Reading
Mark 3:20-21
20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
Meditation
The expression "his family" (the literal translation from the Greek is "those with him") can indicate friends or, strictly speaking, relatives. On the other hand, Jesus had affirmed that «A prophet is not despised except in his country and in his house» (Mt 13:57).
Mark tells us that "they went out to fetch him", an expression that he uses elsewhere for the Pharisees who try to have Jesus arrested. The same hostility is recalled in the warning to those who have embraced discipleship, for whom Jesus prophesies arrests, betrayals. («Brother will betray brother to death») and persecutions («You will be hated by everyone because of me»), exhorting to perseverance and assuring the assistance of the Father's Spirit (Mt 10:16-23).
The accusation against Jesus of having lost the light of reason (gr. existemi) is equivalent to the accusation of demonic possession immediately afterwards addressed to him by the scribes. The powers of this world and the relatives of Jesus do not understand his preaching, his miracles and his unconventional lifestyle. Even the prophets before Jesus were accused of madness (1 Kings 9:1-11).
The disciple is called not to allow himself to be "imprisoned" in those parameters that the world establishes as "normality". He does not feed his own selfishness; he even forgets to take food (v. 20); he gift himself according to the model of crucified Christ, "a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Cor 1:23). Love, which leads to the overcoming of one's ego in full communion with otherness, is in itself madness; even the "carnal" love, earthly image of the spiritual one, is all-encompassing: "either all or nothing". Love is either radical or it isn't.
Prayer
Give us wisdom, Lord, to recognize that to love is to give ourselves, and that to give oneself is to forget about oneself. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
