Sunday Meditation: His Brothers and Mother

We are now fully back in Ordinary Time, and the Gospel reading picks where we left Jesus before Lent and Easter entered the liturgical season.  Jesus had been preaching in Galilee with His disciples and now this Sunday returns home.  This passage is an example of what some scholars call a Markan Sandwich, that is, a technique that Mark likes to use in telling a story.  A Markan Sandwich is one where Mark starts with one story, transitions to another, and then returns—thereby creating the sandwich—to complete the original story. 

 

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."

 

Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables,

"How can Satan drive out Satan?

If a kingdom is divided against itself,

that kingdom cannot stand.

And if a house is divided against itself,

that house will not be able to stand.

And if Satan has risen up against himself

and is divided, he cannot stand;

that is the end of him.

But no one can enter a strong man's house to plunder his property

unless he first ties up the strong man.

Then he can plunder the house.

Amen, I say to you,

all sins and all blasphemies that people utter will be

forgiven them.

But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit

will never have forgiveness,

but is guilty of an everlasting sin."

For they had said, "He has an unclean spirit."

 

His mother and his brothers arrived.

Standing outside they sent word to him and called him.

A crowd seated around him told him,

"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."

~Mk 3:20-35

So the first story is that of Jesus’ family thinking He’s gone insane.  The middle part of the story is the conflict with the Scribes and His answers to their claims.  And finally He returns to conclude with a resolution to the first story.

Fr, Joseph Mary of the Capuchin Franciscans offers a pertinent homily.

 

Now some may be shocked by the verse about the unforgivable sin.  Jesus says, “But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin.”  What is this unforgivable sin, because I want to make sure I never commit it?  An old favorite of mine, Fr. John Corapi explains, taken from St. Augustine I might add.

 

 

Got that?  The unforgivable sin is refusing final repentance.  

 

Sunday Meditation: “For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

 

Let’s end with a hymn from John Michael Talbot, “One Faith.”