Family meant something different in ancient Palestine from what it means in today’s society. It was so radical when Jesus looked around him and said of his community of faith, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (Mk 3:31-35). Philip Fogarty SJ explains.
In ancient Palestine ‘family’ meant something very different from what it means in today’s society. In the ancient Mediterranean world each individual understood himself or herself differently; not as an isolated, completely autonomous person, as people tend to do today, but rather as part of a large sprawling social unit, encompassing family, village and tribe.
Not only were all members of the extended family regarded as brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers to one another, they also identified themselves with one another. So one could say, ‘whatever you do the least of my brothers, you do to me’.
The extended family not only provided identity and a social role to each individual, it also provided a safety net, communal security and protection. Group solidarity was experienced with one’s friends, one’s co-workers, and one’s social group and within the confines of elitist groups such as the scribes and Pharisees. Individualism, as we know it today, was simply unheard of.
Radical departure
Given this background, Mark’s Gospel tells us something very interesting about Jesus’ relationship with his own family. Early on in his career Jesus is in Nazareth and crowds gather around the family home, to the point where he has no time to eat. When his family hear it, they go to restrain him, convinced that he is out of his mind’ (3:20-21).
Later, while teaching another crowd of people, Jesus is informed that his family is outside looking for him, but he coolly leaves them waiting. His mother and brothers come; and standing outside, they send to him and call him.
A crowd is sitting around him; and they say to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you’. And he replies, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those sitting around him, he says, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother’ (3:31-35). It is interesting that Jesus does not mention Joseph, the father of the family. This is usually interpreted to mean that Joseph had died before Jesus began his public mission.
At first glance, these remarks must strike his family members as very harsh, and what he says is indeed very radical. Very much against the mores of his time, Jesus is saying that loyalty to family, village, or tribe must not take precedence over doing God’s will or interfere with preaching God’s kingdom.
New identity
The break that Jesus makes with the ties to his extended family and village, after so many years of an uneventful life in Nazareth, and his attempt to define a new identity and role for himself, must have left deep scars on his family and contemporaries, echoes of which can still be found in the Gospels.
Mark tells us how Jesus begins to teach in the synagogue in Nazareth (6:1-3). Many who heard him are astounded and, with a sense of irony, exclaim, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?’
And the people take offence! In other words they say, ‘Who does he think he is?’ John’s Gospel tells us that ‘not even his brothers believed in him’ (7:5), clearly indicating an unsettling family rift.
Sacrifice
Turning one’s back on one’s family was a shocking thing to do. Luke reports Jesus as saying, ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate (that is to say, not give preference over) father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple’ (Lk.14:26-27).
Jesus himself has to choose not to let family ties interfere with his mission and so he rejects what would traditionally be expected of him as a family or tribal member. One can almost hear the agony in his voice over the decisions he himself has to make and which his disciples will have to make also. ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’ (Mk.8:34). Jesus too, had to deny himself and, in many ways, his life would be a crucifixion.
Jesus often uses shocking images to drive home his message and imprint it on his disciples’ minds. ‘Denying oneself’ means disavowing one’s own interests, saying ‘no’ to oneself and one’s ego as the ultimate norm and goal of life. Jesus provides the disciples with the repulsive image of a condemned naked criminal, known only too well to Jesus’ compatriots, being forced to take up the horizontal beam of his own cross and carry it to the place of execution.
Part of the humiliation of crucifixion was that it was all too common a punishment for slaves, robbers, rebels, and people in general when they disturbed the peace. So it would naturally come to Jesus’ mind as a gripping symbol of suffering, of bidding farewell to one’s family, property and means of support, to family ties and to a bright future with all its plans and projects.
Jesus was not the only one to use the cross as a graphic symbol of suffering. A first century philosopher, Epictetus, remarked to his students, ‘If you wish to be crucified, wait, and the cross will come to you.’
A hard path
Jesus knows all too well that he will suffer because of his mission. The rift in his family is already a source of great suffering indeed, a crucifixion, but one that he is prepared to undergo for the sake of faithfully preaching God’s kingdom of love and reconciliation. But he is doing something very radical.
In his society, what one trusts, relies on, and contributes to willingly, is first and foremost one’s extended family where one’s identity is formed and maintained in relation to other individuals. To leave behind, for an indefinite period, the bonds of emotional and financial support, to spurn the group whose opinion affects one’s daily life, to take the shameful path of deserting one’s family and working among people who will largely reject his teaching – all this is no easy choice for a Jewish peasant from Galilee.
Of course Jesus still loves his mother and family members, but such ties will not be allowed to deter him from carrying out his mission of preaching God’s word, combating evil and forming a renewed Israel. All this, however, must have been quite shocking to his family.
From Mark’s Gospel we can gather something of what Jesus’ mission costs him. When he tells his companions what discipleship will entail, something of his own emotional struggles also becomes clear. Peter says to him on one occasion, ‘Look we have left everything and followed you’. Jesus too, has left everything home, family, the possibility of a wife and children – in order to be faithful to God’s call. He leaves his old life in Nazareth, with all its ties, security and expectations to set out on a mission that will ultimately lead to his death.
The lesson for us
For all our Western individualism we too may still retain, consciously or unconsciously, a tremendous amount of group loyalty and group prejudice. There are those who base their identities on the loyalties and prejudices of race, nationality, class, ancestry, and religious denomination. Our love and loyalty may still be as exclusive as ever they were in Jesus’ time. Yet, Jesus words still sound down the centuries, ‘come follow me’.
