Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother

 And they went into a house.  Then the multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.  But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, "He is out of His mind."  And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebub," and, "By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons."  So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables:  "How can Satan cast out Satan?  If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end.  No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man.  And then he will plunder his house.

"Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation" -- because they said, "He has an unclean spirit."

Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him.  And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, "Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You."  But He answered them, saying, "Who is My mother, or My brothers?"  And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers!  For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother."

- Mark 3:19b-35

In yesterday's reading, we were told that because the temple authorities have begun plotting against Him, Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea.  And a great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and beyond the Jordan; and those from Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they heard how many things He was doing, came to Him.  So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the multitude, lest they should crush Him.  For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed about Him to touch Him.  And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw Him, fell down before Him and cried out, saying, "You are the Son of God."  But He sternly warned them that they should not make Him known.  And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted.  And they came to Him.  Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons; Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter; James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, "Sons of Thunder"; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananite; and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. 

And they went into a house.  Then the multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.  But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, "He is out of His mind."   Again, we see the effects of Jesus' ministry and preaching, and the power that comes from Him to heal.  It must have been quite something to see events like this, where the house into which He and His newly-chosen disciples (the Twelve) have gone.  So crowded it is that no one can even have a meal.  This kind of fame and furor may be something that we in our time consider to be desirable, and even with the level of social media reach and involvement today, "normal."  But it wasn't so at Jesus' time.  Perhaps, if we may try to understand how others in other cultures and periods have thought about social life, we may even understand that this is unseemly.  There's also the question of His position in the society:  He's not studied with a learned or famous rabbi, and not part of the institution of the temple and its hierarchy or authority.  Perhaps his extended family is reacting to what is going on within their own community in reaction to Jesus' ministry.

 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebub," and, "By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons."  So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables:  "How can Satan cast out Satan?  If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  And if Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he cannot stand, but has an end.  No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man.  And then he will plunder his house.  My study bible explains that Beezebub, or Baal, was the prince of "the dung heap" or lord of "the flies" (as the Jews disparagingly labeled a god worshiped by the Philistines - see 2 Kings 1:12-16).  Here, he is called ruler of the demons.  The impossibility of demons fighting against themselves illustrates the irrational pride and envy of the Pharisees in their opposition to Jesus.  In Mark's gospel this is the first reference to Jesus' speaking in parables, and we see the brilliant and straightforward illustration which ridicules and puts an end to the scandalous accusations of the leadership against Jesus made out of envy and perhaps fear of His popularity with the people.

"Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation" -- because they said, "He has an unclean spirit."   My study bible explains that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is blasphemy against the divine activity of the Spirit -- that is, a blasphemy against pure and true goodness.  These people may not know much about Jesus Himself, but blasphemy against the Spirit, whose divine activity they know from the Old Testament, will not be forgiven because it comes from a willful hardness of heart and a refusal to accept God's mercy.  A note says, "The Fathers are clear that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not an 'unforgivable sin'; nor does Jesus ever call this sin 'unforgivable.'  St. John Chrysostom teaches that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit would be forgivable if a person were to repent of it.  Jesus makes this declaration knowing that those who blaspheme the Spirit are calling pure, divine goodness 'evil,' and are beyond repentance by their own choice."

Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him.  And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, "Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You."  But He answered them, saying, "Who is My mother, or My brothers?"  And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers!  For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother."  We can look at the earlier verses in today's reading and see that Jesus' relatives are not all on board with what is happening in this former carpenter's life!  My study bible says that His relatives haven't yet understood His identity and mission.  He points here to a spiritual family based on obedience to the will of God.  In Jewish and contemporary usage around the Middle East, brother can indicate any number of relations.  My study bible points out that Abram called his nephew Lot "brother" (Genesis 14:14); Boaz spoke of his cousin Elimelech as his "brother" (Ruth 4:3); and Joab called his cousin Amasa "brother" (2 Samuel 20:9).   My study bible states that Christ Himself had no blood brothers, for Mary had but one Son:  Jesus.  The brothers mentioned here were either stepbrothers, sons of Joseph by a previous marriage, or cousins.  Indeed, Jesus commits His mother to the care of John at the Cross (John 19:25-27).  This would have been unthinkable if Mary had had other children to care for her.

 If we think about relatedness in Jesus' terms, it seems there are a couple of "families" in the world.  There are those who seek to do the will of God, the Father, and those who are outside of this particular family whose individual members Jesus calls His brother and sister and mother.  We really have to think about what all this means in the context of the Gospel, of the message we read here today.  There are also those people who accuse Jesus of blaspheming, of casting out devils by Satan, of working with demons in order to cast out demons.  This impossible crazy logic is shown up by Jesus in a potent parable illustration, but it's an example of those who are outside of this family of brother, sister, mother in the persons who seek the will of God.  There's a sort of parable within a parable here about rationality, about what divides and what scatters, what is related and what is not.  For those who seek to do the will of God there's a unification and relatedness that is based in what is reasonable, and where truth and goodness begin.  And so that leads us to Jesus' statement about blaspheming the Spirit; that is, the work of the Spirit in the world.  It's a condemnation of those who would call good evil, turn the world upside down with a false logic, a crazy kind of contempt that makes no sense when uttered by those who do so.  It's a kind of paradigm here that we see in today's reading, in which there is a Father who unites so many individuals in family and relatedness, and then there are those who are somehow without, who utter a blasphemy which requires repentance for reconciliation with that family and its Father.  Thinking in psychological terms, we have to ask ourselves what the likelihood of repentance is in those whose motives are purely self-centered, based on their own power and competition with others, those for whom self-interest justifies everything.  We must think about Jesus' terms of relatedness, of brother and sister and mother, and what it means to truly -- with all one's heart and soul and strength and mind -- seek the will of God, and to love one's neighbor as oneself.  It all goes to the heart of the sort of conflict we read about today:  what do we really choose to love?  What makes a difference to us?   There is a kind of passion for truth here, for the good, an open-heartedness that is willing to learn and grow.   It's there we find the capacity for re-thinking a decision, the capability of changing one's mind.   On the other hand, there is the loyalty to Christ that helps us to see into what looks good on the surface, but serves a false reasoning, a hidden premise, another kind of agenda.  What's most important to you?