January 20, 2010; Homily, January 23, 2010.

Mark 3:20-21.

Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again, the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."

The Gospel of the Lord.

They said Jesus was "out of his mind". In effect they called Jesus "crazy". Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me. Think for yourself. If you are right, have the courage of your conviction, and stick with it, no matter what you are called. Yes, we may be persuaded by logic, but never by mere name-calling.

The point of Mark's Gospel is set forth in its first words, "The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." The point of Mark's Gospel is that Jesus was the Son of God. Mark proves that point by what Jesus did, his miracles ending in his Passion, death and resurrection and by what He said.

God does not see as man sees, for man judges by appearances but God looks within.

"He is out of his mind." The word "He" is a pronoun which in Greek can mean either "he", "she" or "it" depending on context. The Gospel translators said the Greek pronoun meant "he" but in fact it makes more sense to translate the pronoun as meaning "it", in that "It [the crowd, not 'He" Jesus] is out of its [not his] mind."

I knew a man who had spent some time in a psychiatric hospital. On his discharge he went drinking with a few of his old friends. When a argument arose among them, one of them dismissed some opinion of his by saying he was only a madman anyway. “On the contrary,” he replied, “I’m the only man here who can prove that he’s sane!” “Prove it then!” they challenged. He invited bets, and when he had secured bets of several pints of Guinness he put his hand in his pocket and drew out the certificate of discharge from the psychiatric hospital. It stated there in black and white that he was sane! Who is sane and who is mad? Today’s reading is ambiguous, though the translations all say that it was Jesus who was mad. But a scholar noted that the Greek could also be translated, “they (the family) set about controlling it (the crowd) because it was beside itself.” (In Greek the word for ‘he’ and the word ‘it’ are the same in this case.) Was Jesus mad, or was the crowd mad? But what’s the difference? The contrast between them is the same whether Jesus is described as mad and the crowd as sane, or Jesus is described as sane and the crowd as mad. But look at who’s calling Jesus mad. The crowd – the same people who once said to him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a devil?” (John 8:48). So you have a choice: do you want to identify with the crowd calling Jesus mad, or with Jesus calling the crowd mad? Who do you believe in your heart of hearts? What is madness but a definition by some group who are probably madder themselves? In the 4th century, Abba Antony, the founder of monasticism, said: “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’”