Music Meditations
Opening Prayer
Lord, help me to do what it takes to be included in the family of Jesus. Help me to welcome others into that family, as Jesus would. Help me to discern your will for the world and for me personally. Give me grace, insight and courage.
Companions for the Journey
Commentary from an unknown source:
The King James Version totally removes Jesus' family from this part of the scene, saying: "And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, 'He is beside himself.'"
The New Revised Standard Version puts the disparagement of Jesus in the mouths of others, saying: "When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, 'He has gone out of his mind.'"
The authors of the Gospels according to Matthew and Luke, whose books were produced after the Gospel according to Mark and who included scenes similar to Mark 3:20-35, omitted from their narratives any suggestion that Jesus' family thought he was crazy.
The story told in the wider context, Mark 3:20-35, sets Jesus' family in comparison to influential religious leaders (legal scholars based in Jerusalem). Both groups express an inability to understand who Jesus really is. The religious authorities conclude he is possessed by Satan. His family assumes he has lost his sanity. In an ancient setting, these diagnoses were roughly equivalent to each other.
The scene underscores how those who presumably were in great positions to make sense of Jesus still were not immediately able to see him as God's agent. As Jesus announced and re-inaugurated God's intentions for human flourishing, many could not overcome the disorienting character of his message. Even close relatives and religious insiders were bewildered by what he said, which threatened to disrupt so many aspects of human society.
Maybe Jesus' relatives were dismayed that the first-born son wasn't supporting his family but was gallivanting around Galilee as a self-appointed prophet. Or maybe they wanted him, as Messiah, to have bigger and better ambitions, such as promising a revolution instead of preaching and healing the sick. The Gospel of Mark does not explain; it merely sets up a showdown of sorts when the family arrives to seize Jesus.
When the crowd says that his family is summoning him from outside the crowded building, Jesus answers with a shocking statement: "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? ... Look, here [these people seated around me] are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God's will is my brother, sister and mother."
It's good news for those inside the house, who seek to identify with Jesus and his message. It's also good news for Mark's earliest readers who found themselves estranged from their biological families (compare Mark 10:28-30). Bad news, however, for his relatives on the outside, and for others with high regard for customary notions of honor and social stability.
Jesus redefines the criteria for who constitutes his true family.
This goes beyond striking back at his mother and brothers' opinion about his sanity. More foundationally, Jesus makes a claim about what it might mean to belong to other people. He makes a claim about identity. Families, or "households," were the primary social and economic units of first-century society. Jesus speaks to deeply embedded cultural assumptions when he determines his true family not by blood relations or kinship ties but by doing the will of God.
No wonder some people are bent on killing him in this book.
Weekly Memorization
Taken from the gospel for today’s session…
Whoever does the will of the Father is my mother, sister, brother.
Living the Good News
What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?
Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:
Reflection Questions
Has anyone in my family questioned my decisions to the point where it made me uncomfortable or caused a rift?
What are the temptations we experience from forces averse to God’s plan for the full flourishing of all creation? (Barbara Reid, O.P.)
Have I ever made a choice that my family or friends did not agree with or approve of?
How did I handle that?
What do I do when I think a friend or family member is really making a bad choice in life?
When I have tried to listen to the voice of God, how often has that voice only been one of negativity and condemnation?
Do I define "vocation" as only ministry of some sort?
What else could be a "vocation"?
Is my family those to whom I am related by blood, or others whom I have chosen to be family for me?
What are the positive and negative aspects of each choice?
Do I have to choose one or the other, or can I include both?
We are shocked a bit by Jesus' reaction. However, he did not say that his relatives were not his family; He was making the point that there are non-family members who become Jesus' mother and brothers through doing God's will.
Jesus tells us we are his brothers, sister, mother. Do we believe that?
When I pray, do I ask God to grant my wishes, or to show me what He wishes for me?
Do I think of doing God's will as some sort of cosmic game?
When I think of doing God's will, am I choosing what movie to see, what to have for lunch, or where to love, or whom to marry?
How specific is God's will for me?
What if I make a mistake and choose wrong?
The following verses:
Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
very likely circulated as an independent unit before it was incorporated in this gospel.
Why would that be?
Are there words and actions of Jesus that might be offensive to some people today?
