Home in Time for Dinner: Family and the Call to Discipleship within Mark’s Gospel

The disciples leave everything and follow Jesus. This claim is often assumed to be self-evident. While this assertion finds support in Luke’s Gospel, in Mark’s Gospel this is not the case. In contrast, after being called by Jesus the first disciples go home for dinner, and they invite Jesus to come with them (Mk 1.16–20, 29–31). This sequencing of events is not incidental. Instead, this pattern is repeated throughout Mark’s Gospel and is indicative of a different understanding of discipleship. The evidence within Mark’s Gospel destabilizes patriarchal constructions of Christian discipleship in which home and family responsibilities are relegated to encumbrance. However, simultaneously, the Markan evidence also scrambles the patriarchal tendency to insist upon loyalty to the biological family. When Mark’s understanding of faithfulness is untangled from Luke’s Gospel, a complex and potentially liberative vision of discipleship and the family emerges.