned these names or what they reveal about these men—their character, their faith, or their future roles?8 Judas comes last in the list and is identified as the betrayer, a name the church, not Jesus, bestowed on him.9
The mission of the Twelve is twofold. The Gospel of Matthew ends with Jesus’ promise to be with his disciples until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). By contrast, Mark stresses the disciples’ task of being “with [Jesus]” (Mark 3:14; see Acts 1:21–22). What does that mean? Most important, it denotes the Twelve as the witnesses to his ministry, who have learned from him and are qualified to pass on and authenticate the traditions about him (see Luke 1:2). Peter, James, and John, who comprise an inner circle, are with Jesus at momentous points in the Gospel: when he raises Jairus’s daughter to life (5:37), when he is transfigured on the mountain (9:2–13), and when he prays in Gethsemane (14:33). The task of being with Jesus is one that is harder than it might first appear. The Twelve will have to learn that there is a difference between hanging around with Jesus and truly being with him. The latter means that they must follow wherever he leads and share the toil of the ministry, the harassment of the crowds (3:20; 6:31–33), and the same bitter draught of suffering (10:39).
The Twelve are also created because God requires human cooperation to touch, enlighten, and heal others. Their second task is to fulfill the commission of extending Jesus’ work by preaching and casting out demons. Their companionship with him is to lead to service that benefits others. They are not merely on the receiving end of this outbreak of power but are to become channels by which it touches others. One should note, however, that the task of preaching and exorcising demons is not limited to the Twelve in Mark. The cured Gerasene demoniac is told to preach to his family in the Decapolis what the Lord has done for him (5:19–20; see 7:36). Others—one is identified only as “a man” who does not follow the disciples—are reported to be successful in casting out demons in Jesus’ name (9:38–39). The unique function of the Twelve that is not granted to others (see 5:18–19) is to be with Jesus.
The Reaction of Jesus’ Family and the Pharisees (3:20–35)
MARK REPORTS TWO other groups besides the awestruck crowds who have heard of Jesus’ deeds and who come to him (3:8, 21), but they come with quite different designs. Jesus’ family intrudes to round him up, not to rally around him. They are intent on silencing him, presumably to squelch any further unwanted attention from the populace or the authorities. They may be spurred by the noble but misguided desire to protect him from danger or, less nobly, to salvage the family reputation. The scribal authorities from Jerusalem come with the ignoble intention of defaming Jesus and sabotaging his movement. Both groups receive a stunning reproof.
This segment is the first example of the Markan technique of bracketing (intercalation or “sandwiching”), where the narration begins with one story but is interrupted by another before it is concluded. In 3:20–21, Jesus’ family goes out to seize him because they say “he is out of his mind.” Their action breaks off with the description in 3:22–30 of teachers of the law who come down from Jerusalem, claiming that Jesus is possessed by Beelzebub,10 and of Jesus’ rebuttal of the charge. In 3:31–35, the camera returns to Jesus’ mother and brothers, who arrive and call for him; and Jesus reinterprets what family means. This bracketing fills in time in the narrative, in this case between the family’s departure and arrival; but, more importantly, the technique allows the two separate stories to make a similar point.11 Both Jesus’ closest relations and the theological specialists from Jerusalem offer mistaken speculation about Jesus (cf. “they said,” 3:21–22); ironically, neither has any inkling of the truth. The insertion of the Beelzebub accusation between the bid to curb Jesus’ ministry makes the point that any attempt to derail or redirect his mission is as serious a sin of defaming him as Satan might do. “To avert Jesus from his mission is satanic,” as Peter will abruptly discover later in the narrative (8:33).12
Jesus’ mother and his brothers are not making a friendly visit but want to “take charge of him.” The same verb (krateo) means “to seize forcibly” elsewhere in Mark (6:17; 12:12; 14:1, 44, 46, 49, 51). They are left to cool their heels outside as Jesus dissociates himself from their authority. Jesus’ circle of intimates consists of those whose first allegiance is to do the will of God, and he adopts them as his brothers, sisters, and mothers. His biological family, who “call” and “are looking for” him, oppose the will of God without realizing it and become outsiders.
Jesus’ response to the visit from his family would have been a shocker because it runs counter to the received wisdom of the age. The family was the basis of social and economic life and the source of one’s identity. In the first-century Mediterranean world, an individual’s identity was basically that of a member of a group (dyadic personal identity). The genealogies and laws relating to family life in the Scriptures show the importance of membership in a family or clan (and village). In the Old Testament, “life” is used almost interchangeably with “family.” One’s family was one’s life, and to reject family or to be cast out of the family was to lose one’s life (see Luke 14:26).
