Misunderstood Goodness

Desperately seeking faithful expression and action in the world.

You ever had one of those days where it seems like everything and everyone is against you? This feels like maybe it was one of those days for Jesus. He can’t even find time to eat. The crowds are pressing in. The religious leaders accuse him of being possessed. And even his own family shows up to stop him, convinced that something has gone wrong.

It’s not entirely clear who these family members were at first. Mark seems to suggest that his mother and brothers arrive a bit later, so perhaps these were more distant relatives. Still, the concern is real enough for them that they come to intervene. And when Mary does appear, Jesus sets the relationship aside, at least momentarily, for the sake of a deeper point.

You have to wonder what their concern was. Perhaps they feared for his safety in what the religious leaders might do, or what the Romans might notice. Or maybe their worry was more immediate - reputation, stability, the quiet pressures of life in a small community. Whatever the reason, even those closest to Jesus struggle to understand what he is doing.

The religious leaders are no better. They cannot deny that something powerful is happening, so they reframe it as something dangerous. If good cannot be ignored, it must be explained away. So healing becomes threat, and liberation becomes deception. It’s striking how quickly goodness becomes suspect when it doesn’t conform to expectation. And then there are situations where there is no good at all, but the sides declare their perspective to be the right one based upon their prior, narrow understanding of God or even just morality.

And so Jesus stands between accusations and concern, rejection and misunderstanding. In that space, he redefines family not as bloodline or proximity, but as shared obedience to God’s will. This is really important and it’s very consistent of Jesus across the gospels. Nothing determines righteousness other than conformation to God (in Christ). When he does this, Jesus is not dismissing his family, but expanding belonging. Kinship, Jesus insists, is formed by faithfulness, not familiarity.

James echoes this redefinition in quieter terms. He reminds us that religious life is not measured by speech or appearance, but by integrity and care. It’s by how we attend to the vulnerable and how we guard our own lives from being fractured - exactly what Jesus was doing in these healings. True devotion, James suggests, holds together belief and action, inward faith and outward responsibility.

In both Mark & James, we are seeing how unsettling real faith can be. It disrupts assumptions. It redraws boundaries. And it often leaves us standing in uncomfortable spaces where even good intentions fall short or the presumed position of the past just isn’t enough anymore. The question is not whether Jesus will be misunderstood. We know he will be. But the task is whether we are willing to let our understanding be reshaped.

Many of us may be feeling we’re in a moment of significant calcification. Heels are dug in and most anyone only sees the given situation based upon prior understanding. We are human, of course, and we can only live and choose based upon what we know. But that’s the call of faith from a Creator God, isn’t it? To have an imagination that goes beyond what we might expect. The core convictions are of course the same - we just spent all of Advent & Christmas looking at them. But how those convictions take shape in the world requires new vision, new imagination, and a willingness to be reshaped by Christ yet again.

Mark 3:20-35

Jesus entered a house. A crowd gathered again so that it was impossible for him and his followers even to eat. When his family heard what was happening, they came to take control of him. They were saying, “He’s out of his mind!”

The legal experts came down from Jerusalem. Over and over they charged, “He’s possessed by Beelzebul. He throws out demons with the authority of the ruler of demons.”

When Jesus called them together he spoke to them in a parable: “How can Satan throw Satan out? A kingdom involved in civil war will collapse. And a house torn apart by divisions will collapse. If Satan rebels against himself and is divided, then he can’t endure. He’s done for. No one gets into the house of a strong person and steals anything without first tying up the strong person. Only then can the house be burglarized. I assure you that human beings will be forgiven for everything, for all sins and insults of every kind. But whoever insults the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. That person is guilty of a sin with consequences that last forever.” He said this because the legal experts were saying, “He’s possessed by an evil spirit.”

His mother and brothers arrived. They stood outside and sent word to him, calling for him. A crowd was seated around him, and those sent to him said, “Look, your mother, brothers, and sisters are outside looking for you.”

He replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Looking around at those seated around him in a circle, he said, “Look, here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God’s will is my brother, sister, and mother.”

James 1:26-27

If those who claim devotion to God don’t control what they say, they mislead themselves. Their devotion is worthless. True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us.

Prayer

God,

Help us.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.