In today’s gospel, we find Jesus surrounded by a crowd of people in a very concrete and compromising scene. Jesus’ closer relatives had arrived from Nazareth and Capernaum. But, seeing so many people around, they chose to wait outside and send for him instead. The crowd tells Jesus: “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.” He replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Jesus’ answer is by no means a rejection of his mother and relatives. Jesus has only recently just moved away from them to follow the divine call. It also means that, intimately, he has given them up too because he completely belongs to God the Father. Jesus actually lived what he expects from his disciples; he has chosen a spiritual family instead of an earthly one.
In other places of his Gospel, Mark mentions Jesus glancing around
too. Is Jesus trying to tell us that his only relatives are those who
listen to him attentively? Of course not. His relatives are those who
not only listen to him but those who listen to him and abide by God’s
will. Jesus is saying, in other words, that only those who do his
will, who put his words into their hearts and actions, are going to
interpret him and know him, correctly.
If we want to understand and know in our hearts that Jesus is the Son
of God, we must follow him zealously and reap the harvest of doing so.
We will never arrive at this if we remain halfhearted Christians. We
must put Jesus’ words into action. Jesus is exhorting us to enter our
hearts in spiritual communion with him by abiding with the Divine
Will.