Meditations
A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:
Adapted from “First Impressions”, a service of the Southern Dominican Province:
Notice the implied popular belief the scribes expressed in their accusation against Jesus. They revealed a belief that evil possesses power and could do impressive acts. They seemed to believe that not all powerful deeds are of God and that these powers are not always well intentioned (“He expels demons with the help of the prince of demons.”). Their thinking is not too far removed from what we experience today: that there are powerful forces that can do horrendous evil in the world. At first glance these powers seem to be doing good for humanity; we call it: “progress” “modern discoveries,” “technology,” etc. But these forces can do harm and we need to ask if they are really advances, and at what price those advances? Who gains and who loses? And where does all this power lead us anyway?
To be honest, a lot of people followed Jesus because of the wondrous things he was doing. And to be honest, we seem to be attracted to and in awe of power. Who are those “wonder workers” or those who possess great power in our own society? To what extent has social media amplified that power to influence masses? Can we say all this power comes from God ? Can we say this power comes from the devil?
How do we tell the difference?
A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship:
In Jesus’ discussion of “family”, He went beyond biological kinship:(Whoever does the will of the Father is my mother, sister, brother.) But what about those who have tried and failed to either discern what God wants or to make that commitment completely? Through other stories in the scriptures, we learn that Jesus’ love was not confined to those whom he perceived to know and follow the will of God. His heart, and by extension, God’s heart is big enough to encompass all of us who are imperfect human beings or even abject failures. Consider the rich young man in the gospel who could not bring himself to give away everything and join Jesus. (Jesus looked upon him with love.) Consider Peter and the others who could not keep watch with Him, denied Him or ran away in fear. Many post-resurrection appearances started with Jesus saying: “Peace be with you”, and the charming little barbecue by the lake after a night of fishing certainly gave Peter a second chance ( or third or fourth chance, who knows?). I think of the times I have failed to live up to Jesus’ expectations and rejoice nonetheless in the love Jesus has for me, with all my faults and imperfections. I remind myself that God does not love me because I am good, but that God’s love helps me to be better. So I thank God for the many chances I have been given to listen and to follow, and know his love throught Jesus I writ my own personal prayer of thanksgiving.
A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Choosing to do what God wants:
Many of us do not spend much time in contemplation of “the will of God” except as it pertains to big decisions. As a result, we are a little “rusty” in making decisions that align with what we perceive to be God’s will. I pick a decision, large or small, that I am wrestling with, and put it in the context of doing what is good for me and others, and apply some logic and prayer to the process:
Here are some standards I can submit my decisions to: (From John Ortberg: What is Gods Will for My Life?)
Is this decision congruent with the reality that "it is more blessed to give that to receive"?
Is this decision leading me to trust my heavenly Father?
Is this decision compatible with my sexual integrity?
Will this decision enable me to follow the Golden Rule?
Will this decision help me to love my neighbor?
Then, end with this prayer from ‘Thomas Merton:
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Poetic Reflection:
We are all part of Christ’s family. This poem by Ed Ingebretzen, S.J., reminds us that that is what being “church” is all about:
EYES OF CHRIST
In hope and in prophecy
We are the saints
Keeping the word alive.
The Spirit of Our Lord
Anoints us as holy
We who are parents
We who are daughters
We who are pilgrims
Who walk together
Along the miles we take to God.
The Spirit cares for us
And teaches us to care
We who are brothers
We who are friends
We who learn to live
And how it is to love
We who learn how we shall always
Grow to God
Because the Spirit cares for us.
The Church is our eyes
The depth of our vision
The reach of our hands
Circling the world
Let us be for each other
The Church
A way of seeing
In which we are born in hope
Let us be for each other
Roads to the freedom who is God
Let us wear each other’s name
As close as our own
Brother, siser, friend mother’
Father, priest, consoler
For when our hands join
Where we shall meet God
Our names shall be the same.
We are the saints--loved by God
Christ’s great desiring
And He ours.
We are the Church
The rock, he bread,
The glass, the wine that reveals the Lord;
The eyes of Christ
Opening into tomorrow
Keeping this world alive.
Closing Prayer
Lord, there are those in my family whom I do not always understand. Give me the wisdom to see the goodness and integrity of their honest convictions. Free me from the burden of judgement of others that I am really not required to carry. Help our family, the church, as we do not always see eye to eye. Let us as church try not to judge the convictions and customs of others simply because they are different from what we are used to. Help me to discern your will for my life and for my Church. Then let me rest in your ineffable love and goodness.
