4. The Arguments

Mark begins to narrate in the public ministry of Jesus with a typical day set in Capernaum. A Saturday morning, a feast day, 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. Wondering what is this? And they answered: It is a new teaching. Jesus' teaching is of a quality that did not exist before.

The novelty lies especially in the fact that Jesus' teaching is united with his authority. Jesus says and does what he says. Mark continues the description of the journey of Jesus in Capernaum, presenting the moment of noon, at home with his friends Simon, Andrew, James and John. "Then he left the synagogue and immediately went to the house of Simon and Andrew."

Let's notice that typical Mark insistence with the adverb ‘immediately’, ‘at once’ which serves almost as a suture thread to hold the episodes together and create a fast connection between one thing and the other, without too many interruptions. “Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him immediately. He reached out, took her hand, and lifted her up. The fever left her and she began to serve them.”

If you compare this event with the parallel text of Matthew, you can easily see that Matthew has a simpler, more essential, more sacred text. He presents Jesus with a superior aura; instead Mark describes the episode with lively, bright, picturesque, very human characteristics. Jesus goes to lunch at the friends' house; it is they who speak to Jesus about this woman who is sick. Jesus approaches, wraps his arm around her, takes her hand, makes her get up.

It is a significant gesture. Jesus takes sick humanity in hand, lifts her up, makes her capable of new service. And then that woman starts serving them. She starts to make food for the whole group. Matthew will say that 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 voice spreads about the prodigy worked by Jesus in the synagogue and all those who had a sick person take them to Jesus to heal them. Peter's house is full of people. And Jesus heals many. He spends the whole evening with these people, in the middle of the crowd. "Very early in the morning he got up, went out and went to a deserted place, to pray." Not that the morning after Saturday is Sunday.

Jesus gets up early on Sunday morning, the others still sleep. Jesus gets up and goes to a secluded place; it is still dark, and he prays to the Father. Jesus is a mature man, capable of mature human relationships. He knows how to be with people and he knows how to be alone. He is not dependent on the crowd; he is not one who isolates himself to be alone. 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, interiority.

When friends wake up and can't find him at home, they go look for him and find him in the hills, behind the village of Capernaum and they say to him: "Everyone is looking for you." Jesus responds by not returning to Capernaum because his mission is to announce the Gospel of God to everyone. Capernaum is the starting point, the beginning of the irradiation of the message. Jesus does not want a group, an environment, 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 many times; he repeated the same teaching in many similar places, changing towns. Entering other synagogues, he always had new listeners and therefore had to start again. And teaching in the synagogues from Saturday to Saturday, he commented on the readings of that day and starting from those texts, he announced the fulfillment related to his person; with authority he announced that good news from God: "The kingdom is here, it is present."

To give a synthetic picture of Jesus' ministry after the typical day in Capernaum, Mark has collected a number of controversies. We found five structured narratives on a subject in which Jesus offers a new solution. These are particular occasions of announcing the novelty of Christ. It does not mean that Jesus had these controversies one behind the other. These are collected stories by tradition and put together by the evangelist. Precisely they are five texts quite similar in structure to highlight the contrast of this teacher with the dominant mentality of the scribes and Pharisees.

The first dispute is related to the forgiveness of sins, inserted in the narration of the miracle healing of a paralytic. While Jesus is surrounded by many people, 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 they bring down the paralytic before Jesus. It is a particular scene that involves all the participants. The focus of attention is concentrated on that man and on the attitude of Jesus. It is clear that they want a miracle; they want Jesus to heal the paralytic. Instead, Jesus says to that 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 interprets their thoughts; he knows how to read in their hearts and therefore he makes a ‘sign’. He says to them: You have not seen any experienceable result to my word when I said 'your sins are forgiven you'. So, so that they know that the Son of Man—that is me—have the power to forgive sins on earth, I'm going to say another word so you can 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, the 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 made with showy signs about the authority of Jesus. And Mark underlines this aspect. Jesus is a teacher who has authority because he does what he says. It has the power to forgive sins.

Second controversy: After calling Levi, a tax collector, to be a disciple, Jesus accepts the invitation to go to Levi's house together with his other colleagues, people of bad reputation. And Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees because it was unusual for a scribe to frequent this kind of people. And, according to the law, it was not allowed to eat alongside sinners. There is always a note of controversial contrast; they are, indeed, controversies. And Jesus shows up like the doctor. The doctor for sinners; the one with the power to heal sinners.

In Jesus the prodigious thaumaturgical power is manifested with the sick. He is a therapist who heals the sick. But these signs are to say that Jesus has a therapeutic power in front of every person, as everybody is a sinner. And so the reality of sin is presented as a disease, a very general disease, a disease that kills.

It is the sick who need a doctor; it is sinners who need Jesus. And as the sick person asks the doctor to make him live by conquering the disease, Jesus offers himself to sinners as one who delivers them from sin, not so that they remain a sinner. 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, to change their life. ‘I did not come to call the righteous because there are no righteous. I came to call sinners.’ He came to heal sinners.

Third controversy, on the subject of fasting. John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; instead, Jesus with his disciples ate quietly. They ask him why? Why don't they follow the rules? Why don't they fast? And Jesus answers with a question of a sapiential type. "Can wedding guests fast when they are with the husband?"

In this controversy Jesus is presented as the husband. But the husband in the biblical tradition it 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; it is he who heals sinners; he is the one who spouses the people and he allows to overcome this phase of penance and fasting because a wedding party is being celebrated. It is the novelty. New wine is not placed in old wineskins. New ones are needed. Jesus is the new wine and is forming a new humanity, capable of welcoming its novelty.

Fourth controversy. The ears of corn collected on a Saturday. It is another challenge episode. On a Saturday Jesus' disciples gather ears of corn across a field of grain. The problem is not theft; the problem is that it is a prohibited gesture on a Sabbath day. 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: "Saturday was made for man and not man for Saturday." The person is more important than the rules. Religious rules must help man to live well, not to enslave him. 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; like the one who has authority over this principle of the Hebrew law.

Fifth controversy, also on the subject of Saturday. It is another narrative of healing. Once again, entering the synagogue, he saw a man with a paralyzed hand. That man asks for nothing; it stays in place simply with its paralyzed hand. Jesus notices him, calls him, asks him to come to the center, calls everyone's attention to that situation, and asks: "What is allowed on Saturday to do: good or evil? Save life or kill? Absolute silence.

The theory was clear: they should have told him 'no', but in the specific case it is always difficult to apply the theory and tell Jesus, in that case, 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: Extend your hand."

Here we have a typical Mark brushstroke. Jesus' circular gaze. Many times the evangelist presents the Master that before speaking, he turns his gaze, fixing his eyes on each of those present. Then Mark explains the feelings; he says that Jesus is indignant and sad. Outraged by that hypocritical attitude of closeness, of silence, of religious narrowness. And saddened because there is this situation of oppressive religion. And saddened by the hardness of the heart. They are hardheaded. The heart in biblical language is the head because they do not understand; and Jesus just says a word: "Extend your hand." And that man is released from his disability. That hand that was not able to move, thanks to the word of Jesus becomes active again. Jesus shows that he has power; demonstrates having an effective authority for man on religious matters; for the concrete liberation of man.

How do adversaries react to these claims of Jesus? "The Pharisees immediately came out and deliberated how to finish him off." In Mark 3.6 Mark makes a first conclusion. We are almost at the end. The adversaries have already decided on eliminating him because he is too dangerous a person. But we are only at a midpoint. Mark immediately restructures the story with another summary, another vocation story and then present a series of new actions of Jesus with his sensational affirmation: that of being God; to be the one who truly liberates man.