Thomas Kleinert
The scene in Mark opens with beautiful simplicity: Then he went home. It sounds odd as an opening line; it’s meant to be heard as a transition: Jesus had gone from the synagogue to the lake, and from the lake up the mountain with the twelve, and then, it says, he went home.
Home is a word heavy with notions of comfort, safety, and peace. Home is always a good place to go to; if it’s not, it’s no longer home, or perhaps not yet. Home brings to mind familiar faces and things like a table, a chair, a bed; a window and the way the view changes from morning to evening, season to season; the smell of a blanket; the sound of the rain on the roof; even the distant hum of the interstate.
Where do you imagine Jesus went when it says, he went home? Didn’t he say, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”?[1] Other English translations of this passage render it, “then he entered a house.” Capernaum was home base for Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, and the house he entered may well have been Peter’s house, across the street from the synagogue. Returning there at the end of a long day of healing and teaching may have felt like coming home — except that again such a crowd came together, as Mark tells us, that they could not even eat. The house sits like an island in a sea of people. They are drawn to Jesus, want to be near him. Word has spread about his teachings, his power to heal.
And then his family shows up: his mother, his siblings; the people who have been with him the longest; the people, presumably, closest to him; the people, presumably, who know him best. Do they? Who knows you best? Perhaps you do, but then perhaps you don’t, because you can’t know yourself the way others know you, unless they tell you in ways you can hear, which is rare, but I’m getting distracted. Jesus’ mother and his siblings show up, and they are convinced he has gone out of his mind. You may be constructing a scene in your mind where they are concerned for his well-being, where his mom is here to say, “Son, have you lost your mind? Come on home now, eat a decent meal, and get some sleep. You’re wearing yourself out.” But that’s not what’s going on here. They have come to tie him up, to restrain him. It’s the exact same word used later in the book when Jesus is arrested.[2] His family are here for an intervention; the plan is to pick him up and take him back to Nazareth, in chains if necessary. They want to take him back to the life before his baptism, back to the familiar routines untouched by the voice from heaven, declaring, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased;”[3] back to the life before the Spirit’s descend and the disruptive proclamation of the nearness of God’s reign. They want to take him home, don’t they?
And they are not the only ones who don’t quite know what to make of his work and words. Scribes from Jerusalem have been watching and listening; they represent the authority and theological wisdom of the temple establishment. Their pronouncement that Jesus is a satanic agent and not a divine one, recognizes power at work in him, but they have determined the power is perverse. It’s the most damning assessment they can offer.[4] I am reminded of Isaiah’s warning cry, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”[5]
Mark’s readers know from earlier encounters that the demons themselves know who Jesus is: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”[6]
Our life together gives rise to great things, inspiring accomplishments and moving ideas, but also to systemic corruptions and horrific acts of violence. In Mark’s world, such baffling outcomes and the anonymous forces driving them are identified as demonic. They are evil powers, and they are incredibly resistant to being seen and named and driven out. Karl Barth wrote that demons “exist always and everywhere where the truth of God is not present and proclaimed and believed and grasped, and therefore does not speak and shine and rule.”[7] But Mark shows us, or perhaps I should say, the Holy Spirit shows us with Mark’s testimony, how in Jesus the truth of God is present, and how in him this truth speaks and shines and rules.
“Whenever the unclean spirits saw [Jesus],” Mark reminds us, “they fell down before him and shouted, ‘You are the Son of God!’ ”[8] Jesus’ mother and his siblings were not slow or blind, nor were the religious leaders from Jerusalem. Like us, they were living in complicated times, and like us, they wanted to maintain what little normalcy they felt was left. And Jesus was rocking the boat. Without permission, he forgave people. He taught with authority. He freed folk from the powers that were holding them captive, and he did it regardless of who they were or where they came from or what day of the week it was — there was no proper order to it. But there was power in his words and actions, and to some all of it seemed extravagant and reckless, to others, it was frightening. They were not slow or blind; they wanted to protect and hold on to what they knew. And Jesus was too disruptive; to some his power felt like chaos. “He is out of his mind,” his family said. “He’s fighting demons with demons,” the religious leaders concluded. The presence of God, in the life and work of Jesus or his followers, is not unambiguous. What is utterly life-giving and liberating for many, can appear like madness or even the devil’s work to others.
What can we do? Mark paints a scene for us. It’s a house with Jesus in it, and around it a throng of people. It looks like humanity in all of its beauty and weirdness, so many ethnic backgrounds, such curious political convictions, people on their knees, people on stretchers, the wounded and the oppressed, the overworked and the underemployed, all of us with our flaws and our dreams, with our thirst for life for ourselves, for each other, and we’re pressing in at the doors and windows, aching to be near Jesus and to touch the hem of his cloak.
The only ones to remain on the edge of the scene are the ones who already know what’s best for the family and for the people and for religion; in their world, Jesus must be restrained. In their world, the disruptive presence and work of God needs to be kept under control. But is has been too late for that since before they tried.
In his parable, Jesus identifies himself as the thief who has come to plunder the strong man’s house. He has tied up the strong man and now he’s ransacking the place. He’s the burglar who has come to rob the biggest thief of all: Life belongs to God, not to the master of demons. Not to the whispering liar who sows the seeds of lovelessness that grow into thickets of sin where demons thrive.
Jesus has his eyes on the strong man’s house, a house as big as the world, and on us who are tempted to believe that living in the strong man’s house is as good as it gets. Jesus has tied up the strong man, and demon by demon, fear by fear, lie by lie he’s dealing with the strong man’s minions, and leading the captives to freedom.
Mark paints a scene for us; it’s a house with Jesus in it. It was first seen in a village on the western shore of the sea of Galilee, but since then people have found it in communities around the world. It’s where Christ’s power to heal and forgive resides. At times we may be standing outside with those who say he is out of his mind, and there’s truth even to that misperception, because the life of Jesus, in contrast to ours, is entirely in sync with the will of God. And because his life is entirely in sync with the will of God, those who eat at the strong man’s table and worship at the altar of lies have already lost. Jesus never thought of himself outside of his relationship with God. He entrusted himself completely to the flow of love and grace, and he continues to offer what he receives with reckless, disruptive extravagance.
A crowd is sitting around him and pressing in at the doors and windows, aching to be near him, and they say, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.” And Jesus looks at all the humanity sitting around him, all of us wounded ones, all of us lost ones, all of us thirsty ones, longing for life that really is life and not just death’s prelude, and he says, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
Jesus sits in the midst of those who long for healing and freedom, and where Jesus is present, God speaks and shines and rules. The beauty of his mission is that the closer we draw to him with our desire to be healed by his wholeness, the closer we draw to each other. And the closer we draw to the reality of suffering and longing in each other, the closer we draw to him, and the more fully we participate in doing God’s will.
There’s a house with Jesus in it; it was first seen in a village on the western shore of the sea of Galilee, but since then people have found it in communities around the world. It’s where Christ’s power to heal and forgive resides. It’s a house as big as the world. It’s home.
[1] Matthew 8:20; Luke 9:58
[2] Mark 14:1, 44, 46, 49
[3] Mark 1:11
[4] Matt Skinner https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-10-2/commentary-on-mark-320-35-3
[5] Isaiah 5:20
[6] Mark 1:24
[7] Karl Barth, CD III/3, 529; quoted in Placher, Mark, 66.
[8] Mark 3:11