Note: On Saturdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
… and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” (Mark 3:20-21, NRSVCE)
What has Jesus been up to before today’s Gospel reading? Well, He cured a man with a withered hand—on the Sabbath, no less—along with a bunch of other people. He named twelve of his followers as apostles. It’s easy to understand why He’d go back to His hometown, back to His people, to rest and recharge, albeit accompanied by the crowd.
Rest and recharge, however, were not what the people provided. They
said He was out of His mind.
The misunderstood-by-His-family (nuclear or extended) tugs at our hearts. How could they not appreciate Him, roll out the red carpet and kill the fattened calf for this obviously special person?
How? Perhaps we know better than we realize. The cousin who wins the big scholarship to the prestigious college, we call uppity or snobby. The aunt or uncle who spends significant treasure on overseas missions, we call weird. The sibling who cares for the sick, the dying, or the homeless, even amid the pandemic, we call irresponsible.
Jesus’s majesty was right there in front of His relatives, but they stayed inside their own heads and judged or feared, depriving themselves of the blessing that was before them. May we not make the same mistake with our relatives, for a bit of Him is in each of them.