But Jesus affirms that life under God is not defined by relationships in a biological family, which was primarily geared for the preservation of the family line, its wealth, and its honor (see Sir. 26:19–21). One’s ultimate devotion is owed to God, who is head of a new divine family, and becoming a member of this family is open to all persons regardless of race, class, or gender. The only requirement is that they share Jesus’ commitment to God. When Jesus asks, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” it strikes us as a rude disregard of the feelings of his family (see also Luke 11:27–28), but it would have been a comfort to those first Christians who lost their families because of their loyalty to Christ (see Matt. 10:35–39; Luke 12:51–53). They can be cheered that they are not without family but have become a part of a greater family of faith (see Mark 10:28–30). The setting in which grave charges are leveled against Jesus indicates, however, that becoming a member of this new family has its costs. Devotion to him is likely to bring abuse and persecution.
The scene shifts to irate teachers of the law from Jerusalem. Those in power in the holy city must have thought that the rumors regarding this popular teacher, preacher, and healer warranted sending deputies to investigate and to debunk any aura of holiness surrounding Jesus’ ministry. He comes from outside the system, which can only create alarm and resentment for those inside, and these critics do not plot in hushed secrecy but go publicly on the attack. They take for granted that Jesus is able to cast out demons successfully,13 but they insist that his success results from a special relationship to Satan, not God. He has Beelzebub (3:22); he has an evil spirit (3:30).
On the one hand, people frequently attribute to Satan what they fear or do not understand. The teachers of the law may have concluded that one who flouts hallowed traditions and who does not kowtow to their authority could only be an undercover agent for Satan. On the other hand, they may be venomously attempting to undermine Jesus by branding him as the devil’s spawn.14 The latter seems to be the case since Jesus warns them against blaspheming the Spirit. The religious experts do not allow as a possibility what the demons themselves avow and experience: This one is the Son of God, empowered by the Spirit. They are partially correct that Jesus’ ministry has to do with the kingdom of Satan, but they balk at admitting the obvious, that it has to do with its collapse, not its advance.
Jesus no longer responds to opponents with direct statements (2:10, 28) but speaks to them in parables (3:28), which draw out the absurdity of their accusation and open the way to the truth. Since exorcisms bring healing and not harm, Jesus asks if they really think that a malignant power would cooperate in widespread deeds of mercy and grant authority to another to decimate its minions. If their accusation is correct, the demonic empire is either crumbling from a conflict between warring factions engaged in some takeover plot, or Satan is irrationally trying to do in himself. If Jesus does not work by Satan’s power, however, another explanation is at hand: that a stronger one has bound the strong man and is pillaging his house.15 What is happening is not the result of a civil war within Satan’s ranks but a direct onslaught from outside.
This parable is an allegory. The strong one is Satan. His house is his domain, the present world, which he seeks to hold secure. His vessels are those hapless victims whom he has taken captive. The stronger one is Jesus, who has come from God, invaded Satan’s stronghold, and bound him.16 The allegory prompts us to remember the prologue, where John announced that one who was more powerful than he would come. It turns out that he is also stronger than Satan. Mark did not describe in full detail the temptation in the desert, but clearly Jesus must have bound the strong man for him to be able to plunder his house now. The parable prompts one schooled in Scripture to remember the promise in Isaiah 49:24–25, that God himself will overcome the mighty one:
Can plunder be taken from warriors,
or captives rescued from the fierce?
But this is what the LORD says:
“Yes, captives will be taken from warriors,
and plunder retrieved from the fierce;
I will contend with those who contend with you,
and your children I will save.”
With the advent of the kingdom of God, the battle is being waged not just against the petty tyrants and their domains but against the kingdom of Satan, which has enslaved all humanity.
This encounter with the teachers of the law from Jerusalem marks a shift in Jesus’ approach to his religious antagonists. The previous section reveals “that objective displays of the miraculous and public explanations were ineffective in persuading the Jewish religious-political leadership to side with Jesus.”17 The demonstrations of power and authority have only convinced them that he needs to be liquidated. Consequently, Jesus no longer offers them evidence to substantiate his claims, nor does he try to persuade them with argument from Scripture. He withdraws from the Pharisees’ sphere of influence and does not enter a synagogue again until he returns to his home town of Nazareth in 6:2.18
Although he withdraws, from now on he will give no quarter to his opponents whenever they confront him. Geddert compares Jesus’ response to questions raised by the Pharisees in 2:23–28 and in 7:5–13 about the deportment of his disciples to point up the contrast in his tactics. The inquiries are similar: “Why are [your disciples] doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”(2:24); “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?”(7:5). In the first incident, Jesus gives an explanation from Scripture (2:25–26). In the second, he ignores their question and instead uses Scripture to lambaste them as hypocrites and lampoons their whole tradition as perverting God’s commands (7:6–13). He gives an explanation only to the crowds and the disciples, who come when he calls them (7:14–23).
