This troubling passage about family isn’t about who is in the family, but about what being family means for the world.
The ongoing project of divine kinship-building
Proper 5B | Mark 3:20-35
Before we get into why Jesus just disowned his Mom, I think we need to back up. Not all the way to the beginning. Just to the beginning of chapter 3.
[If you want to follow along it’s Mark 3, which is on pages 814 and 815 in the pew Bible.]
Jesus called a group of disciples and started healing lots of people. And more people are really taking notice. And here’s what happens:
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come forward.’ Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Mark 3:1-6
I’m not sure who the they at the beginning of this passage is, but I have my suspicions. See how they watch him? Not with generous hearts of wonder, but with intention. They want to accuse him. To catch him in the act, certainly, but more importantly, condemn.
Jesus’s response isn’t reactionary – he isn’t motivated by self-preservation. He’s always doing Kin-dom work. So he asks them which act is more full of God’s Law: saving life or killing? Is the Law to save or condemn?
– Nothing –
And with anger and grief at their obvious desire to condemn rather than save, because that’s what they came there to do, Jesus heals the man with the withered hand. And the leaders plotted to kill him.
This is the pretext.
But what happens next is just as important.
While the Pharisees and those loyal to Herod are plotting assassination like they’re the CIA, hoards of people begin mobbing Jesus. Not to kill him or hear his words, but to touch him, be healed by him. Physically surrounding him, pushing each other and against him.
So Jesus tells his disciples to get a boat. It is too dangerous. For him and the people.
so that they would not crush him; for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.
Verses 9-10
Get a boat. Not to escape, but because he needs a barrier from the mob. He’s isn’t going anywhere. Without touching them, he still has something for them.
This is when he calls twelve of these disciples to him and anoints them apostles – to be Christ, too.
Then they head home. But “the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.” They couldn’t commune.
Jesus must get angry and grieved, like at the synagogue, because people think he’s crazy. He must have lost it! And the Pharisees see an opening to condemn the one who came to save.
And in the middle of this steps his mother and brothers. Obviously he needs their help. It is easy to imagine what they’re thinking – the scene must be horrifying! So here comes Mama to the rescue! What Mama Bear/Protector doesn’t step in to save her son? Especially the savior of the world.
Jesus stops them in their tracks.
He says to their faces: you’re not family.
What Jesus says is gut-wrenching and appalling. And, in a sense, utterly inexcusable. Which is why we try to excuse it theologically.
Of course he should not be saying this (it isn’t nice) but… he’s trying to speak to the wider deal, right? So we pull this further into the Christian project and point out that the family isn’t acting like followers (read: being a Christian), so they aren’t part of the project.
While I think this is close to the point, I find it frustratingly distant. Like a bureaucratic reading of what it means to seek the love of God and bring wholeness to the world. And because of that, it only considers half the point.
This is why I wanted us to explore the rest of the chapter first. Because this isn’t a story about who Jesus’s real family is. It is about the nature of the Jesus project itself.
Jesus was in danger the whole time.
It wasn’t just the people who wanted him dead. They aren’t the only threat in the story. It’s the swarms of people that want something from him. It isn’t their need, but their greed. They come to be healed, to even steal healing by touching him without hearing him.
Jesus is outraged because they don’t see the project. A communal project of saving life and restoring all of creation, not condemning individuals within it.
And this is why family gets so confusing. They are trying to save Jesus’s life from the condemning! This sounds like the right thing. So why isn’t it?
The project isn’t just Jesus.
The gospel isn’t summed up in this moment. It isn’t about saving one life from condemnation, but to eradicate condemnation itself. You can’t simply escape evil and call it a day.
The project is about liberation for all, not just Jesus.
Jesus keeps pushing us out of the amygdala, our lizard brains, which break everything into a binary fight/flight response. Because neither choice offers a true solution for lasting change. Real change requires another way.
Jesus’s biological family prove that they aren’t down for the Jesus Project because they aren’t up to the Kin-dom work in the moment. Instead of seeking an alternative, they see fight or flight. And obviously, they pick flight.
Jesus, on the other hand, tells his followers to get a boat. Not to sail away, but to create a buffer to keep the crowds from literally crushing him. But he isn’t going anywhere.
This is why following Jesus is hard.
Not because he expects us to be warriors or trackstars. But because we must figure out that other way. It isn’t the same as compromise. We aren’t cutting everything in half: half fighting and half fleeing: and pretending we’ve come up with a clever solution. We’re making genuine Kin-dom work real. And that takes different effort.
Jesus understands his saving work can’t happen if he’s dead. Well…not yet anyway. And it isn’t only healing. People need to hear and see what God is doing: experience what is behind the healing. The source and its purpose.
This is about the Jesus Project, which at its heart involves living the Kin-dom life now. As apostles. We can be the Christ people meet in the world. Facing condemnation, sharing the good news, and making new ways of connecting with conflict.
We are in kinship with Christ. Not through birth or adoption; through institutions or transactions; but through participation in this one pattern of life – living the Kin-dom now. The easiest and hardest thing we’ll ever do. But look around. We’ve got all these apostles to back us up.