Rejected

Jesus came home with his disciples. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, “He is out of his mind!” The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he drives out demons.” . . . His mother and his brothers arrived. Standing outside they sent word to him and called him. A crowd seated around him told thim, “Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you.” But he said to them in reply, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3.20-22, 31-35)

If we’re of the Pollyanna type and tend to skirt difficult situations, then choosing not to read Mark’s gospel is a no-brainer. Go with Luke who, for the most part, is full of cuddles. Or even John who exalts Jesus to the high heavens, no pun intended. But do not read Mark who of all the evangelists presents the rawest and most painful picture of Jesus, a man who is misunderstood and rejected at every turn, finally crucified and buried when the hatred of him reaches fever pitch. 

We get it when the scribes and the Pharisees go after Jesus. They’re the protectors and custodians of the status quo, holding the Mosaic Law as their hostage, not willing to negotiate on any point. When Jesus comes along and challenges their interpretation of the Law, naturally their hackles go up and enemy lines are drawn. Already at the start of his gospel, Mark makes it clear to us that the scribes and Pharisees are going to be a major problem because they want to see Jesus as a threat, not as someone sent by God.

In fact, at the start of this same chapter–our selection today comes at the tailend–Mark tells us that “The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against Jesus to put him to death.” As always, Mark tells his story of Jesus at breakneck speed and so we’re less than a quarter of the way through it and he already announces to us that Jesus is going to die at the hands of the scribes and Pharisees. That somber forewarning sets the tone for the remainder of the gospel, requiring of us a strong stomach to plow ahead.

While only a fool would try to encapsulate Mark’s gospel in one word, I’ll be that fool. I would suggest that the word rejection comes closest to describing what Mark wants to say about Jesus. The man suffers rejection at the get-go and at every turn in the road, rejected soundly by the religious leaders who don’t give him a chance and finally even by the crowds who have been enthusiastic about his preaching but turn their backs on him in his final hour, “stirred up” by the chief priests as Mark describes it.

Of course, none of us should really be surprised, unless we are terribly naive or totally into rose-tinted glasses, because people in positions of power such as the scribes and the Pharisees do not take kindly to any threat to their authority and privileged way of life. They are highly invested in the status quo because their standing rests on keeping everything the same, something that Jesus apparently does not want to do, offering a new vision and a better response to the will of the Most High God. Like a hive of bees at the first smell of an intruder, they come out in full force, their stingers ready for the kill.

Nor, for that matter, should we be shocked to see the crowds change their tune as Jesus moves towards Jerusalem, nothing more fickle than a crowd that is always entranced by the new and the unusual, but just as easily distracted and disillusioned when the new wears off, particularly weak-kneed and wishy-washy when manipulated by the powerful and the privileged, becoming as ingratiating and flighty as Cinderella’s stepsisters in front of the dashing prince. 

But the gut punch comes when those whom we might expect to stay true to and to stand with Jesus whatever the situation do the opposite and abandon him with the same alarming dispatch as everyone else. That is when the hurt cuts deep. And that is why I say Mark pulls no punches, but lays out the unvarnished truth despite its ugliness and its sordidness. 

He does it today when he tells us that Jesus’ own family rejects him, believing he’s lost his mind, and he does it later in his gospel when he tells us that Jesus’ disciples also refuse to stay with him when the heavy hand of the law comes after him, scurrying for safety like rats in the cellar when the lights are turned on. 

In the end, Jesus stands alone, or hangs alone, crucified between two revolutionaries, mocked by the chief priests and the scribes who can’t resist one final jab, “Let the Messiah, the king of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” It seems the only friendly faces he can see in the crowd is that of a few women who “look on from a distance,” as Mark tells it, apparently the women being the only ones with a spine on that sorry and sad day.

But no need for us to jump that far ahead. There is a plateful of rejection before the final wallop if we are strong enough to stay with it to the end. So, let’s focus on the few short verses that we have today found at the end of Chapter 3 in Mark’s gospel, the verses that make it clear that Jesus’ own family thinks he’s acting like a madman. Painful as it is to hear, Mark makes no effort to soft-pedal or skirt around the fact that Jesus’ own family rejects him and his actions.