For their part, the Pharisees have become allies with the secular Herodians in hatching plots against Jesus and have relinquished any “right to be treated as honest inquirers.”19 Their hardened hearts also cause them to align with Satan. Jesus will no longer attempt to coax these leaders to faith. Instead, he will invest his energies with those who have demonstrated a willingness to follow him. But his approach to those who are not overtly hostile also changes. Jesus modifies the approach of providing “objective proofs” and instead begins to plant “seeds in receptive hearts that will germinate and, if the soil is right, eventually come to fruition.”20
Bridging Contexts
THIS UNIT, WHICH describes the excited response of vast crowds, the frightened response of demons, the frightening response of Jerusalem leaders, and the worried response of his own family, again brings to the fore the question of who Jesus is. Is he working by God’s Spirit or by Satan’s cunning, and how does one tell the difference? It also raises sober questions about those who would oppose and resist him. How one responds to this one in whom God’s Spirit works so mightily is not a matter of indifference. The issue of who can and will follow him and what Jesus expects of them also arises.
The section begins with a large crowd, which is reduced to a limited group of twelve who are called to be with him. It ends with Jesus’ naming all those who have gathered around him and who submit to God’s will as his closest family. To bridge the contexts, one should pay attention to three major issues: the opposition to the Spirit (labeled as the unpardonable sin), the task of the disciples and how it relates to ours, and the redefinition of the family.
Opposing Jesus. The reader of Mark is continually confronted with the Christological question, “Who is Jesus?” In the first half of this unit (3:7–19), people flock to Jesus from all over Israel, the demons acknowledge him as the Son of God and fall down before him, and he heals many who are possessed. In the second half (3:20–35), the resistance to Jesus grows in proportion to his popularity with the crowds. Jesus’ family comes from their home, and teachers of the law come from Jerusalem. The latter allege that Jesus is an agent of the devil (3:22), and his family thinks he is “out of his mind,” something frequently attributed to demon possession. The teachers of the law declare that indeed Jesus has an unclean spirit (3:30). The stark contrast between the reactions to Jesus forces the reader to decide who is right.21 Either Jesus is the Son of God who liberates the possessed, or he is himself possessed and an agent of Satan. Which is it? Either he is guilty of blasphemy (2:7), or the theological authorities from Jerusalem are.
In bringing this passage into our culture we would do well to ask ourselves what it takes to convince people that Jesus is the Son of God. What are the best tactics? There may be times when it is expedient to retreat in the face of deadly antagonism (3:7; see 13:14), to keep the boat ready to get away from the persecutors as well as the crowds that would swallow us up (see 4:36). There may be other times when a frontal assault will be effective. Most of the time, we refute more effectively the claims of hardened enemies with enigmatic parables, which tease the mind into discovering the truth for itself, than with abstract arguments or shouting matches designed more to win over the opponents than to win them over. Jesus’ use of parables with his opponents is the way of true love. He does not simply want to rout them in debate but to entice them to think together with him. His use of arresting imagery provides a common ground that they can understand and that can enlighten them with the truth if they are willing to open up their minds to God.22
Many readers of this passage, however, get sidetracked by the issue of the unpardonable sin. Jesus suggests (note the indefinite, “whoever,” 3:29) that his opponents are guilty of blasphemy against the Spirit, which he labels as unforgivable.23 Such a harsh statement has gripped the attention of many over the years and does need special attention, since many despairing church members have tortured themselves with fears that they have committed it. First, they do not recognize that what is condemned is the spiteful denial of the activity of God’s Spirit in the ministry of Jesus—to label the Holy Spirit an unclean spirit and to deny that the Holy Spirit works directly in our fallen world through humans to subdue the evil powers and to free persons and institutions from the bondage of Satan. Jesus makes the fierce assertion that this sin is unforgivable. Second, they do not allow for Jesus’ use of hyperbole to underscore that rejecting or obstructing the work of Holy Spirit is a terrible sin. They take his words literally and assume that some actions are unforgivable. McNeile explains that serious (or defiant) sin was often spoken of as “unpardonable” in the Old Testament (Num. 15:30–31; 1 Sam. 3:14; Isa. 22:14) and comments:
If the Lord spoke as a Jew to Jews and used the type of expression current in His day, and derived from the Old Testament, He meant, and would be understood to mean, no more than that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, by whose power He worked, was a terrible sin,—more terrible than blasphemy against man.24
The problem is that Christians frequently seize on the negative aspect of this saying—one is “guilty of an eternal sin”—and neglect the positive statement—“all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them.” The KJV translation, “is in danger of eternal damnation” (3:29), certainly grabs one’s attention. Since this passage has caused so many such unnecessary anguish, one wisely stresses that the love, grace, and patience of God are never exhausted by our abundant sinfulness: “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37).25 The gospel proclaims that God forgives what may seem to us to be unforgivable.
Clarifying from the context in which this saying appears what makes the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unpardonable should help. People need to learn that rejecting Jesus out of ignorance is one thing, but attacking the power by which he works is something far more serious. If one is weak, one can be encouraged. If one is ignorant, one can be informed. If one is willfully blind and deaf and rejects help, what can be done? One has cut oneself off from what might lead to repentance. The sworn enemies of Jesus have shut their eyes to the truth. They say good is evil in order to turn others away from Jesus, to preserve their own authority, and to resist becoming disciples. God is willing to forgive even this sin, but they have willfully shut themselves off from God’s forgiveness. It is not a single action but a continual state of spurning the Spirit’s work.
