Loading...If ever there was a Sunday for a hymn sing, this is it!
“A house divided”
Beelzebul (who?) or Satan
“Guilt for an eternal sin”
A seeming rejection of family (so much for “family values”!)
Plus, from a literary and structural point of view, this gospel is very confusing. It turns out that there’s a flashback scene stuck in the middle.
And, Jesus tells one of the shortest and most enigmatic parables. One way it can be heard is that Jesus is the thief who comes into the house, ties up the “strong man” and plunders the house.
Nice. Jesus hates his family and is a thief. Plus, everyone – at least everyone who thought that they were important – were convinced that Jesus was “out of his mind.”
So, yes. Let’s sing a little.
Goodness is stronger than evil;
love is stronger than hate;
light is stronger than darkness;
life is stronger than death;
vict’ry is ours, vict’ry is our, through God who loves us.
Vict’ry is ours, vict’ry is ours, through God who loves us. (Desmond Tutu)
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As I heard this Gospel story read aloud this week,
listening for some word of phrase that jumped out at me,
this was the word: “it”.
“Then [Jesus] went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’”
What’s the “it”?
People saying that he has gone out of his mind.
But why would they say this?
Because there were such great crowds that they (Jesus and the 12 disciples whom he’d just appointed as apostles in the verses just before our story today begins) could not eat?
No.
We have to go back to a different point of the story before today’s Gospel.
Remember last week’s story? Jesus flagrantly broke Sabbath laws by allowing his disciples to pluck heads of grain in the fields and healing a man’s withered hand, both on the Sabbath day.
Jesus not only broke the Sabbath law by “working” on the Sabbath day, but by healing. Who has the power to heal, at least in Jesus’ time when there was not modern medicine as we know it?
God.
So what Jesus is doing – healing – is blasphemy.
And the religious leaders are incensed.
Next action in the story before today’s scene is that Jesus goes to the sea
and HUGE crowds of people follow him.
He heals many people (and many more crush in)
and he casts out many demons, or unclean spirits –
unclean spirits who called him “Son of God”
because they know who he was.
All of this is SO far out of the realm of what I encounter or hear everyday, so it helps me to tune my ears into what Jesus is up to and to “translate” it into modern life experience.
In other words, Jesus was reaching out to and connecting to people who were hurting, in pain, lost, grieving, ostracized, and ignored. He reached out with caring, with hope, and with real hope. He defied conventions, the powers that be, leaders, and evil forces.
Who has that sort of power?
Who has that kind of chutzpah?
Who has the moxie for that?
“He has gone out of his mind”
The leaders claim that he is not in his right mind. The Scribes – one of the powerful sets of folks in Jewish society at the time – claimed, “he has Beelzebul and by the rule of the demons he casts out demons.”
(Beelzebul is a character who comes from 2 Kings 1:16, and likely referred to the price Baal – a Canaanite god – but which was also distorted to mean “lord of the flies” or “lord of the filth”. To call someone Beelzebul was a serious insult.)
One answer that people used to explain Jesus’ seemingly odd behavior that was SO out of step with cultural, religious, and society norms was that he was possessed by a demon. That he was possessed by THE demon – Satan – the anti-thesis of God.
No, says Jesus.
It’s not a demon, not Satan, not “out of my mind.”
This is God, Yahweh. The One who created and still creates.
The One who is at work in each of you to bring life, healing, wholeness, shalom.
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Don’t let what you think is normal, righteous, or correct get in the way of the Holy Spirit at work.
Don’t let your ideologies, theologies, and philosophies blind you to God at work in unexpected ways.
Don’t let anything – even your understanding of family – cut you off from the life that Jesus gives.
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In every story or teaching or passages, I ask myself (or the Tuesday evening Bible study group!): What’s the Good News here?
What gives life and hope?
What challenges the thing “we’ve always known”?
And, it’s true, some passages from scripture are much easier to figure out what the Good News (i.e. Gospel) is.
But these?
The man and woman are in the garden in the cool of the evening and they hide (in shame?) from God? And, then when God finds them they have to face their wrong doing and the consequences? What’s life-giving and hopeful there?
Or, the labels of Beelzebul or Satan; the curse of an “eternal sin”; or a “division in the house”?
The Good News is that there’s always more to the story.
Jesus is NOT Beelzebul.
There is NO division in the house.
The family is open to any and all who walk into the welcome of Christ,
who are willing to be re-created as God works on you,
who are learning from the Holy Spirit this way of mercy.
The Good News is that there is new life,
like a snake shedding skin that is itchy, uncomfortable, and too small
for a new skin, and a renewed way.
The Good News is that if we’re willing to put aside our earthly tent,
we will have a house made by God.
The Good News, the challenge,
is that we have to let go of what we thought was right
(Oooo! that can be hard for those of us who like to be “right” all the time).
But, oh, the refreshment and joy!
[sing]
Take, oh, take me as I am
Summon out what I shall be
Set your seal upon my heart and live in me.
Or, as a hymn from the oldest hymn book we have says:
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
There is forgiveness with you.
Hope is in the Lord, O People!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love and great power to redeem.
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Scary words not withstanding, dear family in Christ, these Words today are Good News. Good News of life and hope. Amen
