10th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) - Mark 3: 20-35

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 did 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. So we have a longer reading

today. It's Mark, Chapter 3, verses 20 to 35. And here we have what's called a mark and sandwich. So Mark often does this in his gospel where he talks about one event and then he sort of stops talking about that, talks about something else, and then comes back to continuing that first event. So it's sort of divided into 3 thirds. And the idea of the sandwich is that each part of the each of the three parts of the sandwich kind of sheds light on the other

part. So Mark deliberately interrupts the story to make a point that's going to help you understand the story. And then he resumes the story, and we'll see that as we go here. So Mark, chapter 3, verses 20 to 35, 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 he was out of his mind.

The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem were saying, Beelzebel is in him, and it is through the Prince of devils that he casts out devils. So he called them to him and spoke to them in parables. How can Satan cast out Satan? If a Kingdom is divided against itself, that Kingdom cannot stand, and if a household is divided against itself, that household can never stand. Now if Satan has rebelled against himself and is divided, he cannot stand either.

It is the end of him. But no one can make his way into the strong man's house and burgle his property unless he has tied up the strong man first. Only then can he burgle his house. I tell you solemnly, all men's sins will be forgiven, and all their blasphemies, But let anyone blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and he will never have forgiveness. He is guilty of an eternal sin. This was because they were saying an unclean spirit is in him.

The mother and brothers of Jesus arrived, and standing outside they sent in a message asking for him. A crowd was sitting around him at the time The message was passed to him. Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you, he replied. Who are my mother and my brothers? And looking around at those sitting in a circle around him, he said, Here are my mother and my brothers, anyone who does the will of God. That person is my brother and

sister and mother. So that's a long reading today. And now let's get into it. So Jesus has just begun his ministry in Galilee, in the northern part of Israel. So it's very early on, but already he's 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 B today. This is the last phrase in verse 19.

It helps sets the scene. It just says 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 crab collected. So try to get the picture here. Jesus is at home in his small house in Capernaum. In fact, you 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've followed him home, and they're probably inside the

house. They're all crowding into the house and Mark here 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. There's such a big crowd there 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

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 will 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 31 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, they're from Mary's side of the family and they also live in Nazareth, just like Mary does. So his 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 it 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 amazing miracle worker

Jesus is attracting Huge crowds. And Jesus relatives hear about this and they want to come and seize him. Why? Well, 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 is 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 over shadow 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 honour would result 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. So they set out to find him and seize him. Probably this is partially to protect him as well, because they might sense that he's making the 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 sandwich. So Mark often does this where he starts a story, then leaves it incomplete, 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. 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 activities. So that leads pretty well into this next story where people come right out and accuse Jesus of being possessed by the devil because they're sort of perceiving that he's not mentally right in their view.

So now the scribes come down from Jerusalem in verse 22. So up to now, he's just been doing stuff in Galilee, and the Galilean Pharisees don't really like him. But now we have some scribes from Jerusalem, which is actually South in the southern region. They're coming all the way up to Galilee. So they've travelled quite a few days to hear, to hear Jesus. They want to investigate this strange preacher that everyone's

talking about. South Jerusalem is sort of the capital of Israel and that's down the southern area and Jesus has been working in the northern area, but he's become so famous that word has spread to Jerusalem. So the Jerusalem leaders send these scribes in and these are kind of like the big guns they are.

The Jerusalem scribes were the absolute experts in the law that were considered to be more authoritative even than the the ones in Galilee. So they accuse him or they say firstly they use this word Beelzebel. This is a name, Beelzebel, and it's a word that the Jews used at that time for Satan. It's one of the words for Satan. Satan had a few names and Beelzebel was one of them. And it's probably derived from the Canaanite God Baal.

It's just another way of saying Baal or Satan is Beelzebel, so they say Beelzebel is in him. So basically, they're accusing Jesus of being possessed. By the devil. And this is their thinking. So the scribes have come to see him and they're like, how is this guy doing this? How is he casting out the demons? And their reasoning goes something like this. He's casting out so many demons, and the only person who has that much control over demons is the devil himself.

Therefore Jesus must be possessed by the devil. That seems to be their thinking. Obviously they've missed a key point here being that God has power over those demons as well. So this this saying, oh, he's possessed by the devil. So verse 23, he called them to him. So Jesus actually calls over the Pharisees and he wants to teach them. In particular, he speaks to them in parables, so he's going to give them a couple of short analogies, not like the longer parables we're used to.

