First Reading: Genesis 3:8-15
8{The man and his wife} heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Psalm 130
1Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! 2 O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! 3If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. 5I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; 6my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. 7O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. 8And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
13Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, 14knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. 15For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. 16So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
1For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Gospel: Mark 3:20-35
20{Jesus} went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that {Jesus and the apostles} could not even eat. 21And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” 22And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” 23And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. 28Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” — 30for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” 31And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” 33And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
Family Ties and Unties
In the 1993 movie Rudy, Sean Astin plays Rudy Rudiger, a young man who grew up in a Roman Catholic working-class family that was employed at the steel mills, which is the town’s economic bedrock. Rudy always wanted to play football for Notre Dame, but there were three problems. First, he was short, second, he lacked strong talent, and finally, he struggled in school due to dyslexia. His family and girlfriend all thought that he would fail in this venture.
At age 22, when his best friend Pete died in an industrial accident, Rudy set out to pursue his dream. He quickly discovered that he was woefully unqualified to enroll in the University of Notre Dame. However, a local Catholic priest helped Rudy get into Holy Cross Junior College, where he met a tutor and worked as a groundskeeper. After many failed attempts to get into Notre Dame, he was finally accepted, and was a walk-on player: he was part of the team as the tackling dummy and was assigned to the red shirt squad that performed the opposing team. However, because of his positive attitude and work ethic, he inspired the rest of the Notre Dame players to the point that they insisted that he get to play in the final season game against Georgia Tech.
The young man who everyone thought to be unrealistic, and at times out of his mind, was finally carried off the field in victory by his fellow teammates. In our gospel reading for this morning, Jesus’ family thought He “had gone out of His mind,” so they came to restrain him.
As modern hearers of this passage, we know that Jesus is God’s “beloved Son, with whom God is well pleased.” We heard these words from the Father, including the command to “Listen to Him”, after Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan river, and at the Transfiguration. It’s also recorded for us that Jesus endured forty days in the wilderness, being tempted by satan (Mark 1:12-13). It was a time of testing that ended with Jesus overcoming satan, and all the temptations. Throughout His ministry, Jesus taught, performed miracles, healed the sick and diseased, drove out demons, and raised people from the dead. And at the beginning of His ministry, He called His disciples (including Judas), to continue His work, once He returned to the Father.
We’re certainly thankful for His ministry, His passion and death, and for His resurrection and ascension back to our heavenly Father. His obedience to God the Father won for us the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life in His presence. However, from a cultural perspective, Jesus went against the grain. He stepped outside the norms of society and followed a path that was unexpected. When you consider that Jesus’ earthly father, Joseph, was a carpenter by trade, then custom would dictate that Jesus was going off the family reservation by choosing a different path than that of the family vocational calling. We can see this same attitude with Rudy’s family, when he abandoned his job at the steel mills to pursue his dream and an education at Notre Dame.
Across this area, as well as across the eastern part of the US, there once were many mill and factory towns which served as an economic base, the major sources of employment, housing, and daily subsistence for many families. This went on for generations, starting with the industrial revolution in America. Some people were happy to simply have the job and income, while others complained about the dirty factory conditions, loud noises that impaired hearing, the sporadic layoffs due to jobs being moved overseas, to labor union disputes, or changeover of model cars for the next year.
Some families’ goal was to pass the factory work tradition onto the next generation — and even viewed such well-paying jobs as an entitlement of sorts. Other people saw a different path, one of pursuing higher education in the hopes of escaping the dirty shop environment, one with better working conditions, and something with more vocational mobility. But to follow a different path means one must take risks. Jesus, to those around Him, took unnecessary risks when He left the family trade tradition. Economically and practically speaking, in choosing a different path, He would be untied from the family and the stability of a community.
One of the features of St. Mark’s gospel is that he opted to use “sandwiches” or imposes a “story within a story.” Our gospel text for today is an example. The scribes come down from Jerusalem to inquire, if not to interrogate Jesus, as to where He gets His power to heal, and the authority to forgive sins. In today’s terms, the scribes could be seen as the accrediting agency’s inspection team that makes periodic visits to community colleges and universities to make sure the school is maintaining a high enough standard to be listed as “accredited.” Because Jesus is following a different path than expected, the religious leaders felt that it was their job to monitor and regulate Jesus’ ministry and activities. The scribes came to see if Jesus’ works are “accredited” from God as they understand God, or was Jesus off the rails and in league with Beelzebub (satan)?
