Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Daily
gospel, exegesis podcast, produced, by logical Bible
study. And as always, we're going to
dive into the text from today's Gospel reading.
And we're going to try to work out.
What's the literal sense? What do the words mean in their
original context? What was the author trying to
convey? To Their audience.
And this is where we have to start as Catholics.
We have to look at the literal sense.
First we have a really interesting reading today, a
short one. So mark 3:20-21, Jesus went home
and once more such a crowd collected that they could not
even have a meal. When his relatives heard of
this, they set out to take charge of him convinced who is
out of his mind. So that's our reading for today.
And as always, we want to start by thinking about the context,
what's happened just before this.
So Jesus has just begun his ministry in Galilee in the
northern part of Israel. So it's very early on but
already has developed quite a big following.
There's crowds everywhere following him around just before
this he's gone up into the hills around the Sea of Galilee to
pick his 12 Apostles. Now, we'll start at verse 19 be
today. This is the last phrase in verse
19, it Sets the same, it uses, then he went home.
So, Jesus now goes back to Capernaum.
That's his home at the moment. And remember, he's living in the
house of Simon and Andrew, that's his house in Capernaum,
verse 20, once more such a crowd collected.
So, try to get the picture here, Jesus is at home, in his small
house in Capernaum. In fact, he can go and see this
house today. If you go to Capernaum, they've
basically uncovered what the house looks like.
And you can look, In from a bird's eye view, to see a floor
plan of this actual house. It's quite amazing.
So Jesus is here at home in his small house, probably with his
disciples probably with his family.
And there's people from all over the countryside, who want to
follow Jesus, and they followed him home and they're probably
inside the house. They're all crowding into the
house and marcius says, there's such a crowd that they could not
even have a meal. So Jesus and his disciples and
his relatives, they just want to sit down in their house to have
a meal. They can't even do that.
Those such a IT Crowd, they're wanting to hear from Jesus.
Verse 21, when his relatives heard of this.
Now, some translations don't have the word relatives.
They have it as friends or even own people when his own people
who heard of this. But I think the best translation
is relatives or family. So our lectionary gets it right
here, his relatives heard of this.
So, this would be his relatives in Nazareth, which is not far
from Capernaum. And Nazareth, is where Jesus
grew up, and it's where most of his relatives still live.
Now, verse One tells us more about who specifically these
relatives are. So Mark tells us in verse 31
that his mother hears about this and a group that Mark calls his
Brethren. And we'll look at this phrase a
bit more when we get to that reading.
Because obviously, there's been a lot of controversy about who
the Brethren of Jesus are in Nazareth.
The short version. Is it appears that these
Brethren are Jesus? Cousins, roughly there.
From Mary's side of the family and they also live in Nazareth,
just like married. So he's relatives his mother and
his Brethren set out to take charge of him or more.
Literally, what it actually says here is, they went out to seize
him, the same word there is used for, when Jesus is arrested,
they went out to seize him. So, Jesus relatives here, they
travel from Nazareth to Capernaum to come and get Jesus.
That's a 20-mile journey. So probably would have taken a
whole day for them to get, from Nazareth to Capernaum.
So, word is spreading from Capernaum to the nearby towns
that this miracle worker. Jesus is attracting, huge crowds
and Jesus relatives here about this and they want to come and
seize him. Why will Mark says they are
convinced. He was out of his mind, there's
different ways of translating this particular phrase, so
instead of out of his mind, you can translate it.
He is beside himself and there's even some ambiguity about who
says it. So, some translations have the
relatives saying he is beside himself.
But other translations because the Greek here is ambiguous
other translations, put it as for some people were saying he's
beside himself. So either Jesus family is saying
this or at least people in Nazareth in general are saying
that Jesus is beside himself. So word is getting around.
That Jesus is out of his mind. We need to keep in mind the
cultural context at this particular time.
So in this culture, family obligations and family ties are
very strong. They are very important and they
overshadow a lot of individual rights that we would have today
in Western Society. Family obligations came first
and an individual was always in a sense, representing his
family. So, any action by an individual
in that culture was seen as a reflection on the whole family
and any breach of family, honor would result.
It in severe discipline. So from the perspective of Jesus
family here, Jesus should be back in Nazareth, being a
carpenter rather than doing weird things like attracting
crowds and making the religious authorities angry.
So from what Jesus family understands Jesus wonder-working
activity. It's probably evidence that he's
mentally imbalanced. He's not thinking straight,
there's something wrong with him.
And we later see this in chapter 6, when Jesus actually goes to
Nazareth Pretty much the whole town has a similar attitude.
They think he should be a carpenter.
He shouldn't be a miracle worker.
Also keep in mind that Joseph is probably no longer Alive by this
point. So Jesus older relatives
probably felt that Jesus was under their charge.
They have to take responsibility for him.
So they hear that he's doing these weird things that he's out
of his mind is so they set out to find him and sees him
probably this is partially to protect him as well because they
Much sense that he's making a religious authorities angry and
he might be in danger so they come to get him in Capernaum.
That's the end of today's text and we then have what's
Scholars, call a mark and that sandwich?
So Mark often does this where he starts a story then leaves it in
complete turns to something else and then later finishes the
story and it seems that he does, this does this very carefully,
he puts a particular story in the middle of the sandwich,
that's going to in a Sense, amplify both ends of the
sandwich. And that's what Mark does here.
He leaves this story. Incomplete, and he turns his
attention to another event and then he goes back to describing
what happens with Jesus relatives.
So, this story of Jesus relatives will pick up again in
verse 31, which tells us what happens when the family arrives
in Capernaum, and he can hear that continuation on Tuesday of
week 3 in ordinary time. The next thing we're going to
hear this kind of middle of the sandwich, This interrupting
story involves, Jesus being accused of being possessed by
the devil, and that is actually linked to what Mark has just
said here about his family, because in that culture, mental
imbalance was associated with demonic activity.
So, that leads pretty well into this next story where people
come right out and accused users of being possessed by the devil
because they're sort of perceiving that, he's not
mentally right in their view. So, that's an interesting
reading today. There's no catechism references
for us to look, Cat. So we'll finish it there.
Please tell other people about the ministry.
This Ministries are only going to grow as people hear more
about it from the listeners. So please consider leaving us a
review on iTunes. It really does make a difference
or on YouTube as well. Make sure you subscribe and
hopefully you'll tune in again tomorrow.