It's still a parable though. It's a it's a short analogy. He's going to teach them a couple of things about exorcism and what it's all about. He says to them, first, how can Satan cast out Satan? And that's a rhetorical question. He doesn't expect them to answer because the answer is obvious. The answer is he can't. Verse 24, Jesus says to the scribes, if a Kingdom is divided against itself, that Kingdom cannot last.

So if you've got this Kingdom and there's internal fighting going on, the Kingdom is not going to last long. And so Jesus point here is, if Satan was being forced to get rid of his own demons, he's fighting against his own demons, then it would not be a very strong Kingdom. But the scribes knew very well that Satan's Kingdom is strong, so that can't be right. It can't be that Satan is fighting against his own demons. That doesn't make sense. Verse 25, Jesus gives another similar analogy.

And if a household is divided against itself, that household can never stand. So same basic idea. If there's fighting within the family, it will be a weak family. And now, verse 26, Jesus tells us the point he was trying to make. Now whenever you're looking at parables, you want to work out what's what was Jesus point. He usually makes a couple of little analogies. Sometimes he then tells his readers, and this is the point that I'm trying to make.

And that's what he does here. Thankfully, sometimes he doesn't tell the meaning of the parable though, and that's when the disciples sort of scratch their heads. But when he tells us the meaning of the parable, we should pay attention because that can help us get some principles for interpreting the other parables. And here he tells us what he means, verse 26. So if Satan has rebelled against himself and he's divided, he cannot stand either.

It is the end of him. So that's Jesus Point scribes. You're wrong. Satan is not casting out these demons. That doesn't make sense. So he's firstly, he's ruled out their hypothesis. He says you're wrong. Now in verse 27, having ruled out that idea about the Kingdom divided, he's now going to tell them what's really going on, what's really happening in these exorcisms. No one can make his way into a strong man's house and burgle his property unless he is tied

up the strong man first. Now some people have a problem with this because it's implying that God is a burglar if you take it too literally. But remember, parables are not supposed to be identical to Jesus or identical to God in every aspect. You can't map every aspect on exactly. That will be over stretching the

parable. He's just trying to make one central point that they will be familiar with and then applying that to God. So the idea here is if someone's planning to rob a house, but they're they're planning to do it, they know who lives there, and they know the home owner is a strong man, then the burglar is obviously going to make a plan to tie up the strong man first before he tries to steal his property. Otherwise, he's not going to get very far. The strong man's just going to

kick him out. So Jesus here is saying that Satan is like the strong man. Satan is like the strong man guarding his possessions. What's Satan guarding? He's guarding humans. In this particular period of salvation history, he has possession over humans, and in particular the ones that he has that he's possessed through the demons. They are his property.

So Satan is the strong man. And Jesus is saying that by performing these exorcisms, he is weakening the power of Satan, the power of the strong man over the world. So Jesus is weakening the strongman Satan. By casting out these exorcisms, he's slowly weakening Satan's influence in the world. So this probably implies, because remember what Jesus says here is first you weaken the strongman and then you plunder his goods.

So probably what Jesus is saying here is that these exorcisms that he's doing currently a phase one of plundering Satan's

house. So he's currently binding Satan, weakening his power over the world, and probably Jesus is implying that soon there'll be a phase two where Jesus steals Satan's goods and that would mean that's where he takes some of the people from the Kingdom of Satan and brings them into the Kingdom of God. So here I think is one of the clearest teachings about what Jesus mission is.

We don't often like to talk about Satan and him having power in the world, but that was the whole context of the Kingdom of God. If you read the Gospels carefully. Jesus clearly is teaching that the world is largely under the power of Satan, and the point of the Kingdom of God is to give people a different Kingdom to be a part of if they want to. So that's all the stuff about exorcisms there that he's he's done a couple of little analogies. Verse 28, we get to the hard or

controversial part to interpret. Jesus says to them in verse 28. I tell you solemnly, Now, whenever you say that you want to pay attention. This is where Jesus says, well, basically means I'm about to tell you something very important. Other translations would have this as truly, truly, or Amen, Amen. Or he who has an ear, let him hear. Verily, verily is the Old English way of saying it.

