Responding to Being Misjudged (Mark 3: 20-35)

Have you ever been misunderstood or misjudged a situation? When I was very small I remember looking at my Mum and Dad’s wedding photographs and the wedding lunch with the fancy cake and I got upset because they hadn’t invited me to what looked like a fancey party. I remember getting even more upset, quite cross really, when the found this situation so funny. (I must have been a troubled child)

Have you ever completely misjudged a situation. Have you ever been misjudged or been misunderstood? From the earliest age people will often misunderstand or misjudge what you are thinking. Even a husband and wife can misunderstand each other Your Partner can be the closest person to you, and you can love each other dearly, but there are still times when you say something, and it still can be completely misunderstood.

Have you ever been misunderstood, because you are a Christian. I’ve been told I am out of touch; I have been told I’m stupid, I’ve been told I am out of my mind because of what I believe. Perhaps you’ve even been rejected by people because of your relationship with the Lord?

My question is what you should do when that happens. Well, it happened to the Lord and just maybe we can learn from how he handled it to what we should do. In this passage, Jesus has an encounter with his human family. But that narrative is not completed before it is interrupted by his enemies, and then at the end of the passage there is time for his human family to catch up with him again and he speaks into that situation. There are two groups of people in this passage that are in a sense making separate charges against Jesus. One is his family, the other is his religious enemies. Because of the interruption in the middle of the text by his enemies the narrative although dealing with two situations is divided into three parts. Let’s begin at the beginning and look at what is happening here. With that in mind lets return to the text

Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’

(Mark 3: 20-21)

It’s worth noting that if you harmonise the narrative across the three eyewitness Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you will find that Jesus has just returned from being up a mountainside. Many believe this incident probably occurred immediately after he has delivered what is usually referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. He comes down from the hill area and enters a house most commentators assume that this house is back in Capernaum and he is at Peters house again and he is in the house, and we are told that a crowd has gathered again. Then we are told that his own family heard about these things, and they go to grab hold of him and they say, “He is out of his mind”. This is his human family and they have come from Nazareth, and they have heard about what is going on and they have come grab him and take him home.

One of the disadvantages of slowly working our way through a book of the bible slowly verse by verse is that we might miss disconnect each section as we approach day by day from that which has just gone before. This is not just referring to what has happened in the last few verses. When it says they had heard “about this” it means they had heard about everything that had occurred up to this point. Including the stirring up of the religious authorities. That’s why some good translations, don’t say when they heard “about this”, they say, “when the heard about everything that had happened before”. The family then think he must be, “out of his mind”. This is a very strong term. Perhaps this is because they understand the danger, he is putting himself in. The know that what he is saying and what he was doing, in facing up to the religious authorities is potentially calamitous. By behaving in this way, he was endangering himself and the entire family. They know that by arguing and debating with the religious leaders he is potentially going to get himself killed. Maybe they already knew that both the Pharisees and the Herodians are planning to kill him. So, they come to grab hold of him and take him home because, back home he might be safe. But the point I would like to make is they misunderstood him and anyone who has the mind of Christ, is also often misunderstood.

When you think biblically, those who don’t know the Lord will not understand it. They just won’t get it, and they will probably think you are nuts. Unbelieving people will often not understand Christian’s when they operate according to biblical guidelines or concepts. That’s just the beginning of this story, there is lots more.

And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebub! By the prince of demons, he is driving out demons.

(Mark 3: 22)

The teachers of the law say, we’ve got this thing figured out, he is possessed by Beelzebub, prince of Demons. ‘Satan has possessed him’, they say. That’s very important, they say, “By the prince of demons, he is driving out demons”. These people are desperate to come up with an explanation of these events they are witnessing and the best they can come up with is he is doing things by the power of Satan. So, his family are saying he is out of his mind. The Pharisees say, no its because he has got the devil in him. Both groups of people are analysing what is going on and trying to explain it. So, he has either lost his marbles or he has the devil in him. The truth is, of course, neither of these perspectives are true.

But the big thing to take note of today is how Jesus answers those accusations. He answers the second accusation first, and then we will later see he then come back and deal with his family and their accusation at the end of the passage. 

So, Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: ‘How can Satan drive out Satan?If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.

(Mark 3: 23-26)

Keep in mind, he starts out by saying, “How can Satan cast out Satan”.

He then unpacks this more by saying, If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. Then he concludes by saying if Satan did these things, he would come to his end. His point I believe is this, if you are saying, I, am, by the power of Satan am casting our Satan, then that is absurd, because that would be an act of self-destruction. Satan is not going to bring about his own ending, so this is a contradictory statement. That is like saying the bride is a spinster.

Or the bachelor is a wonderful husband, it has no internal logic.

Firstly, Jesus is saying, this is absurd, things don’t work like that, and that could never happen. Satan doesn’t cast out himself, it just doesn’t make sense. Then he says a second thing.

In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house.

