Videos from Fr Claudio Doglio
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The Arguments
Mark begins to narrate the public ministry of Jesus with a typical day set in Capernaumon a Saturday morning, a feast day and a meeting day in the synagogue. In the synagogue, while Jesus teaches, a possessed man interrupts him, and Jesus sets him free. He makes an exodus, a foretaste of the Easter exodus. People are amazed. They wonder, What is this? And they answer: It is a new teaching. Jesus’ teaching is of a quality that did not exist before.
The novelty lies primarily in the unity of Jesus’ teaching and his authority. Jesus says what he says and does what he says. Mark continues the description of Jesus’ journey to Capernaum, presenting the noon hour at home with his friends Simon, Andrew, James, and John. “On leaving the synagogue, immediately went to the house of Simon and Andrew.”
Let’s notice Mark’s typical insistence on the adverb ‘immediately’ or ‘at once,’ which serves almost as a suture thread to hold the episodes together and create a rapid connection between one thing and the next without too many interruptions. “As Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever, they immediately told him about her. Jesus went to her and, taking her by the hand, raised her up. The fever left her, and she began to wait on them.”
If you compare this event with the parallel passage in Matthew, you can easily see that Matthew’s text is more straightforward, essential, and sacred. He presents Jesus with a special aura; by contrast, Mark describes the episode with lively, bright, picturesque, and human characteristics. Jesus goes to lunch at a friend’s house; it is they who speak to Jesus about this sick woman. Jesus approaches, wraps his arm around her, takes her hand, and makes her get up.
It is a significant gesture. Jesus takes the sick humanity in his hand, lifts her up, and makes her capable of serving. Then that woman begins to serve them, preparing food for the whole group. Matthew says she served him. The episode becomes symbolic and synthetic. On the other hand, in Mark, the background is much more human.
On that Saturday at sunset, the word spread about the prodigy Jesus performed in the synagogue, and all those with sick people brought them to Jesus to be healed. Peter’s house was full of people, and Jesus healed many. He spent the whole evening with them in the middle of the crowd. “Very early in the morning, before daylight, Jesus went off to a lonely place where he prayed.” Note that the morning after Saturday is Sunday.
Jesus gets up early on Sunday morning, and the others are still asleep. He goes to a secluded place, still dark, and prays to the Father. Jesus is a mature man, capable of adult human relationships. He knows how to be with people and how to be alone. He is not dependent on the crowd; he does not isolate himself. He is a man who knows how to be in all situations. And when people look for him, he lets himself be found and stays with the people, but he does not forget the need for prayer time, loneliness, and interiority.
When friends wake up and can’t find him at home, they look for him in the hills behind the village of Capernaum and tell him: “Everyone is looking for you.” Jesus does not return to Capernaum, because his mission is to proclaim the Gospel of God to all. Capernaum is the starting point, the beginning of the message’s spread. Jesus does not want a group, an environment, or a city to dictate what he should do. His itinerant ministry begins.
The very nature of his preaching made it difficult to know his historical experience,because he did the same things repeatedly; he repeated the same teaching in many similar places as he moved from town to town. Entering other synagogues, he always had new listeners and had to start again. And teaching in the synagogues from Saturday to Saturday, he commented on the readings of that day and, beginning with those texts, announced the fulfillment related to his person; with authority, he announced that good news from God:“The kingdom is here, it is present.”
Mark has collected several controversies to give a synthetic picture of Jesus’ ministry following a typical day in Capernaum. We found five structured narratives about a subject in which Jesus offers a new solution. These are occasions for announcing the novelty of Christ. This does not mean that Jesus had these controversies one after the other. These are collected stories by tradition and put together by the evangelist. Precisely, they are five texts, quite similar in structure, that highlight the contrast between this teacher and the dominant mentality of the scribes and Pharisees.
The first dispute concerns the forgiveness of sins, inserted into the narration of the miracle of healing a paralytic. While many people surround Jesus, four men want to introduce him to a poor, paralyzed man; they remove the branches that make up the roof of a poor Palestinian house and lower the paralytic before Jesus. It is a particular scene that involves all the participants. The focus of attention is on that man and on Jesus’ attitude. They want a miracle; they want Jesus to heal the paralytic. Instead, Jesus tells the man, “Your sins are forgiven.” And the scribes present, who are listening to Jesus and probably in dialogue with him, think in their hearts: “Who does he think he is? Only God can forgive sins … And how is it that this man says, ‘I forgive your sins’? He is blaspheming.”
Jesus reads their thoughts; he knows how to read their hearts, and therefore he makes a ‘sign.’ He says to them: ‘You had not seen any tangible result of my word when I said, “Your sins are forgiven you.” So that you know that the Son of Man—that is me—has the power to forgive sins on earth, I’m going to say another word so you may see an undeniable result.’ He addresses the paralytic and says, “Get up and walk.” And he gets up, picks up the stretcher, and leaves.
