Saturday January 20
I knew a man who had spent a year or two in a psychiatric hospital. On his discharge he went drinking heavily with his old friends. When a dispute arose between them, one of them dismissed some opinion of his by saying he was only a lunatic anyway. “On the contrary,” he replied, “I’m the only one here who can prove that he’s sane!” “Prove it then!” they challenged. He invited bets, and when he had secured bets of twelve beers he put his hand in his pocket and drew out the certificate of discharge from the psychiatric hospital! It stated there in black and white that he was sane! Who is sane and who is mad? Today’s reading is ambiguous, though the translations all opt for interpreting that it was Jesus who was mad. The Greek could equally well be translated, “they (the family) set about controlling it (the crowd) because it was beside itself.” What is madness but a definition by some group who are probably more mad themselves? In the 4th century, Abba Antony, the founder of monasticism, said: “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, ‘You are mad, you are not like us.’”