For convenience sake, I have kept connected the two parts of the story that contain the references to Jesus’ family, although Mark inserts between the two a monolog by Jesus on the impossibility of Satan fighting against his own forces, prompted, of course, by the scribes telling everyone that he was possessed by the prince of demons. Mark often tells two stories in the same breath, as he does here, both of them emphasizing the same point, reinforcing the message that Mark wants us to hear. Mark’s thought seems to be that if we don’t get it the first time, maybe we’ll get it the second time.

I feel we sacrifice nothing if we allow the family story to stay as a unit, so long as we understand that Jesus also provides a powerful counter-argument to the scribe’s insistence that he had an unclean spirit, making a brilliant defense that no kingdom, including Satan’s, could last for long if it worked against itself, as he would be doing if he expelled demons from other people.

In regard to Mark’s presentation of Jesus’ family, he makes no effort to whitewash their actions and intentions, telling us that they came from Nazareth to “seize him,” the Greek word that Mark uses implying the use of force, their intention to retain and restrain him. Mark’s explanation for their behavior is straightforward–”He is out of his mind.” Before we rush to judge, we have to understand the cultural milieu of Judea at the time, a mindset that was particularly sensitive to being shamed. Jesus’ family reacts as they do because they feel that he is bringing shame to the family. 

Locked as they are in their world view, they take this radical measure to preserve the good name of their family, traveling from home to “seize” Jesus and take him back with them so that he can bring no further shame to them. It is important to point out here that some later transcribers were so rattled by the verse that they changed it in their manuscripts to read “when the scribes and the others heard about him, they went out to seize him,” removing entirely the notion that it was Jesus’ own family at play here.

In the second part of the family piece, Jesus is informed that “your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you,” whereupon he replies, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Mark tells us he then looks around at those seated in a circle around him and answers, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

I suppose before we go any further we need to say a word or two about the elephant in the room, namely the explicit reference to Jesus having brothers and sisters. For the Roman Catholics in the crowd, that raises some eyebrows, the doctrine of the church teaching that Mary the mother of Jesus was “a virgin before, during, and after the birth of Jesus.” 

That notion is based on a second century writing written around 145 A.D. called the “Protoevangelium of James,” its authorship unknown. It is a comparatively short story addressing the birth of Jesus, probably written in answer to people’s questions. It is classified as apocryphal writing, meaning it is not recognized as canonical or part of the sacred texts. 

However, the Catholic Church, unlike some of the Protestant churches, has chosen to take the perpetual virginity of Mary from its pages and has elevated it to a doctrine. Interestingly, the same text says that Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was murdered by Herod and that his body was not found but his blood was turned into stone. So far as I know, the church does not hold that to be a doctrine of faith.

Mark, written close to 70 A.D., at a time much closer to the actual events, has no problem in stating that Jesus had brothers and sisters. At that early stage of Christian belief, he was not constrained by doctrines and disputes and wrote in a simple and straightforward style, stating the case as he knew it. Most Biblical scholars today believe that Mark was reflecting a historical view of the relatives of Jesus when he wrote his gospel. 

Arguing about whether or not Jesus had brothers or sisters is clearly not of concern to Mark. He states he did. And he states just as clearly that they had serious problems with Jesus, believing he had lost his mind. That is Mark’s point and it is the one that I think we should stay focused on. Because Mark wants us to understand the level of rejection that Jesus had to face as he stayed true to the will of his Father in heaven. 

From the start, he was criticized, ostracized, and called crazy, but, in spite of it all, he stayed true to his calling, even if it came at a great price to him personally. When rejected by his family, Jesus proposes a new family, one that does the will of God. In this family, his brothers and his sisters are those who are willing to accept the suffering and the rejection that are part and parcel of doing the will of God.

It is important for us to see that throughout his gospel, Mark presents Jesus in a prophetic role, following in the tradition of the great prophets of old who also suffered rejection and death at the hands of the powerful and the privileged. Based on that tradition, prophets are rarely respected or honored even by those closest to them, and, for that matter, they rarely live a long life. Their behavior is always suspect, surprising some and alienating others.

Understood in this way, Jesus’ rejection is following a pattern, a long and an ugly one, and one that has not been discontinued. Hence, his words to the new circle, his new family that he has formed around him. They too can expect to be rejected and to be called crazy. It is standard fare. When standing up against the forces of the powerful in the world, forces that do not abide by the will of God, it is always the price the prophet pays for staying true to his calling from God. And it is a price we also will have to pay if we wish to be a brother or a sister to the Lord Jesus.

–Jeremy Myers