Jesus made that sign to demonstrate that he had the ‘exusia,’ the authority and power to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins. They are right … and—Jesus says—I have the power. What does it mean? It is a catechesis conveyed through showy signs about the authority of Jesus. Mark underlines this aspect. Jesus is a teacher who has authority because he does what he says. He has the power to forgive sins.
Second controversy: After calling Levi, a tax collector, to be a disciple, Jesus accepts an invitation to go to Levi’s house with his colleagues, people with a bad reputation. The Pharisees criticize Jesus because it was unusual for a scribe to associate with this kind of people. According to the law, it was not allowed to eat alongside sinners. There is always a note of controversy; controversies are present. And Jesus shows up like the doctor—the doctor for sinners, who has the power to heal sinners.
In Jesus, prodigious thaumaturgical power is manifested in the healing of the sick. He is a healer who heals the sick. But these signs show that Jesus has therapeutic power for every person, since everyone is a sinner. Thus, the reality of sin is presented as a disease, a rampant disease that kills.
The sick need a doctor; sinners need Jesus. Just as the ill person asks the doctor to make him live by conquering the disease, Jesus offers himself to sinners as one who delivers them from sin so they may not remain sinners. Jesus does not go to the house of sinners because they are sinners and so that they remain sinners, but he goes as a doctor to eliminate the disease of sin, to heal the sinner, and to change their lives. ‘I did not come to call the righteous because there are no righteous. I came to call sinners.’ He came to heal sinners.
The third controversy concerns fasting. John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, while Jesus and his disciples did not. They ask him why. Why don’t they follow the rules? Why don’t they fast? And Jesus answers with a sapiential question. “Can wedding guests fast when they are with the bridegroom?”
In this controversy, Jesus is presented as the bridegroom. But the bridegroom in the biblical tradition is a divine title: ‘Adonai = the Lord is the husband of Israel.’ And Jesus claims to have divine titles. He is the one who forgives sins; he is the one who heals sinners; he is the one who spouses the people, and he allows us to overcome this phase of penance and fasting because a wedding party is being celebrated. It is a novelty. New wine is not placed in old wineskins. New ones are needed. Jesus is the new wine, forming a new humanity capable of welcoming something new.
Fourth controversy. The ears of corn are gathered on a Saturday. It is another challenging episode. On a Saturday, Jesus’ disciples gather ears of corn from a field of grain. The issue is not theft; the issue is that it is a prohibited act on the Sabbath. The Pharisees say to Jesus: ‘Look at what they are doing, things they should not do.’
And Jesus presents his teaching on the Sabbath, saying: “Sabbath was made for man and not man for Sabbath.” The person is more important than the rules. Religious rules must help people live well, not enslave them. So remember well that the Son of Man (that is, I) is also Lord of the Sabbath. It is another divine title. Jesus presents himself as the Lord of the Sabbath, the one who has authority over this norm of the Hebrew law.
The fifth controversy is also about Saturday. It is another narrative of healing. Once again, as he entered the synagogue, he saw a man with a paralyzed hand. That man asks for nothing; he simply remains with his paralyzed hand. Jesus notices him, calls him, asks him to come to the center, draws everyone’s attention to the situation, and asks: “What is allowed on Saturday to do: good or evil? Save a life or kill?” Absolute silence.
The theory was clear: They should have told him ‘no,’ but in a specific case, it is always difficult to apply that view and to tell Jesus that he should not heal that man. “Then Jesus looked at them indignantly, although saddened by the hardness of their hearts, and he said to the man: Stretch out your hand.”
Here we have a typical Mark brushstroke—Jesus’ circular gaze. The evangelist often presents the Master who, before speaking, turns his gaze and fixes his eyes on each of those present. Then Mark explains the feelings: Jesus is indignant and sad. He is outraged by that hypocritical attitude of closeness, silence, and religious narrowness, and saddened by this oppressive religion and the hardness of their hearts. They are hardheaded. In biblical language, the heart is the head because they do not understand, and Jesus simply says a word: “Stretch out your hand.” And that man is released from his disability. Thanks to the word of Jesus, the hand that was unable to move becomes active again. Jesus shows that he has power; he demonstrates persuasive authority over man in religious matters for the concrete liberation of man.
How do adversaries respond to these claims about Jesus? “The Pharisees immediately came out and deliberated how to finish him off.” In 3:6, Mark offers a first conclusion. It seems we are almost at the end; the adversaries have already decided to eliminate him because he is too dangerous. But we are only at a midpoint. Mark immediately restructures the story with another summary, another vocation story, and then presents a series of new actions by Jesus, accompanied by his sensational affirmation: that he is God; he is the one who truly liberates man.