So here we are on the 10th Sunday of Ordinary time, in the third chapter of Mark, very much at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry- and He had already gotten Himself into trouble. Why? Because, He healed a paralyzed man, as proof that He could forgive sins. Because He justified the fact that His disciples shucked grain and ate it on the Sabbath, by saying that He was Lord of the Sabbath and then had the audacity to heal a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath to prove his point. Finally, He was healing and driving out demons right and left and now, in the midst of the wild throngs He called his 12 apostles.
Really, He was causing quite a stir. At this point nobody knew what was going to happen, but they certainly pretty much had a sense that they wanted to see it unfold. No matter where He went, it seems like everyone found Him very quickly. As we begin our Gospel story today, Jesus has returned home but the crowds quickly emerged once again. This time, Saint Mark tells that there were so many people around Him, the crowd was packed so tightly that they couldn’t even eat because they could not so much as move their arms. Now that, folks, is crowded! The scribes got themselves into a futile debate with Jesus, claiming that He was possessed by demons and then we get to the heart of the matter. His own family emerges on the scene and this gives Jesus the opportunity to take advantage of a teaching moment. He makes the point that when it comes to determining relationship with Him, it is not status, but action that matters; it is not whether or not someone is related to Him by blood; it is whether or not we do His will. Now especially at this point in the story no one knows how any thing is going to turn out, but then again we never know that, do we? What we do know is that our relationship with Him, amidst all the turmoil of life, is governed by what we do, not who we are.