If one understands the so-called unforgivable sin as deliberately scorning the power and forgiveness of God, one can perhaps help those in the church who become worried, or even terror-stricken, that they have committed some sin that is unpardonable. That they even worry about it provides proof that they have not committed such a sin. Jesus affirms that blasphemy is forgivable (3:28), and the testimony of Paul confirms it. He identifies himself as a former blasphemer (1 Tim. 1:13), one who was no different from these teachers of the law in rejecting Jesus and maligning Christians as a satanic cancer destroying the fabric of Judaism (Gal. 1:13–14). He came to a new understanding through the direct intervention of God. It would have been unforgivable had he continued to spurn the Lord, not because he had squandered his one opportunity to respond, but because his heart would have grown more calcified and harder to penetrate and his ways more settled in iniquity.
If one errs on this issue, the Gospels indicate it is safer to err on the side of emphasizing God’s forgiveness; but there may be occasions when the dreadful nature of this sin needs to be emphasized as a warning. The parallel phrases, “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit” (3:28) and “whoever does God’s will” (3:35), suggest that one can move from one behavior to another. That teachers of the law from Jerusalem are guilty of blasphemy against the Spirit and that Paul, a former Pharisee, who excelled in the tradition of the fathers (Gal. 1:13–14; Phil. 3:5–6), confesses himself to have been a blasphemer in the past is suggestive. In this account, those who know Jesus best and those who should know the most about God are the ones who oppose him.26 Those who are probably most in danger of this sin today are the theologians, biblical experts, and leaders in the churches. They are also the most likely to level charges of blasphemy against others.
Mark’s use of the bracketing technique links to the charge of blasphemy an attempt by Jesus’ bosom family to obstruct his mission. Blasphemy against the Spirit is not just slandering the Spirit of God, which is easy to recognize; it also includes attempts to subvert the work of the Spirit of God, which is not so easy to recognize. The reason it is harder to detect is because those who may be guilty of it are those closest to Jesus and those who have convinced themselves that they are acting with the best of intentions. Few who have read this text have seen the connection created by Mark’s bracketing technique between the slander of the scribes and the attempted subversion of Jesus’ mission by his family. The latter sin is no less a blasphemy against the Spirit and is no less serious. Those who regard themselves as the intimates of Jesus, who seek and call for him, should guard themselves against their own attempts to undermine the Spirit’s working that runs counter to their wishes or expectations. Even those in Jesus’ family can unknowingly ally themselves with his enemies, and a divided house cannot stand.27
Continuing the disciples’ task. The original disciples were picked to be with Jesus to witness his deeds and words. To be with Jesus means that they learn to be as their Lord so that they can extend his ministry of power. At this point our task and theirs intersect. Mark believes that his readers can learn from their failures. The Twelve are not called to sainthood or to sit on thrones, nor are they presented as ideal disciples, who serve as models for the readers. The performance of the these twelve men in Mark makes it clear that humans, being what they are, are free to make their own choices and frequently fail in their partnership with God. Jesus chose Judas, for example, to be one of the Twelve, not to be a betrayer; but Judas made his own choice to desert him and to deliver him to the enemy. The story of Peter in this Gospel reveals one who is anything but rocklike. He is more rockheaded when he wrangles with Jesus about his messianic role (8:32–33) and more like the rocky soil whose sprouting seed withers under the feeble floodlight of hostile scrutiny (4:5–6, 16–18) when he denies his Lord three times (14:66–72). The Sons of Thunder are shown hankering after glory and riches that they think should abound when Jesus ascends his throne. They want the best seats in the house, to sit on the king’s left and right.
In spite of the failures of the Twelve, God’s purposes in calling them will not be thwarted, and God’s power can still work through them to multiply Jesus’ ministry. Disciples come with all their ignorance, weakness, and frailty and must learn to follow the pattern of their Lord for God to work through them to extend his ministry. Jesus alone is our model. Being with him means learning from his positive example.
To be with Jesus is therefore far more difficult than it sounds, and we should be careful, in bridging the contexts, not to soft sell the task of discipleship. The many hymns that exult in being with Jesus, such as “In the Garden,” may mislead us into thinking only in terms of the joys we share with him as we tarry in some idyllic setting. For the Twelve in the Gospel of Mark there was little time for tarrying as they rushed hither and yon with Jesus. It was not all luminous joy, prestigious authority, and triumphant exorcisms. To be with Jesus in Gethsemane (14:33) was certainly no picnic.
