Reaction

Then [Jesus] went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘‘He has Beelzebul.” – Mark 3:19-22 (NRSV) 

Reactionaries gonna reactionary, in Bible times or in ours. 

Reading this story on its own merits, in any of the Gospels, it’s hard to see what exactly everybody’s so mad at Jesus about. A crowd gathers to see him, and for some reason that makes his family think he’s out of his mind and needs to be restrained? He casts out demons, and that means he’s possessed by one? 

Students who have tried every other option to have their sorrow and fury noticed try camping out to draw attention to injustice, and people mock them for coddled rich kids or restrain them and drag them away. A woman thoughtfully explains why she’d rather meet a bear in the woods than a strange man, and a thousand strange men take it upon themselves to explain to her why she’s out of her mind. 

None of these reactions, then or now, makes sense in terms of logic, reality, or proportion. But they make a lot of sense if you know that the powerful like things the way they are, that systems prefer equilibrium to change. So does the depressingly predictable slide from anxiety in the system to violence against those who disrupt it. 

When Jesus starts Jesusing, when healers start healing, when truthtellers start truthtelling, when peacemakers start making peace, reactionaries gonna reactionary. That doesn’t mean you have to, too. 

Prayer
When I am shaken up, help me not react, but decide how to act. Amen.

About the Author
Quinn G. Caldwell is Chaplain of the Protestant Cooperative Ministry at Cornell University. His most recent book is a series of daily reflections for Advent and Christmas called All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas. Learn more about it and find him on Facebook at Quinn G. Caldwell.