(Mark 3: 27)

I think the key to understanding this verse is if you understand, that the one who is supposed to be entering the strongman’s house is Jesus himself and the strong man referred to in this illustration is actually Satan. He is saying that in fact it is he who is entering Satan’s house (the strong man) and binding him. Satan is the called powerful one here because he claims is to be Lord of this world. Thereby Jesus by coming has entering his house and binds him up, I have come to plunder this realm to which he claims ownership of. I am stronger than Satan, I can bind him up in order to claim back what he claims to hold onto. I am stronger that Satan can ever be, he says, because I am God’s only Son. I am walking around this earth and claiming back what Satan believed he was Lord over. That is what is really going on here.

But he has a third thing to say.

Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.

(Mark 3: 28-29)

Jesus comes along and says, watch as I can cast out a demon, watch, I can straighten a withered hand and I do these things by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is saying to those Pharisees’ you are rejecting the miracles I do, and by doing so you are rejecting the Messiah of God. You are thereby rejecting the both the ministry and the message of the Holy Spirit. You blaspheme the Holy Spirit by attributing the works of Jesus done in the power of the Holy Spirit, to Satan. Failing to recognize a miracle is one thing .but crediting Satan with the work of the Holy Spirit is another. Sin sat between you and God, we couldn’t get over it, we can’t get around it to get to God but, when he forgave it, he removed that obstacle that lay in the way between you and the Lord. No obstacle to fellowship anymore, no blockage in the path to our relationship with God.

OK let’s pick up the story again and go back and talk about his family.

Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.

(Mark 3: 30)

So, his family are standing outside, and the house is packed so they call someone and say, we are his family, can you go and tell him we are here. He already knows they plan to lay hands on him and take him back to Nazareth. That’s their plan.

A crowd was sitting round him, and they told him, ‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you So, how does he handle this situation. He says to those around him in Verse 33, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked.

(Mark 3: 32-33)

That has always sounded like a really strong statement to me, it sounds almost like a rejection of his family. But that’s not the case, in fact later on the cross we will see he commissions John to look after his mother once he has gone. So, he is definitely not rejecting his family. They have now got a message to Jesus via the messenger on the door, saying come out we need to see you. This is the continuation of the narrative from the first few verses of this opening section, when we were told, he has returned to the house, and again a crowd has gathered outside. His family have brought themselves to the door of the house and Jesus is inside the building. It is important to understand that this is not Jesus responding directly to the family.

This is what he says to the crowd sitting around him inside the house.

. Then he looked at those seated in a circle round him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’

(Mark 3: 34-35)

He is saying to the crowd , you are my brothers and sisters. Here are my family, my mother and brothers and sisters. Then he widens it and says, whoever does the will of my father is my brother. Jesus is taking the opportunity of this situation with his family to demonstrate to the crowd that the people who are obedient to the will of God are all in the family of God. But verse 35 raises the important question, what do you have to do, to be in the family of God? The answer is obvious really isn’t it, you have to be born into it, right. To be born into the family of God, you have to be born again into the family of God. But how is one born again?

“And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

(John 6: 39-40)

This text explicitly says that it is the father will that everyone should looks to the son and believe. You have to believe in the son, in order to do the will of the father. If you do that, then you are a member of the family of God, and that makes you and all the other people who have done the same thing, your family also. Being a member of the family of God is not based on physical relationships, it’s based on a spiritual relationship which itself is based on trust and faith.This message is of course particular relevant to this 1st century Jewish crowd sitting in front of Jesus, because they had been told all their lives that because they are a member of the Jewish faith and the nation of Israel, that they had an automatic inside track with God. But Jesus teaches over and over again, that it is not being the son of Abraham physically, that makes you right with God. It’s about being the child of God spiritually, that make one right with God. As an aside even in the Old Testament it said, that is was through faith that God credited Abraham with righteousness. So, it was always that way anyway.

In conclusion.

Let me try and pull a few things together here and see if we can answer a couple of questions about how and why we as Christians are often misunderstood. Here I believe is the sum of this passage. Jesus’s enemies misunderstood him in the most dramatic way by saying Satan was in him and Jesus answered that accusation. Jesus faces down their accusation and answered the false statement the religious people made about him but his family also accused him of being out of his mind, but he didn’t answer that accusation directly. He avoided a confrontation with them instead he just identified that he did what he did because he obeyed the will of the father as part of the family of God.

What is the application we can draw from all of this? When you are misunderstood spiritually, you should answer that. When someone thinks what you’re doing, or what you believe is weird or wrong, you shouldn’t battle with them. You should simply say that what you are doing is based on biblical principles, then move on. But there are other occasions when it is better to say nothing, sometimes it is better to avoid, than to engage. Better to avoid a fight than come up with a cleaver answer no matter how right it is. Paul sometimes stood up took and took a beating and even went to jail.  Other times he just moved on or away from the situation. Sometimes he answered, and sometimes he avoided. But how do you know which, is which, and when to answer and when to avoid.

I’m not sure there is a hard and fast rule to that question, but what I do know is when you’re not sure, you should avoid. Don’t listen to what people say, instead listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit of God that has been placed in you. It doesn’t matter what people say about you, because Jesus is inside of you, which means you are now connected to the spiritual family of God. The way to handle being misunderstood is to remember that you have God himself within you.

And by having him inside of you, you are a member of the family of God.And sometimes you don’t need to listen to the crowd because they simply don’t and won’t understand anyone who has the mind of Jesus.