Because being with Jesus calls for sharing his travail, the disciples, like us, will be tempted instead to withdraw from him. Judas deserts Jesus and comes to Gethsemane with “a crowd,” brandishing swords and clubs (14:43). He would rather side with those who rule by brute force than suffer with one who looks so powerless and rules by love. When the posse comes to arrest Jesus, all of the disciples abandon him to face his fate alone. In the courtyard of the high priest, a suddenly shy Peter is recognized as one who was “with that Nazarene” (14:67), but he vehemently denies it. He would rather melt into the crowd and sit with the squad of Jesus’ captors, warming himself by a cozy fire (14:54). It should be made plain to those who might be attracted only by the exciting prospect of having authority over demons that to be with Jesus means to share his toil and adversity. Paul fully understood what it meant to be with Jesus and for Jesus to be with us when he wrote to the Corinthians: “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body” (2 Cor. 4:10–11).
The disciples’ task is also to proclaim God’s victory over evil and to liberate others. The fight against Satan continues. Jesus’ image of the strong man bound and his house plundered might lead us to conclude that he has been totally defeated. But the twisted bodies and minds and the moral and institutional vileness that we see all around us and even in ourselves belies this conclusion. The image does intimate that establishing the kingdom of God will not be effortless but requires struggle and conflict.
A tension therefore exists between the presumed shackling of Satan and Satan’s continued potency. Satan is defeated in one skirmish after another in the Gospel (the temptation, the exorcisms) but still has considerable battlefield strength that can inflict damage, and he will continue to resist. The slanderous attack on Jesus by the teachers of the law from Jerusalem is living proof of that. It might be compared to the Battle of the Bulge, when Hitler made one last desperate gamble and threw all of his forces into battle to try to halt the Allies’ advance after the successful invasion of Europe. The arrival of the kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus is only the beginning of the end for evil powers. Satan is able to consume the seed that falls on the hardened path (4:15), but that is more to the blame of the faulty hearer than Satan. The plundered house is like a building that has been primed for demolition with dynamite. When the dynamite detonates, the building remains standing for an instant before it crumples in a heap of rubble and dust. The disciples are promised spiritual power to engage and defeat the enemy; they need spiritual discernment to recognize who the enemy truly is.
Redefining the family. Jesus did not teach much about the family, nor did he give us a model for family living, and many have found what he does say about family relationships to be disturbing. Most would not find this text to be ideal for Mother’s Day or for a family enrichment theme. In an age when the fabric holding nuclear families together is so threadbare, we might wish that Jesus had given us ten tips on how we ought to relate to family members instead of giving his own family the brush-off. Jesus is alienated from his family, who apparently regard him as a lunatic, foolishly throwing his life away. How can we use Jesus’ exceptional view of the family espoused in this passage to strengthen the lives of families today?
Ernest Renan concluded in his life of Christ, written in the nineteenth century, that Jesus “cared little for the relations of kinship.” He described Jesus’ attitude as a “bold revolt against nature,” which trampled “under foot everything that is human, blood, love, and country.”28 Jesus’ curt response to his mother and brothers and his seemingly heartless response to a man who begged off following him immediately so that he might bury his father (“Let the dead bury their own dead,” Matt. 8:22) lends credence to the opinion that Jesus sought to undermine rather than strengthen family commitments.
But Jesus’ fierce condemnation of those who dodged their responsibilities to their parents through legal casuistry (Mark 7:6–13), his dispatch of the healed Gerasene demoniac back to his family (5:18–19), and his condemnation of divorce (10:1–12) reveals that Renan’s conclusion is exaggerated. Jesus’ radical image is not without precedent. It can be found in the strict monotheistic religious traditions of Judaism, which required a proselyte to forsake former relations, and in the diverse philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world. Followers could make sense of the demand to subordinate family ties for the sake of a higher good. All other allegiances must take a backseat.29
To bridge the contexts one needs to confront head-on Jesus’ reevaluation of the significance of biological family ties. If we are selfishly looking for how to make our nuclear families happier and more secure, we will not find much here. If we are looking for God’s grander purpose for the family, we will find good news, particularly for those who, for whatever reasons, are alone and without family. Jesus demonstrates absolute allegiance to God’s purposes and requires it of his disciples as well. He rejects the exclusiveness and selfishness that is often whipped up by biological kinship and claims that the anonymous crowds can become family to him and to one another.30 They become part of an even greater family, whose bonds, created by their commitment to God, are stronger even than the ties of blood (see 10:28–30; Rom. 16:13; Phil. 2:19–22; Philem. 10).
At the beginning of the section Jesus invited those whom he wanted (3:13). One might mistakenly take this to mean that those who may have desired to follow Jesus are turned away because he did not want them. The end of the section, however, throws the doors wide open. Anyone who does the will of God becomes a member of his family, and he redefines family beyond the biological kinship of the nuclear family and the clan. Biological family relationships are not based on choice, but becoming a member of the family of God is. The only membership requirement in this new messianic family is obeying God, whose commands are defined by what Jesus taught and did.
