‘Jesus is beside himself’
today’s Gospel reading, Jesus is described as someone who is “beside himself” (Mark 3:20-22). Ordinarily, such an unflattering description means “overcome with an overwhelming emotion that one begins to act crazy or mad.”
For sure, such a meaning cannot apply to Jesus. Perhaps, St. Mark used the phrase “beside himself ” to show how even the relatives of Jesus perceive Him — someone who has become so different that He no longer fits the usual categories they used to describe Him.
They know him to be an ordinary carpenter. Suddenly, He abandons this occupation, spends much time in prayer, denies himself the common comforts of life, and preaches untiringly to the multitudes. He speaks to demons and casts them out. He forgives contrite men and women of their sins. He sometimes hangs out with tax collectors and sinners. Worse, he claims to be the messiah and performs miracles to prove it.
In short, Jesus has begun to live and behave in a way that His fellow Jews consider strange. No wonder, they consider Him to be “beside Himself.”
The people in the time of Jesus are no different from ours. If a person becomes overly devoted to science, politics, or nearly any earthly pursuit, he is admired, complimented, and emulated. But if a man suddenly becomes religious, devotes himself lengthily to prayer and good works, refrains from saying cuss words, and shakes off his vices, many of his relatives and friends will say, “He is acting strange. Maybe he is mad or a fanatic.”
For sure, Jesus is not just trying to be different, or, to use a cliché, “to be out of the box.” He defies people’s stereotypes in order to teach us about the radical nature of a God who cannot be pinned down by our ideas of Him. Jesus also challenges us to discard our fear of being called crazy just because we don’t conform to the ways of this world.
Let’s face it. Because we fear being different, many of us act sheep-like, afflicted with the herd instinct. We abandon our better judgment and start to ape the conventional icons of behavior trumpeted by businesses, the social and entertainment media, the fashion industry, and market-savvy televangelists.
The gospels show us a Jesus who comes crashing into our world of passive conformity in order to tell us that as children of ONE Father,we need not see ourselves and others in terms that divide us — outsider or insider, crazy or normal, sinner or saint., gays or straight, black or white, rich or poor.
Edward Arlington Robinson beautifully puts it: “In God’s vocabulary there are no adjectives.” This means that God has a total and penetrating grasp of the uniqueness of every created thing. We become God-like to the extent that we try see God, our neighbor, and ourselves, with eyes that affirm their uniqueness and unrepeatability.
We must discard our picture of God as one whom we can manage, who is at our beck and call, and who will not surprise us with His uniqueness. It would be tragic if, like the experts of the law during the time of Jesus, we refuse to put our faith in the God who is, because we are so obsessed with the God we want.