Whenever you see those flag words, you want to pay attention because Jesus is about to teach something, and it's probably going to be something that's binding forever. It's probably some general theological principle that he wants people to know about. So it's a signal that Jesus is about to conclude he's make a conclusion, bring everything he's said to a head and to make the point that he wants to make.

So he's dealt with the little things the Pharisees have said, and now he wants to make his deeper, more profound point. It's a textual indicator to us as the readers that he's about to say he's about to teach something in his capacity as Messiah. He's about to teach something theological and it's going to wrap up the things he's just said. Here's what he says. All men's sins will be forgiven and their blasphemies. So that's part one of the sentence.

So what's he said so far? He said that if a person turns to God and enters the Kingdom, then all of their past sins will be forgiven. Yeah, Jesus is saying there's no limit to God's forgiveness. All sins will be forgiven. Even blasphemies and blasphemies were some of the worst crimes according to the Jews. The worst sins because that's when you abuse God directly. It's a direct offence against God. But Jesus here says even blasphemies will be forgiven. But then the second-half.

Sorry, I won't say the second-half yet. Let's just talk about the word Holy Spirit, because it's the first time that Jesus uses it here in Mark. The Holy Spirit we sometimes think of as like it's not in the Old Testament at all. It's a New Testament idea.

It is in the Old Testament, but it's in the later books of the Old Testament. And a lot of those books are not in Protestant Bibles. So in the Book of Wisdom and the book of Sirach, there's a couple of descriptions about the Spirit of of God or the Holy Spirit. It's even called in one place.

So the Jews were familiar with, and they did believe in the Holy Spirit. It's just that they didn't connect it with the Trinity. They didn't believe in the Trinity. And Jesus is not referring to it in a Trinitarian way here either. So what was their idea of the Holy Spirit? It's basically the power of God on earth. That's what they saw the Holy Spirit as, the power of God on earth. And that's fine. We as Christians, we believe that too, with that in mind.

And so the Jews know what the Holy Spirit is, or the basics of it, Jesus now says. Whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit or another translation, whoever speaks a word against the Holy Spirit, why does he say that here? Well, the scribes were in fact just doing this. They were blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. If you think about it, they were blaspheming against God's work

on earth. They were watching Jesus cast out demons with the power of God and they were attributing it to Satan. They're blaspheming against the work of God on earth. They're blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Now they didn't know that though. So if we're going to analyse this in terms of, you know, mortal sin and things like that, they didn't have full knowledge. They actually didn't realise that God was working through Jesus.

So if we want to pass it out that way, they weren't fully culpable of it. So Jesus is actually just giving them a warning. He's not saying they're going to hell, He's just saying, oh, we need to be careful here. OK, so whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, Jesus says he will never have forgiveness or he is guilty of an eternal sin. An eternal sin. This is something that people find really hard to accept and sometimes called the unforgivable sin.

How can there be a thing such as an unforgivable sin? So let's think about it. Jesus is not saying that if you personally offend God or you personally offend the Holy Spirit by saying bad things about him, you'll be damned. That's not the point he's making. He's saying something more general. He's using this idea of blasphemy, which they've just done, but he's now making a more general point about general way that we can blasphemy against God. And it's this. What Jesus is saying is this.

If a person dies having seen the work of God in their life, but they deny that it's the work of God, or they refuse to accept his promptings, then they cut themselves off from God. Now that's basically the Catholic teaching on salvation. So it's not, it's not that there's one. How can we put it? It's not that there's one specific thing you do, one specific sin that you commit in your life and you're done. That's it. You can never be forgiven. That's not what Jesus is saying.

He's saying there's only one thing that would stop you from from entering the mercy of God, from entering the Kingdom of heaven, and that is refusing to accept the work of God. If you refuse to accept the work of God, then there is no forgiveness to you. There's no forgiveness available, and you can't make it into the Kingdom of heaven. So it's a teaching on salvation. So notice the language here talks about all men an eternal life. It doesn't say Pharisees. You need to know this.

It says all all manner of sins will be forgiven of men. So we're talking about men in general. And he mentions eternal life. So this is something that's binding permanently. Jesus is teaching general Christian theology here about salvation and the Church, The Catholic Church has confirmed that the principle Jesus lays out here is still binding today. This is a permanent principle, so let me reiterate what that is.

