Jesus was not some divine know-it-all operating under a mask of human ignorance. As a human being, he came to understand God’s relationship to people in the same way that we all do, by virtue of his own lived experience and his reflection on that experience.  In such a way, he arrived at the “good news” about God. 
  He went to the wilderness by the River Jordan to John the Baptist who was preaching salvation from the coming judgement of God through baptism by John. This made those who were baptized distinct from the rest of the Jews for whom, in John’s eyes, there was no other hope, not in the Temple, nor in the synagogue, nor in the fact that they were sons of Abraham. Jesus differed from John in that he did not believe that people should separate themselves from the rest of the world; his vision, his aisling, was that the common people were better off when they collaborated with one another. Jesus left “after John had been arrested” (Josephus says Herod was afraid of John.) and he went to Galilee “proclaiming the good news of God” (Mk 1:14) to everyone who would listen. 
  At that time, there were many Jews who believed that the safe thing to do was to draw a circle  where those inside were safe while those outside were doomed: John’s followers, the Qumran communities, the priestly caste, the pharisees, the scribes, they knew what it was to be clean and who were the unclean, and they had their codes of conduct to know who was which; they maintained their identity by keeping themselves apart. Jesus knew that God’s good news included everyone without distinction of persons or vested interests.
  If we accept that Mark’s Gospel is the first Gospel, then Jesus’ first gospel words announcing God’s intervention are “The time is perfect. The Reign of God is among you. Think again, and trust the good news.”  This is Mk’s summary of the word that Jesus brought. Just  as John had done, Jesus did not take that word first to Jerusalem but to his home country, to the synagoge first and then to people’s homes, to the city first and then to the little hamlet villages and the open country, to those who considered themselves clean and to all those who were considered unclean. Jesus took God’s good news to everyone; but not everyone took it. God’s Reign dawned first in the boonies and not among those who held power. In this Jesus made a political statement and a religious statement; in those days, it was hard to keep them separate.
  Jesus did not pick helpers from among those who were interested in setting up separate elite gatherings. Instead, he asked workers engaged in family business. They were not educated scribes; they were ordinary people going about their ordinary jobs. In a scene reminiscent of Jeremiah 16:16 where God seeks out the people to bring them back to the land of their ancestors, Jesus recruited helpers to bring back the people to God’s way. In the synagogue at Capernaum, he taught the life-giving news of God. (Mk does not tell us what Jesus said at that time.) But in the synagogue, Jesus was challenged by someone who recognized that he had come into the space that belonged to the scribes. Jesus healed him of his unclean spirit, and all were amazed.
  Jesus often had conflict in the urban synagogues, but in homes, it was different. Witness the next scene in Mk: in the privacy of the home of Peter’s mother-in-law, Jesus felt free to take away her fever even though it was the sabbath. On the other hand, the whole town waited until the sabbath was over before they came to the house to be released from their illnesses. Illness and disease were connected with sins, in the common Jewish cultural understanding, and they often caused social isolation. Jesus set himself against the tyranny of isolation caused by codes of purity and morality. When he retired to quiet places, it was to refresh himself and his followers so that they might return again to bringing God’s good news.
  When Jesus was petitioned by a leper who had been to see the priests, Jesus was indignant. Tame translations say that “he was moved with pity”, but literally, his guts boiled and he snorted out, and he touched the man (thereby making himself unclean), declared him clean, and sent him back to the priests to confront them with the evidence. The leper, an outcast, should not have come to Jesus but the leper was a victim of a system of purity laws that made him pay to be restored to social contact. The stewards of the status quo saw Jesus’ action as deviant; the poor were impressed by his disregard for pharisaical purity laws.
  Back again in a house in Capernaum where many gathered, Jesus spoke to them the word. Another poor victim was brought to him, a paralytic- due to someone’s sin and therefore in debt to God. Jesus forgave his sins and his debt and restored the man’s social position. The scribes were angry; they were “the reasoners”; they said Jesus spoke blasphemies since from their point of view only God could forgive sins, and they were God’s stewards. Jesus had broken their code.  So Jesus confronted them and asked them why they thought that way. Then he healed the sick man and sent him home. Again the crowd was impressed. Jesus freed victims and ignored the prerogatives of those who saw themselves as stewards of God, and they were not going to stand for that.
  In 2:3, Mk uses the word “crowd” (ochlos). This is not the usual word for “the people” (laos) but for the confused ordinary, the masses, the outcasts, the sinners, the alienated, despised by the power people though often manipulated by them; they are like the “People of the Land” who remained behind after the Exile. The pharisees would not eat with them nor travel with them. Jesus does both; he accepts them as equals. But Jesus will be branded for it and will not be able to enter a town openly. Scribes will ask”Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”(2:16) in defiance of the purity codes.