Contemporary Significance
BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE Spirit. The accusation that the enemies raise against Jesus challenges those who try to make Jesus over into a failed Jewish revolutionary, a peasant teacher who spoke timeless ethical truths, or a wandering Cynic preacher. The only reasonable explanation for the deep hostility of Jesus’ challengers is that Jesus must have claimed that what he did was the manifestation of God’s Spirit working in and through him. C. S. Lewis recognized that when one is faced with the claims of Jesus there are only two options:
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would be either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.31
The church does not openly revile the Spirit as these bitter opponents of Jesus did, but her blasphemy against the Spirit may take more subtle forms. Tied to this serious charge is the attempt by his family members to divert Jesus from his purposes. The church has been guilty of the very same thing more than once in its history. A classic example is the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. The Grand Inquisitor openly regards Jesus as a failure and boasts that he and his church “have corrected Thy work and have founded it upon miracle, mystery and authority.… We took from him what Thou didst reject with scorn, that last gift he offered Thee, showing Thee all the kingdoms of the earth.”32
The danger is that we will see this serious sin only in others—our deadly opponents—and not in ourselves. Slandering those who belong to Jesus poses as much danger as confusing Jesus with Satan. Church history is riddled with those who labeled their theological disputants as blasphemers and proceeded to excoriate, excommunicate, or execute them. If one describes one’s enemies as inherently evil or subhuman in some way, it makes it easier to justify doing away with them. When one characterizes an enemy as demonic, one can rationalize doing whatever one wants to eliminate that devil, no matter how devilish it might be.
The slander of Jesus by the teachers of the law reveals the extreme danger of labeling him. They may have been sincere in their denunciation of him and the power by which he worked. They may have been frightened by the new wine that was bursting their old wineskins. Someone has said that hell hath no fury like a coreligionist who feels betrayed. Vicious criticism of others in religious circles stems from a variety of motives: sincere distress over something radically new, genuine alarm over what is perceived to be heresy, a desire to reassure that we belong to the good guys by branding others as the bad guys, or a craven dread of losing power. The teachers of the law were seeking to protect the law, their tradition, and their stake in it. They may have firmly believed that God and Scripture were on their side. They were dead wrong, however, and their view was deadly to themselves and others.
Such people are still with us and still as deadly. At the end of the day, will they discover that they have obstructed the working of God’s Spirit? Anyone who deals with this text should be wary of pointing condemning fingers at others and should ask whether he or she may be guilty of obstructing the Spirit who is working in persons in ways that may be foreign and even frightening to them. One must pray for the discernment of the Spirit so that our pride, self-interest, and inflexibility do not cloud our judgment of what the Spirit can do.
Authority over evil. The apostles are not simply given authority, but authority to do good—to drive out demons. This does not mean that we need to have exorcism services in our churches or to train ministers for this task (although I have many missionary acquaintances who have said that it would have been useful for them to have been better prepared to meet this phenomenon on the mission field). What it does mean is that the church should do more than just talk about the power of God; it should be a community that exhibits some evidence of the power.
In other words, the church should be a community that does more than just confess his name, which is no more than what the demons do. The church is not to sit on the sidelines, watching the world go by and doing nothing more than offering people a different religious option for salvation. The church has the task of standing up and confronting evil in the arena of life. Jesus sends his disciples out to tackle evil that is larger than personal evil and to deliver people from whatever enslaves them. One may ask: Where is the evidence in the church of this power to change lives? Thomas Aquinas is reported to have had an audience with Pope Innocent II and came upon him counting a large sum of money. The Pope boasted: “See, Thomas, the church can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold have I none’” (Acts 3:1–10). Aquinas responded, “True, holy father, but neither can she now say, ‘Arise and walk.’”33 One may ask whether the church confronts the powers of evil today.
Some have placed an undue emphasis on miracles, however, by magnifying the significance of healing and exorcisms. It certainly brings excitement and drama to the worship service but opens the door to fraud and exploitation by the entrepreneurs of emotional stimulation. The shenanigans of ministerial con men have given the media plenty of fodder to parody. The church should always be wary of hucksters who manipulate crowds to their advantage and generally turn their ministry into stunts designed more to bring in dollars than to drive out evil. What is frequently ignored in the show is the internal evil that grips individuals, institutions, and whole societies. The church frequently can peg the charlatans who specialize in healing people with minor physical maladies but who are silent and helpless before the evils that corrode the souls of people.
Many prefer to retreat into a shell of comfortable Christianity. David Gushee’s sobering account of those few righteous Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews during the holocaust is disturbing because it documents how few Christians confronted the evil that swept Europe. What Hitler did could not have been accomplished without the complicity of a nation that was predominantly Christian. Gushee documents that of the three hundred million under Nazi domination, 90 percent were Christian and 60 percent would have described themselves as “very” or “somewhat” religious before the war. But the number of those who acted to save Jews was less than 1 percent. One of his conclusions is particularly disturbing: “The irrelevance of Christian faith for many self-identified Christian rescuers in so-called Christian Europe is an extraordinary finding.” Some of the rescuers took action “despite some of the teaching they received at church.” Lech Sarna, a devout Polish Catholic, was tormented after his attendance at church. He lamented, “I am sure to lose in both worlds. They will kill me for keeping Jews and then I will lose heaven for helping Jews.”34 The church is responsible for the moral formation of its members so that they can recognize evil and be willing to challenge it regardless of the cost.