Again, the unforgivable sin is not that if you do one specific sin that you can never be forgiven and you're stuffed up for the rest of your life regardless of the good you do. That's not what Jesus is saying. He's saying that there's one thing that will always be a barrier to you having forgiveness and eternal life, and that one thing is rejecting

the work of God on earth. And so if we have it with that, if we keep that perspective in mind, which is the perspective of the Catholic Church, that fits nicely with everything else we know about salvation and everything we know about Catholic teaching in general. Verse 30. The last verse here, Mark tells the readers this is because they were saying an unclean spirit is in him, So we need to keep that

in mind. Jesus has given us this teaching in response to the claim of the scribes that Jesus is possessed by the devil. So Jesus here, remember, when Jesus sort of responds to critics, what he generally does is he sort of disabuses some of their false notions first. But then he goes on to make a more serious point. So he's disabused some of this false idea that he's possessed by the devil. But now he's going to make a more serious theological point, which is and it's this.

Imagine he's saying this to the to the scribes. You need to be careful. If you don't change your mind about this. If you continue to reject the work of God that you've just seen, you will be damned. That's what he's saying. It's a warning, OK? It's a warning. Jesus is not saying. Since you have said this, you are damned. He's not saying that. He's saying that. You need to be careful. You need to reevaluate this.

If you continue to see these things and reject them as the work of God, and you say that they're the work of Satan, then you're blocked from the Kingdom of God because you will not accept the work of God. This general principle applies to all of humanity today. This is what we as Catholics would say who goes to heaven? It's the people who accept the work of God in their life and they cooperate with it who goes to hell. It's those who reject the work of God on earth and in their life.

Now that will be me paraphrasing complex Catholic theology, but I think it's a fair summary. Verse 31. They arrive. The mother and the brothers of Jesus arrive from Nazareth in Capernaum. So they've just arrived in Capernaum. So we have here the mother of Jesus. That's Mary. Now, a lot of Catholics are a little bit uncomfortable with this passage.

Now it's possible she was just dragged along by the other family members, but I think it's reasonable to say that at this point Mary does not fully comprehend what Jesus is doing. The Angel Gabriel apparently didn't tell her the full extent of what Jesus ministry was going to look like, just that he would be the son of David that everyone had been waiting for. She probably didn't. Anticipate this massive crowd thing and the authorities persecuting him.

She didn't expect all that. So at this point in Jesus ministry it's quite early on she doesn't understand. And I do think it's worth discussing this verse a bit, because as Catholics you can have different opinions about it. As I said at the start there, it's possible that she does fully understand everything that Jesus ministry would entail and she's just been dragged along. That is certainly possible and many Catholics hold to that

view. But we also want to think about what are the possible ways of thinking about it in terms of she genuinely doesn't understand. Well, we know that according to Luke's Gospel, she knows quite early on that he is God. So that Angel Gabriel says to her he'll be the son of David, the son of God. And then when she visits Elizabeth, Elizabeth explicitly says you are the mother of God, so she does know all of that.

But it's not entirely clear how much Mary knows about the exact details of what Jesus ministry would look like. Theologians do discuss this because certainly in the early chapters of Luke's Gospel it does say that he's going to cause division. But remember that she's also in that same gospel and the Gospel of Luke. She's quite concerned about Jesus when they find him in the temple. That wasn't obvious to her, that they would find him in the temple, and she didn't expect

him to be doing what he's doing. So I do think we as Catholics, we have room to say that Mary is concerned about some of the things she's seeing Jesus doing. And there's a whole lot more you could say about this. As you explore Marian theology, you'll see that theologians have agreed that Mary had the fullness of grace. But theologians are divided in terms of what that means about her knowledge, and this is one of these verses it's well worth getting into.

But probably by the time of the cross she does understand. She gets it then. But at this stage it's OK for us to say that. Mary doesn't fully get it. And she's concerned about Jesus. She thinks is possibly a little bit gone, a little bit too far. So there's the mother of Jesus. We also have the brothers of Jesus. Now we need to explore these brothers of Jesus. So firstly, the word brother in Greek is a Delphos, and in that culture is used quite loosely as it is in the Old Testament.

