An Unbound Family of God
Year B: Proper 5
The reign of God breaks into the course of our ordinary occupations, business or family life and changes things around. It is what we do with that intrusion that determines whether we enter or belong to the reign of God or not. The willingness to allow God to walk into our lives, tear up our plans and throw them in the wastebasket is a good beginning.1 —Thomas Keating
Year B, Proper 5, June 9, 2024
First Reading: Genesis 3:8-15
Psalm: Psalm 130
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Gospel: Mark 3:20-35
Sermon - An Unbound Family of God
In Mark’s account of the gospel of Jesus, the evangelist likes to bring two stories together to make some point about the life of the disciple or the nature of the kingdom. Scholars call these “Markan Sandwiches”, and they are helpful to anyone doing a study of Mark. There are roughly nine of these in Mark: Mark 3:20-35; 4:1-20; 5:21-43; 6:7-32; 11:12-25; 14:1-11; 14:17-31; 14:53-72; 15:40-16:8.
These stories are arranged thusly: A B B’ A’.
Today’s reading is the first of these nine: Mark 3:20-35.
In this section there are two stories presented side by side. The ‘A’ part concerns Jesus’s friends/ family. In Mark 3:20-21 and Mark 3:31-35, Jesus’s family decides to go to the house where Jesus is teaching in order to restrain him. The ‘B’ part relates a controversy between Jesus and the religious leaders concerning the source of his authority. Jesus points to his miracles as a sign that he has come to restrain the ungodly forces of evil.
How do these stories relate? And how might this Markan sandwich inform our lives today?
In both stories, Jesus’s sanity and sincerity are questioned. On one hand, his family has heard that Jesus has “gone out of his mind” so they go to bring him back home. On the other hand, the scribes attempt to discredit Jesus by attributing Jesus’s miracles, specifically exorcism, to the power of Beelzebul.
To disprove the claims of the scribes, Jesus challenged the idea that Satan would cast out Satan, for any house divided against itself cannot stand. Instead of being on the side of Satan, Jesus was actually launching an assault against the powers of darkness. He then offered this warning: “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:28–29).
Excursus on Blaspheming the Holy Spirit (you can skip)
It’s important to add Mark’s clarifying comment here: “for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’”
There have been many instances of Christians living in terror because they are sure that they have committed this unforgivable sin, but this sin isn’t “unforgivable” because God is limited in power or grace; instead, it is “unforgivable” because the person who attributes evil to Jesus has so missed his character, so missed his love, so missed his mission that the likelihood of even experiencing godly sorrow, which leads to repentance, is far removed from any present possibility.
In other words, if one is consumed with the thought that they have committed this unforgivable sin, then it is obvious that they haven’t, for those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit have become so hardened that such thoughts wouldn’t even enter their minds.
Some would argue here that one cannot blaspheme the Holy Spirit today, but that seems to miss the point and rob this section of Scripture of its power. Have you ever known someone who was so filled with hatred, so consumed by pride and power, so overcome by prejudice that they hate those who seek to do the most good for all?
Materialism, consumerism, nationalism, or even their own faith have so clouded their judgment that they call good (compassion, mercy, justice) evil and evil (prejudice, unjust judgment, injustice) good.
Can such a person come back from that? I believe so. Remember, Jesus “spoke to them in parables.” I don’t think he is saying that forgiveness is impossible; instead, I think he is saying that it is really hard to get to that point because often such as a hateful person who calls good evil is really projecting hatred of themselves onto others.
End Excursus
It’s at this point that Jesus’s family arrives. They begin calling for him, and when Jesus is alerted to their presence, he says, “‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother’” (Mark 3:33–35).
In casting out Satan, Jesus wasn’t just combating evil, he was forming a new, unbound, limitless community of God. This eschatological family of God transcends borders, languages, education, and nationalities. The accuser, the adversary, has been bound. Jesus’s good news cannot be restrained! And you and I, as members of this family, have the privilege of shouting this good news from the rooftops!
Second Reading: I Believed, and So I Spoke
“But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—‘I believed, and so I spoke’—we also believe, and therefore we also speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13).
In this passage Paul quotes from Psalm 116:10. Specifically, though, Paul is citing the Greek translation of this passage, which is why it might not seem related in most of our Bibles which depend upon the Hebrew text instead of the Greek (Psalm 115:1, LXX). Regardless, Paul’s purpose behind citing this psalm is because the entire context of the psalm is related to the discussion in 2 Corinthians 4, much of which we covered in the sermon last week.
This anonymous author loved the Lord because the Lord heard his prayers despite the fact that “the snares of death encompassed me…” This is similar to what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4 when he wrote, “We are afflicted in every way but not crushed…”
Both the anonymous psalmist and Paul resolve to continue to speak the word of the Lord because they both have undying faith in God despite their troubles. The persecution Paul endured was nothing compared to the glory of God he saw on the road to Damascus, a glory so bright that he became blind for three days.
Here is where our challenge comes in. Do we have the same faith as Paul and the psalmist? Are we willing to press forward despite our troubles, and do we allow our faith to become more than an unspoken trust in God and manifest itself as a proud proclamation that Jesus is risen?
Paul goes on to say in 2 Corinthians 4, “So we do not lose heart…because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”
Thanks so much for keeping up with this blog. If you have any suggestions, recommendations, or critiques, you can always comment here or reach out through my website: https://danielr.net.
Keating, Thomas. The Mystery of Christ: The Liturgy as Spiritual Experience. New York: Continuum, 2008. Print.