The movie Schindler’s List drove home the violence and horror that went on every day in the Kraków-Plaszów concentration camp, led by Untersturmführer Amon Göth. The survivors report that the full obscenity of the violence could not be depicted in a film to be shown to the general public. Many of those who survived could not bring themselves to talk to Thomas Keneally, the author of the book that was the basis for the movie. The movie did embolden some to tell their story to Elinor J. Brecher, who followed up on the lives of the Schindlerjüden. One she wrote about was Helena Sternlicht Rosenzweig, who served as the housemaid of Amon Göth and tells of having arranged some flowers in the home. The commandant commented to his live-in lover how beautiful they were. She pointed to the housemaid Helena and said she put them there. He turned and looked at Helena and said: “So even if she does things well, I have to hate her; she’s a Jew.”35 One does not know who was the worse prisoner—the tortured Jew who could still arrange flowers for her tormentor, or the tormentor. The church must exorcise the demons of bigotry, intolerance, parochialism, chauvinism, racism, and sexism—all the isms that imprison humankind and impel them to devote themselves to inflicting pain on others.
The temptation is for us to retreat from the world or to overlook the evil in our midst. The last option is exemplified by the Reverend Tooker, pastor of St. Paul’s in Grenada, in Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. He mixes with a family in his church that is overrun by hatred, distrust, lust, avarice, and abuse. He is oblivious to it all. He only talks about building up the church, which means for him improving the looks of the church building. The former option is represented in Luther’s bitter comments about monks:
For when one flees and becomes a monk, it sounds as though he were saying, “Pfui! How the people stink! How damnable is their state! I will be saved, and let them go to the devil!” If Christ had fled thus and become such a holy monk, who would have died for us or rendered satisfaction for us poor sinners? Would it be the monks, with their strict lives of flight?36
We have been sent by Christ into the midst of an evil world to confront evil head-on with the power of God.
Jesus and the family. Jesus’ statement about the family has enormous repercussions for the way we live out our family commitments and the way we should minister to families. In Forrest Carter’s account of depression-era life in the 1930s, the grandfather explains to his grandson his use of the phrase, “I kin you.” It meant to love and to understand.
Granpa said back before his time “kinfolks” meant any folks that you understood and had an understanding with, so it meant “loved folks.” But people got selfish, and brought it down to mean just blood relatives; but that actually it was never meant to mean that.37
Jesus’ teaching reflects a similar understanding. His stance is radically different from what we might want to hear. A reporter’s interview of two gang members living in a large American city reflects a similar but perverted understanding of family bonds. They were first cousins, who had been raised together in the same home by their grandmother but somehow wound up as members of rival gangs. They confessed that they would not hesitate to do harm to the other if the situation or the orders of the gang required it. The dedication to the gang family would override the commitment to blood relatives. They defined family according to their common purpose rather than according to blood relationships. Jesus’ definition of family is similar: Our shared commitments to God tie us more closely together than biological kinship. The key difference between the gang family and the family of God is the commitment to live out the will of the Father, to bring good rather than evil to others.
As our world is drawn closer together by instant communication and supersonic travel, we seem to be growing further apart. Jesus’ definition of family embraces those outside one’s kith and kin as brother and sister. His understanding counters the ruinous tribalism and the ethnic strife that rears its ugly head in our cities and in nations around the world. If Christians would take to heart Jesus’ words about the family, the tragic slaughter of Christians by other Christians would not occur as frequently as it does. General Colin Powell tells the story of a young African-American soldier who was asked if he was afraid on the eve of going into battle. He said, “I am not afraid. And the reason I am not afraid is that I’m with my family.” He nodded over his shoulder to the rest of his unit, composed of white, black, and yellow young adults. “That’s my family. We take care of one another.” The members of the Christ’s church should be able to say the same thing as they take the gospel to a hostile world and as they face the struggles that come with everyday life.