  Jesus showed that God’s good news was for everyone ( the well-off too if they would respond), and so he called Levi who was well-off but was a social outcast because he was a customs agent working for the oppressor. Levi responded. Jesus then went to his house and ate with him. This was part of Jesus’ inclusive attitude and it was contrary to the pharisaic rules for table fellowship which they held to strictly. Table fellowship was a very significant part of cultural and religious identity. The just and clean would eat only with the just and clean. The pharisees did not identify with the masses but solidified their own identity by socializing only with those whom they saw as righteous. 
  Jesus connected with the sinners and the sick as opposed to the strong and said that he was calling sinners-which included non-observant Jews and Gentiles- to “think again”. God’s way according to Jesus included them. The pharisees had strict rules about public righteousness, fasting, and sabbath observance. 
  Disciples of John and disciples of the pharisees fasted more than was required and they asked why Jesus’ disciples did not do the same. There was no obligation to do extra fasting. Jesus then used metaphorical (allegorical) language known to all: The bridegroom”s friends party while the bridegroom is with them. And like a piece of new unshrunken cloth sewn to an old cloak or freshmade wine put into old skins, God’s good news cannot thrive with old distinctions. 
  After that, Jesus took on the rigorous pharaisic sabbath observance but tied it in with eating and with bread. If people had control of the sacred, their lives would be less worrisome. Once grain was harvested (plucked), it became subject to purity laws watched over by the pharisees. The hungry, the poor, paid little attention to such laws- they could not afford to. The poor sometimes had to break the (sabbath) law in order to eat when the opportunity came. Subsistence farmers did not have the leeway to be fussy about ritually pure grain. There was a difference of opinion between them and the pharisees over what could be eaten and sold and over what had to be tithed (locally and in Jerusalem). Jesus showed that hungry people did not have to bother with such (oppressive) niceties. He put people first before the sabbath law; this was unacceptable to the pharisees because it put the people in charge in their own house. 
  Another sabbath/synagogue incident set the pharisees to join with the Herodians and it brought scribes from Jerusalem. They all were watching Jesus to get evidence that they might use to convict him of breaking the Law and blaspheming in contempt for God.  Blasphemy was the charge that they would eventually use to execute Jesus.
  In the synagogue that sabbath, Jesus was aware that God’s good news as he proclaimed it was not acceptable to the authorities. They were concerned with rules that kept many people outcasts. Jesus had declared that everyone was included in God’s Reign; God did not keep people outside because they owed something to God. With God, all debts were as though they did not exist. Jesus declared that no one was outcast from social contact; everyone needed to be part of an extended family group without which life was very difficult. So in the synagogue, Jesus called up a man with an crippled (arthritic?) hand and asked the pharisees the question about sabbath healing. They refused to answer. Jesus was very angry at their obstinate stupidity; then, he healed the man’s hand. 
  To this point, Jesus had acted on the assumption that people had certain rights. But in the synagogue that day, for the first time he sought out a confrontation with the authorities. This action offended the authorities. Jesus and his disciples then retired to the quiet of the sea. From the disciples, Jesus picked twelve and gave some of them new names- Peter, James, and John. This symbolic act took place on a mountain and indicated that he was setting up a symbolic new Sinai group to live God’s way as an alternative collaborative way to that imposed by the institutional authorities.
  When he returned to Capernaum, he was followed by the crowd made up of people from all points of the compass. The number was so large that he could not eat. His friends and family came to take him away because they thought that he had gone too far in opposing the pharisees. (Mk is the only one who mentions this.) The scribes from Jerusalem accused Jesus of being possessed. This was their way of dismissing his work and of giving them an excuse to interfere with it. Jesus attacked their reasoning and turned their argument against them: if God’s people were divided, they would not be able to withstand the force of Satan; if the temple was divived, it too could not withstand; if Satan was divided, his end was near. 
  Jesus was in battle with Satan and was binding ‘the strong one’ (Satan) by freeing the “prey of the strong one” and rescuing captives from tyrants (Is. 49:24). With a solemn Amen, Jesus declared that the sins of all were forgiven (sins of weakness and bad theology), all sins except the sin of setting one’s self against the liberation found in God’s good news. The authorities refused to see that their course was opposed to God’s purpose and held people captive to the way things were, resisting change and suppressing human rights.
  Jesus’ family again showed up concerned about him and themselves and thinking that he had gone too far. But he did not wish to recognize anyone who stood in the way of his work. He declared that relationships which liberate were more important than burdonsome relationships even if they existed within family. 
  Jesus led the way forward confident that he was attuned to God’s way. By his actions, he stated clearly what that way was. He gathered a group who were willing to learn that way. He declared God’s way to everyone, and he opposed those who would not allow the         freedom of God to all.
Diarmuid O’Murchu in “Religion in Exile” p.187 says the following:
“True justice begins with an emphatic solidarity with those condemned to experience life as non-persons; the justice-seeker (and the justice-promoter) needs to be able to stand inside the skin of the other and know, at a gut level, what it’s like to be condemned to such a meaningless existence. Then, and only then, will we truly hear the excitement and anger that cries out for justice.” 
  For a fuller treatment of Mk’s Gospel, read “On Binding the Strong Man” by Ched Meyers.