Everyone has an agenda. That may sound cynical, but it is true. Look around any crowd, and you will find as many motivations, preferences, and opinions as there are people. Those that gathered around Jesus during His earthly ministry were no exception. Just after Jesus went up on a mountain and selected the Twelve Apostles, Mark recorded that “he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat” (Mk 3:20 ESV).
And every one of those people wanted something. Some were sick or afflicted. They hoped Jesus would heal their diseases or cast out their demons (cf. Mk 3:9-11). Others came along hoping to hear something astonishing or see something amazing (cf. Mk 1:22, 27-28).
Also listening and watching Him closely were scribes – the Jewish people’s religious experts. Yet, they didn’t come all the way from Jerusalem to be healed or astonished. They had already heard enough about the outrageous things Jesus said (forgiving sins! cf. Mk 2:6-7), about the terrible company He kept (eating with tax collectors and sinners! cf. Mk 2:16), and about the blatant disregard He showed toward the Sabbath (allowing the hungry to pluck grain and the diseased to be healed! cf. Mk 2:24, 3:2). They were there to expose Jesus as the evildoer they were sure He was (cf. Mk. 3:22, 30).
Jesus’ biological family was in that crowd, too. “And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him” (Mk. 3:31). Now, that seems pretty reasonable on the surface – but they came with an agenda, too. “And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind’” (Mk. 3:21). Evidently Jesus was embarrassing them.
So many people. So many different, competing agendas. They couldn’t all be right. In fact, only one was: “And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother’” (Mk. 3:34-35).
There’s no use denying it: we all have an agenda. Yet whatever first drew us to Jesus – whether need or curiosity or even controversy – He invites us to adopt a different agenda: to do God’s will. If that shapes our opinions, if it leads us to submit in our preferences, and if it becomes our motivation for all we say and do, then it will lead us right where we should be: sitting at Jesus’ feet.
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