We have lots of examples of people being called brothers in the Old Testament and we later discovered they're not actually brothers, they're just close relatives. So in that culture as it is in some countries even today, people will be called uncle, auntie, brother, when they're not literally that biologically, they're not biologically brothers, but perhaps they are extended family members or cousins. That's the way it was used in

Jewish culture. So just seeing the word Adolphus doesn't guarantee that we have here a biological brother of Jesus, just some sort of close relative. We also know from later in the passage that some of his sisters are there as well. So we have some brothers and sisters. So we know that there's some sort of senior close relative of Jesus. Because remember, they feel responsible or they want to

take. They feel that they're responsible for Jesus because Joseph has passed away, which probably indicates that they're older than Jesus. So they're senior relatives of Jesus. Who are they? Let's see what we can work out about them. These brothers and sisters of Jesus are mentioned several times in the New Testament, though we're never given a full explanation of who their mother and father are. We just get little tidbits.

Another thing we know is the early Church unanimously held that Mary remained a virgin her entire life, and that's Catholic teaching as well. Catholics. A Catholic belief is that Mary did not have any children after Jesus or before Jesus actually. So we know firstly they cannot be children of Mary. Whoever these brothers and sisters of Jesus are, they're not Mary's kids.

But. Also, if Joseph has died at this time, it seems like Mary is living with these other relatives in Nazareth. Since she's still living in Nazareth, and since these other relatives are also living with her in Nazareth, it seems likely that these other relatives probably grew up in Nazareth too.

If we put all that together, probably we're looking at some blood relatives of Mary here, some people who all grew up in the Nazareth area, some blood relatives of Mary, as we already said that they are probably older than Jesus because of their authoritative behavior. So they're born before Mary and Joseph were married. Now here's the interesting bit. Later in Mark, in chapter 6 verse three, we actually get the names of some of these so-called brothers of Jesus.

So there's four brothers of Jesus that we're given names for in Mark chapter 6, verse three, and you can look at this up as

well. We have James, Joseph, Judas and Simon. Now it's problematic as all four of these names are really common even amongst you can see there that three of them, James, Judas and Simon, they have the same names as Son of Jesus Apostles. And the 4th 1 Joseph is the same as Jesus Father. So it gets really confusing trying to track who these four boys are, but we know for sure that they're not four siblings. And here's why.

The James and Joseph, the two of the boys mentioned here, James and Joseph. We later get more information about James and Joseph in Mark chapter 15, verse 40. It says that James and Joseph have a mother called Mary, but it's not the Mary that's Jesus mother. So we Mark explicitly tells us that James and Joseph are not full blood relatives of Jesus. They're not full siblings. They are in fact from another mother. So who's this other mother? Mary.

Many in the early church, we're not sure about this, but we know Mark tells us for sure that they're not. They don't come from the same mother as Jesus. And then on top of that, many in the early church believe that this other Mary possibly is Mary the wife of Cleopas mentioned in the Gospel of John and the early Church.

A lot of. The church fathers talked about this other Mary actually being a relative of Mary, the mother of Jesus. So if that's the case, if this other Mary is a relative of Mary, the mother of Jesus, then roughly what we have here is that these boys, James, Judas, Joseph, and Simon, basically they're Jesus cousins or second cousins, something along those lines. So it took us a while to get to that conclusion.

But if we put together all the data, particularly what the Gospels tell us about the mother of these boys, we know for sure that they're not Mary's kids. They're probably Jesus cousins. There's some other theories as well, but I think this is the most plausible theory that these are blood relatives of Mary, but not blood relatives. Sorry, this that's not a good way of putting it. They are blood relatives of Mary, but they are not Mary's children.

OK, so having said that, they arrive in Capernaum. So that's they've been on a 20 mile journey, probably only took a day or two. They arrive in Nazareth and they stand outside. There's waiting outside Jesus home in Nazareth in Capernaum. Because the crowd is too dense, they actually can't get into the house. Jesus is in his house. He's healing people. He's teaching massive crowds as usual, and it's too dense. They can't get in. So keep this in mind.

Often in pictures you'll see it as though they could see Jesus or something and Jesus could see them. He actually can't. From what we can tell, the crowd is too thick. They can't see each other. So what they have to do is they send in a message. So they get they send someone to squeeze through the crowd to speak to Jesus. And this is the message they send into Jesus. Verse 32. Your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you. That's the message Jesus gets.

