From this Sunday until the end of July, we will be reading through Marks’s Gospel from chap 3 to 6 – a sermon series I’ve (ambitiously?) called: “”Powerful words, mighty deeds and rising opposition”.
As you may know, Mark’s Gospel is really divided in two parts: Jesus’s ministry in Galilee and then Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem, the turning point being Peter’s confession of faith and the transfiguration Chapter 8-9. At the beginning of his ministry, in Galilee, Jesus draws attention to himself by performing healing, casting demons and proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God.
As he does so, of course, he attracts a lot of people, but he also gives rise to a growing opposition – an opposition that will eventually lead to his death, but also to his Resurrection as the disciples get to understand what it really means to be the Messiah – “The suffering servant”
But for now, we are in Jesus’s early ministry. Our passage today actually starts after Jesus appoints the twelve – “sends” them. We see that Jesus does not only call disciples, people who will sit at his feet to learn from him, Jesus sends them on the mission as well – the disciples learn by doing. Not only do they take in Jesus’s example, but they are to imitate him and to participate in his work – even at the beginning of their formation.
Now it says something for us, of course. When we follow Jesus in our daily lives, it’s not only about learning about him, we learn from him and we learn from him as we do, as we imitate him, as we strive to love as he loved, as we strive to do God’s will as Jesus’s did God’s will – and it’s actually the topic of our passage today:
Jesus recognizes his disciples as those who do God’s will. Jesus goes even as far as to say that those who do God’s will are to him “Brother, sister and mother” – Not just “students” or “apprentices”, but his own flesh and blood. But we know that don’t we that Jesus wants us to become his very flesh and blood – that’s the reason Jesus gave us the Eucharist. It’s not only about following, it’s about belonging.
But let’s start with the beginning. To me, there are three main things to notice about the passage we have heard today.
– The first thing that is important is this re-definition Jesus makes of what it means to be close to him, to be one of his kindred. We see that Jesus does not necessarily feel close to his natural family, the people he was “assigned at birth” if you will. Actually, they are so different from Jesus that they think that Jesus is not “right in his mind” (The translation we’ve heard today say “some people” think that Jesus is out of his mind, but the original Greek links this declaration to Jesus’s own family). But then, if Jesus does not necessarily feel close to his natural family, he does not feel necessarily close to religious authorities either – it’s actually an understatement to say that since some scribes think Jesus is possessed by a demon.
As so we discover that Jesus does not like to be labeled and does not conform to the expectations. As a son, a brother, or even as a good Jew or as a rabbi.
And I think there is something important in that. To me, what Jesus does is not so much that he downplays the importance of family, rather he rejects “familiarity” for another kind of bound. Jesus rejects “domestication”, Jesus does not want to be domesticated – to become who people wants him to be – and he does that well since we see that the people who should be naturally close to him or welcome him as a peer think he is out of his mind or possessed. Jesus is not who they expect him to be.
And to me this is of importance because I wonder, as we examine the way we are to follow Jesus, if belonging to Jesus’s family as Christians does not sometimes turns into “familiarity” and “familiarity” turns into “domestication”. Having been Christians for 10, 30 or 50 years, we end up thinking we know who is Jesus – what Jesus would say, what Jesus would want, or what Jesus would do. And we can still love Jesus very much – certainly his family did love him – and yet we misunderstand him, Jesus becomes who we would like him to be – Most of the time a savior or a god who confirms our expectations instead of challenging them.
And so the challenge for us – but also the joy and the excitement – as we go through this liturgical season is to get to know Jesus again, to remove the labels we have put on Jesus, and as we re-examine who Jesus is, we can reexamine how is it that we should live our Christians lives. I certainly invite you to let yourself be surprised by the Jesus in Mark’s Gospel – who certainly did not come to the people to make them feel better about themselves, but so they can change their hearts and change their ways, and from there, how they can change the world.
– Which takes me to my second point.
Being part of Jesus’s family isn’t about flesh and blood, at least not in a biological sense, and it’s not only about belonging to a religion – the religious leaders who rejected Jesus shared the same Scriptures, the same rites, and the same faith than Jesus – they would worship in the same synagogues and sacrifice to the same Temple. But Jesus identifies those who truly belong with him as those who “do the will of God”. The sin against the Holy Spirit Jesus mentions is this way people can label themselves as godly and religious, when they consistently refuse to amend their behavior and call right and holy what is wrong and unfair. But as the first disciples, we are first called to do God’s will rather than giving ourselves titles or declaring that we are God’s family. What makes us part of the family isn’t our birth right but what we concretely do. And we know what is God’s will in Jesus’s eyes, rather than a set of rules, it means to have compassion and to work for justice.
In concrete circumstances of course, we may not have the same understanding of what is God’s will. But we are certainly called to seek God’s will together, to do the best we can to stick to Jesus’s example: teaching the love of God, denouncing abusive power, condemning lies and hypocrisy, practicing a religion of the heart rather than performing religious rites….
As I mentioned earlier, Jesus wants his disciples to learn by doing. And we also learn by doing, by serving together. In the end, Jesus tells us, this is what makes our unity. Seeking and doing God’s will – that it is actually the source of our unity, and this is my third and last point.
– Jesus notices in this passage that a divided house or kingdom cannot stand. And this is actually the way of the devil. You may know that st its root, the word “devil” means “the one who divides”. And we can certainly witness how much evil comes from division: in nations, in families, in churches, in marriages and even within ourselves. So we are right to seek unity. Yet unity isn’t about proclaiming that we are one big family, again it’s not about sharing a common label “Christians” or “Episcopalians” or in our case the “people worshiping at St Margaret’s”. Our unity – and our belonging with Christ and to Christ – should come from our desire to do God’s will together.
In many churches, a common mistake is to think that we have to get along and agree on everything and then we can seek God’s will. But as he sends his disciples, Jesus shows us that we first need to seek God’s will and then we can be with one another in harmony because we have a common goal, a mission: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother”.
And so Division is the work of the devil, very likely, but sometimes conflicts also come when we don’t have a clear sense of what we are supposed to accomplish together. We see that in churches, but also in work places, in marriages and so on. Unity comes from what people seek to do together to bless one another and to bless the world. When they see a bigger picture than their own, limited will and desires. We can more easily leave our conflicts aside when we have a sense of purpose.
Well, I think it’s good news, isn’t it? Because in the end, Jesus invites us to live beyond ourselves, in a perpetually expanding family and mission field and all we have to do is to start somewhere – but about that, we’ll talk next week.