On the other hand, Jesus’ definition of the family may create problems for many individuals instead of providing answers. The commitment to do the will of God may force some to make a wrenching choice between their biological family and God. The memoirs of Perpetua in The Martyrdom of St. Perpetua and Felicitas, which are said by the compiler to be written by her own hand, vividly present the divided loyalties that early Christians experienced. She was imprisoned for refusing to sacrifice for “the welfare of the emperors” during the African persecution. Her father pleaded with her to recant, but she responded that she could be nothing other than what she was, a Christian. Her father “was so angered by the word ‘Christian,’ that he moved towards me as though he would pluck my eyes out” (3.3). Later, he begged:
Daughter have pity on my grey head—have pity on me your father, if I deserve to be called your father, if I have favoured you above all your brothers, if I have raised you to reach this prime of your life. Do not abandon me to the reproach of men, think of your brothers, think of your mother and your aunt, think of your child, who will not be able to live while you are gone. Give up your pride! You will destroy all of us! None of us will ever be able to speak freely again if anything happens to you. (5.2–4)
She rejected his plea, and her final response was that she had found a new family, in which she had become a sister to her former slave, Felicitas (18.2).38 They died for their faith in each other’s arms. Bonhoeffer knew that one’s faith might lead one into situations where one had to make wrenching decisions when he wrote: “Neither father nor mother, neither wife nor child, neither nationality nor tradition, can protect a man at the moment of his call. It is Christ’s will that he should be thus isolated, and that he should fix his eyes solely upon him.”39
While some may be forced to disengage themselves from close family relationships that would strangle their commitment to God, we as Christians still need special people in our lives, a family of folks who support us, who are committed to us and we to them. We were not created to live alone, but to live in families. Augustine believed that the particular love of special persons in our lives schools us for the universal love of all others as neighbors.40 When Lyndon Johnson left Washington to retire to his Texas ranch, he was asked why he would want to leave the city. He responded: “Out there they ask about you when you are sick and they cry when you die.” People need community and want somebody to care for them.
The social sciences corroborate what God says in Genesis 2:18: “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Studies have shown that isolation of individuals, and even of the nuclear family, is correlated with a whole array of problems such as physical illness, suicide, psychiatric hospitalization, alcoholism, difficult pregnancies, depression, anxiety, child abuse, family violence, and proneness to accidents.41 Sometimes people can be surrounded by others and still feel alone because they do not feel that they belong to anybody or that anybody belongs to them. Researchers have found, for example, that if you put a mouse with a group of strange mice in a situation where they have to share an insufficient source of food, the outsider develops high blood pressure. But if you put the same mouse with its brothers and sisters in a group the same size and with the same inadequate amount of food, its blood pressure does not rise.42 Mice can handle stress if they have their family around them but not when they are alone among strangers. Other research shows that people are no different. People need to have families to help bear the stresses that life brings; and when they do not have one, the church needs to get busy and help make one or straighten out the feeling of isolation in a family gone sour.
In our culture, where so many feel alone, cut off from family for various reasons and surrounded by strangers, we should stress the positive aspects of this passage. The French novelist André Gide, in Les nouvelles nourritures, bitterly expressed a forlorn attitude shared by many: “Families! I hate you! Shut-in homes, closed doors, jealous possessors of happiness.” To those who feel shut out, Jesus’ word can be good news. Jesus knits his followers into a family that transcends kinship boundaries.43
We need to create special family relationships within the community of God that cut across the boundaries of blood and marriage. A congregation of a thousand people, or even two hundred people, cannot really be family to one another except in the extended family sense. Within that large family there need to be intimate family relationships. Thomas Helwys recognized this back in 1612, when he published his Declaration of Faith of English People. Article 16 maintains that the size of a church should be small “so that they may performe all the duties of love one towards another both to soul and bodie.” But even in a large church there can be small cells that function as family to one another. The church needs to seek out the lonely and not only help them mend their families but create new family relationships in the bonds of faith. Family ministry programs should not focus on ministering only to the nuclear family and meeting its needs but should use the family to minister to and to include others who are without family. The families in our churches can become means of ministry to those beyond the bounds of our nuclear families.
Jesus’ words about the family can therefore become good news for everyone. It strengthens the nuclear family by helping it to establish bonds beyond the cloistered walls of the family room by giving it a sense of purpose and ministry. Those who are family-less may find comfort from this word—the special-needs child waiting for adoption, the homeless mentally ill young adult, the teenage mother on her own at age sixteen, the aging adult who has outlived his children, the businesswoman trying to survive emotionally in an ugly divorce, the struggling single mother who needs a temporary foster home for her child. The goal of Christians in marriage is not to make a house an island of intimacy, shut off from others in the world, but to make a home for humankind. Through families, the church is to extend the kind of accepting love that transforms a runaway slave like Onesimus into one whom Paul claimed as his own child and as a brother to his former master (Philem. 10, 16), the kind of embracing love that transforms the runaway and throwaway children in our culture into “our children.”
The president of Asbury College, David Gyertson, testifies how this kind of grace transformed his life. His father abandoned his family when he was ten, and his mother forced him to leave home three years later. His life was turned around when he was taken in by a humble pastor and his wife, who shared with him the good news in Psalm 27:10: “Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.” This family did not simply share Scripture with him but shared their lives and home with him, taking him in as a son and modeling God’s love for him. If the church takes seriously Jesus’ ideal of what the family is, one of its tasks is to create and nurture families that make a place for all those who want a relationship with God as Father and with one another. This requires more than sharing a pew on Sunday morning and a fellowship doughnut afterward. Instead, we are to allow these persons to become our parents, our children, our siblings. We are to adopt one another, accepting responsibility for and commitment to one another.44 The church is to take those who know the hurt of the world and bring them into the healing of community acceptance.