So remember, Jesus can't see any of his relatives. This is probably news to him. He's probably going oh OK, these people have arrived. I wasn't expecting them. Who knows? He's the son of God. Maybe he was expecting them. But then his reply in verse 33. Because it says here, he replied, it's it seems likely that he's not speaking loudly to the crowd here. Probably only those nearby would have heard his reply.

Here That would include Peter. And remember, Peter is the main source for this gospel of Mark. So here's his reply. Who are my mother and brothers now? Jesus here is not pretending to know his biological relatives. He's not being like, oh, who are my mother and brothers? I don't know. I've never met them before. That's not what he's saying. He's just using this as a teaching opportunity. He's about to springboard off this, to say something more profound.

Verse 34, looking around at those in a circle about him. So the crowd that are nearby, sitting, listening to him think about what's going on here, this inner circle of the crowd is sitting and listening to him. And they're accepting the message of the Kingdom. They're taking in, the message of the Kingdom. They want to hear more about God and about Jesus. He says that here are my mother and my brothers, this inner circle of the crowd.

And then he goes on verse 35, anyone who does the will of God. Now let's pause there. Anyone who does the will of God, that's anyone in the world, even up until today. If you do the will of God, this next bit applies to you. That person is my brother and sister and mother. So anyone who does the will of God, that's the prerequisite. Jesus sets out here. Can be considered legitimately to be part of the family of Jesus and God. Anyone who does the will of anyone who does the will of God.

So that's not just a nice sentiment. You might go on retreats and things and hear this oh, you're a child of God or Jesus is your brother. Well, it is a nice sentiment, but actually Jesus teaches this here. It's literally true. Well, in a spiritual sense, it is correct to say that we're a part of Jesus family. So not only is Jesus establishing the Kingdom of God, he is doing that, but he's also establishing a new family of God. We sometimes forget that aspect of it.

Jesus is establishing a new family for God. Now let's go back to the cultural aspect of this. Jesus says he's my brother and he's my mother and brothers. That would have been shocking. You can imagine a gasp from the crowd because to essentially put aside your own biological family and say, Nah, I have another family, that's shocking. That's putting aside your the expected family obligations, that's quite scandalous. Now one thing to notice who Jesus doesn't list in this family, He says.

Anyone who does the will of God listen to what he says is my mother and my brother and my sister who's missing from that list. Father. There's no father in. Well, there's no one who's added into the family of God as father. That's significant. Jesus here is saying there's already a father of this family and that's God. I think that's quite an interesting little bit of the

text, isn't it? God is the father of the family and Jesus. Part of Jesus mission is to bring more people into that family, but there's no more fathers of the family because there's only one father in there. So. Let's try and get a Jesus overall meaning here. He's not dissing his own family. It's. What he is saying though is that his obligations to his true spiritual family override his obligations to his natural

biological family. He is saying that that he has another family that's more significant even than his biological family. So we can say that even the closest of human bonds the biological family. Has to take second. Place to the Kingdom of God. That still applies to us today. And we need to think about how that might apply, you know, our own lives. Yeah, He's not dismissing his own family completely. He's not cutting them out of his life or something.

And think about if things looked different at that particular time. So there's a massive crowd in the house. He can't see them, they can't see him. If there was no big crowd, things might be quite different. If Jesus was alone up in the hills or just with his 12 apostles, probably the conversation would have been quite different. It's just that there are so many people there in the crowd with him, and he's in the middle of teaching and healing.

So presumably he's saying right now I'm needed here. This is the family that I need to tend to here, and that's more important than my biological family, and that's where the text ends. Presumably he would have continued teaching. He would have just kept talking for a bit longer, and it's possible maybe that he might have caught up with his family later. Who knows, maybe the crowd stuck with him for too long.

But it's possible that he did go and see his mother and his family a bit later on. But that's not recorded for us in the Gospels. Another thing to keep in mind here is many of his family, many of the people listed here did eventually accept Jesus as the Messiah. Obviously his mother did, and we know that some of his brothers and sisters did. So that's mentioned in Acts 114, one Corinthians 9 verse 5, and Galatians one verse 19. There's these references. To the mother and brothers.

