3rd Sunday After Pentecost

 

Mark 3:20-35

So as we encounter our gospel reading for today, Jesus is in trouble again.  Because as we are learning, sometimes being your authentic self is hard.  Last week, we watched Jesus heal and feed people on the sabbath.  We learned about how he is bound by the law of God to give life, to care for all people as the fulfillment of Torah.  And his ministry really takes off after this.  Our lectionary skips over like 14 verses, between this week and last week, and in this section Jesus is on fire.  He goes out, and people come from all over, like all over the world to see him, and he heals these huge crowds.  And he keeps casting out all these demons, and the demons know exactly who he is, they keep calling him Son of God before he silences them and casts them out. 

    And Jesus becomes so popular that there are just too many people, the need is too great, and Jesus always has to bring life.  So he gets his disciples together and he appoints the 12 apostles by name, and he gives them authority over unclean spirits, and he sends them out so he can literally multiply the ministry.  Jesus is finally getting to be his most authentic self, son of God and Son of man.

    And then, at the end of this passage, the right before the start of today’s lesson, after he has done all this amazing ministry, things take a turn as the bible gives us this dangerous sentence, “Then he went home”.  And that’s when the trouble begins, because going home is tricky.  Especially if your life is significantly different than it used to be.  Because no sooner does Jesus arrive in town than his family comes out to restrain him because they think he has gone out of his mind.  Because this famous guy isn’t their Jesus.  This isn’t the Jesus that they knew as a boy growing up in Nazareth.  Jesus is not meeting their expectations, so they think he must have gone out of his mind and he needs to stop, and go back to what they knew.  And simultaneously scribes who had come down from Jerusalem, so religious leaders from the seat of power, the people who traditionally represented God’s authority in the community, show up accusing Jesus of having a demon.

    And these two parts of the story may seem unrelated, but really, they are fundamentally about the same exact thing.  The question for all these people in Jesus’s life is, where is this all this power and authority coming from?  Clearly, he has it, people are being healed, demons are fleeing left and right, and not only that but somehow he also has the power to pass on this authority to disciples.  His family hasn’t given him this authority, his religious tradition hasn’t given him this authority.  So, they conclude it must be Satan. 

    Or it’s just Jesus being exactly who he was created to be, the one who brings health, healing and wholeness to the whole world.  But that’s hard, so Jesus tells them a parable.  “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.”  And as is often the case, this parable has many layers.  It would be easy to think it is all about Satan and it can be.  But it can also be about Jesus.  Because can Jesus be divided against himself?  Could he deny who he truly is?  Could Jesus ever only be just human, the young man that his family expects, the teacher his religion and community expects?  The evidence says no.  Even the demons know the truth, he is the Son of God, the Holy one of Israel.  The kingdom of God divided against itself would surely fall, if Jesus divided himself, diminished himself to please those around him, he would not be able to stand.

    And then Jesus tells another parable “no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.”  And we usually think it’s about Jesus tying up Satan.  But maybe this too is about something more, if his family & religious authorities succeed in restraining him, in diminishing the ministry, if Jesus gets bound up in internal conflict, that’s when Satan gets in to plunder the house.  Then and now.

    And I think that is the point Jesus is making in the next verse about blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.  Jesus is always bringing life, wholeness, relationship and forgiveness.  If you are going to call that evil, if you are going to bind that up, then those things are never going to belong to you.  Not because Jesus won’t give it, but because you will never accept it.

    And then we finally get to the scene at the end where Jesus appears to reject his family, but there is more to this one too.  Jesus has shown them, shown everyone exactly who he is.  And they stand outside and try to get him to come back to who they thought he was.  And so Jesus decides to redefine his family as those who do the will of God, who love the person he truly is, blood relation or not.  And no one says that doesn’t include his mother and brothers, in fact we know from later in the Bible, that his Mother and at least one brother stay deeply involved in his ministry.  I actually have a lot of respect for Mary in this moment because she chooses to hang in there.  She chooses to stay as one of those who does the will of his Father, who follows Jesus through all his trials and tribulations, his painful death, right through to the end of his earthly ministry and beyond.  But staying means she isn’t going to change who Jesus is, he is not going to let her expectations supplant who he is.  Jesus is choosing to be his authentic self.  Jesus will always be exactly who he was created to be, no  matter the cost.

    So what does this mean for us, today in our world?  Well a couple of things.  First, are you being who you are meant to be?  Are you living your life the way God created you to be?  Are you following God’s call on your life?  And if not, what is stopping you, what is standing in your way?

    And then, where are you being Jesus’s mother and brothers in this story?  Who in your family or community do you need to work to accept for who they are?  Everyone has someone in their families who didn’t turn out like we expected.  It’s pride month, do the LGBTQ people in your life know you love them for who they are?  But it’s more than that, all kinds of people in our lives sometimes need help being allowed to be their most authentic selves and really living as God created them to be.  And sometimes we all need a little help accepting those people whose lives turned out to be different than we expected.  But beautiful, healing, life giving things happen when we are all free to be who God created us to be.  Amen.