What is going on here?
The year is 1976 and I am boarding at Horsham so that I can attend Horsham High School. I come back to the farm at Warracknabeal for weekends and school holidays. Horsham High is a much happier place than my previous school. 1976 is a great year and I feel secure, and supported and have a great circle of friends.
You can imagine my befuddlement and surprise when at the end of the year, the car is packed up, complete with siblings and we move to Horsham leaving my father on the farm.
What is going on here?
For years I did not, could not understand what had happened and why. My parents understandably shielded me from the slings and arrows of a very painful breakdown and then divorce. I had no idea and could not read the situation. Partly because it was hidden from me and partly because I did not have the maturity and insight of an adult.
In today’s gospel, some other people completely misread the situation. They do not understand what Jesus is on about, why he has come among them and his very radical understanding of what family is. So let’s have a look at these people.
First, the crowds show up. These pesky little blighters have been persistently gathering around Jesus from the very beginning of Mark’s gospel.
They swarm around Jesus at every turn (Mark 1:33, 37, 45; Mark 2:2, 13, 15; Mark 3:7-10.
The crowd does not speak, they express no worries, but their actions suggest they want more of Jesus. Exactly what they want is not clear, but they are not there to pass the time of day and talk about chooks, footy and the weather. They’re not even going to let Jesus and his disciples eat, so clearly there is a flurry of activity and conversation.
What is going on here?
The second group of people to show up are Jesus’ family. They intend to seize Jesus. Now the worrying begins. They should know him the best. They have been with Jesus since before his public ministry began. They have the most to lose if Jesus’ ministry provokes the wrong people; the people who have the power to crush Him. Jesus’ family want to take him away. Mark says that those family members think he is “beside himself”. They have determined that Jesus is not in his right mind. It seems they have no other way of interpreting what he has been saying and doing since he went off to see John and undergo a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. They have drawn their own conclusions.
They don’t really know what is going on here. They think they know, but they are wrong.
The third group of people to show up are the scribes from Jerusalem. They are eager to offer their explanation of Jesus and his power. Jesus has a demon. “He is possessed by Beelzebul! The prince of demons.
The family and the scribes are the two people who should know Jesus best. But by failing to see what is right in front of their eyes they demonstrate that they do not know him at all. They inevitably draw wrong conclusions. Both groups lack imagination. Both groups dismiss the possibility that God is restoring his Kingdom through the simple man in the house. They write it off as a satanic deception. They show themselves devoid of hope and openly contemptuous of God’s work. They don’t ask the question ‘What is really going on here? Or maybe an even better question, “What if…?”
Instead of spending the time and energy and being open to other possibilities, they actually miss out on opportunities. God’s opportunities for them, the opportunities that he so longs to offer them, to us.
What is going on here?
Part of their problem is this. The culture of responsibility, identity, stability, and opportunity were so bound up with blood relationships that Jesus’ pronouncement of a new family which includes everyone who does God’s will, no matter how scrappy and warped the family tree might be, is abhorrent and down right wrong. But it can also bring great joy to some and it should bring great joy to us, especially if we find ourselves estranged from our own families of origin.
Which brings me back to that overpacked station wagon heading off to Horsham. It took my father about 5 years of hard work and persistence to reestablish the relationship. It was not the same, nor should it have been. I was 22, studying at a Tertiary level, testing a vocation or rather being tested by a vocation. In the marvellous flush of engaged life.
What is going on here?
And at the end of life and at the beginning of life, at every stage, at every encounter where families are changed, not ended, where relationships are enhanced and transfigured into new dimensions and negotiate different, wonky ways of thinking and interacting.
And today at the altar when we break bread, share the peace, pour the wine… in silence, in words and in song. ‘What is going on here’ and ‘What if…?’