Sorry, the brothers and sisters of the Lord who eventually become his disciples. Although for many of them it's not until after his death, we know that one of them in particular was really important. One of Jesus brothers called James eventually becomes the first Bishop of Jerusalem and he becomes a really, really important figure in the early church. One of the most important. Now let's have a look at the catechism passages here. There's a few really interesting ones.

Paragraph 548, there's a description about how Jesus is accused of being possessed by Satan. Paragraph 574, It's the same thing. It says Jesus is suspected of demonic possession. Paragraph 539, I'll read out this one. It's about Jesus temptations. The evangelists indicate the salvific meaning of this mysterious event.

Jesus is the new Adam who remained faithful just where the first Adam had given in to temptation, Jesus fulfills Israel's vocation perfectly, in contrast to those who had once provoked God during 40 years in the desert, Christ reveals himself as God's servant, totally obedient to the divine will. In this, Jesus is the devil's conqueror. He binds the strong man to take

back his plunder. Jesus, victory over the tempter in the desert, anticipates victory at the Passion, the supreme act of obedience to his filial love for the Father. So you'll hear there the echoes about binding the strong man. Paragraph 1864 is the one that we want to spend the most time on. This is in the section about different kinds of sin, mortal and venial sin. And this paragraph is about the unforgivable sin.

Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss.

So really clear Catholic teaching there about anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Now I want to read out a bit of an extended quote here because this paragraph that we just read out 1864 of the Catechism is largely informed by an encyclical written by Pope John Paul the 2nd called probably not going to pronounce this right Dominum.

It's Vivicantum, that's the Latin and it's the English title of that encyclical is on the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and the world. Now I want to read out paragraph 46 because this is where the teaching of the Catholic Church on what the unforgivable sin is is explained here in this encyclical. So if what I've said so far hasn't made sense, hopefully this will help clarify it.

And certainly, you know, I don't have any authority to proclaim Catholic teaching, But the Pope does, and so I think it's well worth listening to him describe how we should understand the unforgivable sin. So this is paragraph 46 from Pope John Paul the second's encyclical. Why is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unforgivable? How should this blasphemy be understood?

Saint Thomas Aquinas replies that it is a question of a sin that is unforgivable by its very nature, insofar as it excludes the elements through which the forgiveness of sin takes place. According to such an exegesis, blasphemy does not properly consist in offending against the Holy Spirit.

In words, it consists rather in the refusal to accept the salvation which God offers to man through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the cross, if man rejects the convincing concerning sin which comes from the Holy Spirit, and which? Has the power to save. He also rejects the coming of the Counselor, that coming which was accomplished in the Paschal mystery in union with the redemptive power of Christ's blood, the blood which purifies

the conscience from dead works. We know that the result of such a purification is the forgiveness of sins. Therefore whoever rejects the Spirit and the blood remains in dead works in sin, and the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit consists precisely in the radical refusal to accept this forgiveness of which he is the intimate giver, and which presupposes the genuine conversion which he brings about

in the conscience. If Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven either in this life or in the next, it is because this non forgiveness is linked as to its cause to non repentance, in other words to the radical refusal to be converted. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, then, is the sin committed by the person who claims to have a right to persist in evil in any sin at all, and who thus rejects

redemption. One closes oneself up in sin, thus making impossible one's conversion and consequently their remission of sins which one considers not essential or not important for one's life. This is a state of spiritual ruin because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does not allow one to escape from one's self-imposed imprisonment and open oneself to the divine sources of the purification of consciences and of the remission of sins.

So that's the end of the quote there from Pope John Paul the 2nd SO paragraph 500 against this doctrine of Mary's ever virginity. The objection is sometimes raised that the Bible mentions brothers and sisters of Jesus. The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary. In fact, James and Joseph, brothers of Jesus, are described as the sons of another Mary, a disciple of Christ, whom Saint Matthew significantly calls the other Mary.

They are close relations of Jesus according to an Old Testament expression. So I'll put all these paragraph sorry catechism quotes and the Pope John Paul, the second quote in the show notes. And this is one of those passages that needs to be read a few times and perhaps analysed a few times. So if you think you got the basics of what I've said but you want to listen to it again, that's probably not a bad thing to do.

Thanks for listening. Hope you learned something new about demon possession and the unforgivable sin. And if you think others would benefit from hearing this podcast as well others who might wonder about the unforgivable sin, then please consider sharing this podcast with them. Thanks for listening.