Unable to accept the fact that God was indeed the source of Jesus’ power, they framed their questions around the assumption that if someone can cast out satan’s demons, this person must then be an ally, or in league with satan. You could say that the religious leaders were not only trying to discredit Jesus and His ministry, but they were also trying to “demonize” Him. Again, we see this same kind of reaction in many areas of life today. If one group doesn’t like what someone else is doing or saying, the first group will use disparaging language in an effort to diminish the other person or group, so that the first group sees success.
It’s easy to “demonize” people we don’t happen to like, or who disagree with our position, so one group will aggressively attack the other, not only to win, but to stop others from listening to them. In the sports world, we see this domineering behavior by some athletes or teams who will run up the score as they win, and then do “victory dances” in order to humiliate and shame the opposing team. It’s their way of rubbing their face in the defeat. However, for the Christian, we must be different. Intellectually, theologically, and morally, we can oppose someone’s ideas and behaviors without striving to “demonize” them, as the scribes were attempting to do with Jesus here in Mark chapter 3. Remember how Jesus answered the question, “what is the greatest Commandment? He said, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:29-31).
We can find more positive examples of athletic competition that includes when a particular team is hurt or has lost loved ones. The 1970 movie We Are Marshall was about the Marshall University’s football team and coaches being killed in an air disaster, and the new coach who tried to rebuild the football team in West Virginia. After efforts to hire a coach and organize a new football team, the rival football team coach in West Virginia allowed the newly formed Marshall coaching staff to view their game films. Additionally, opposing teams wore an “M” on the back of their football helmets to remember and honor the deceased Marshall football team. As Christians, we’re called to love and support our neighbors, even when we don’t agree with their beliefs and actions. We’re called to love the person, even when we hate the sin.
In our gospel text, Jesus, instead of retaliating against the Scribes and demonizing them, reframed the assumption of the Scribes and highlights the fact that a house divided against itself cannot stand. If satan had used Jesus to cast out his own demons, then satan’s domain wouldn’t last long. Jesus furthered, one cannot plunder an owner’s house without first restraining the owner. Jesus also pointed out the fact that He was indeed sent from God and therefore had the authority to forgive sins and those who reject Him, also reject the Spirit and God the Father who sent Him. This brings up an oft misunderstood subject, what is blasphemy when it comes to God and the unpardonable sin.
To be clear, a person cannot unintentionally, unknowingly, or out of ignorance commit the unpardonable sin. To phrase it in a more colloquial way, to commit the unpardonable sin, one must, with malice and forethought, disparage, deny, and attempt to discredit Jesus and the One who sent Him. Historically, many writers and theologians have written about what exactly the unpardonable sin is. Is it simply a lack of repentance? Is it refusing God’s grace or acting like a “reprobate,” as the old Calvinists suggested. Neither of these two drill to the heart of the question.
Each of us have, at one time or another, failed to repent, at least for a time, and I’m sure each of us could think of a time when our actions were reprehensible. In order to “blaspheme God’s Spirit, we must not only actively, knowingly, and wantonly reject God’s work, we must also credit God’s work to satan in order to profane God’s name in turn denying and insulting God. Blasphemy is an outward and deliberate act by someone who knows better.
To blaspheme, or to commit the unpardonable sin, is to consciously and publicly reject God’s Spirit in Jesus the Christ. Blaspheming God’s Spirit is hard to do, even the demons that Jesus encountered and cast out knew and acknowledged who Jesus is. But lest I make it sound like it’s all but impossible to blaspheme God’s Spirit, in our gospel reading today, Jesus is saying that we can blaspheme the Holy Spirit by simply rejecting Jesus’ power to forgive, to heal, and to deny forgiveness of sin by His saving act in His death on the cross. For Mark, Jesus completed God’s plan and the requirements of the “Messiah” as He died on the cross for the sins of humanity.
In Mark chapter 10 verse 45 we find a summary of Jesus’ mission, “For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The Scribes, in their rejection of Jesus, insisted that He had an “unclean spirit” and credited God’s work to satan. Sadly, Jesus was unable to convince them otherwise, despite His miracles, His driving out of demons, His raising of both Lazarus and the widow’s son to life, and His best efforts of persuasion.
For Christians today, our lesson from St. Mark’s gospel provides for us with several lessons. First, it shows us that, at times, God’s call isn’t a call we might expect. Sometimes God calls people into a direction that’s goes against tradition, family, and the expectations of society. It also shows us that even though we might be following God’s will, it doesn’t mean that the path will be easy and without conflict. But despite the difficulties, when we follow in Jesus’ footsteps, God is with us and will strengthen us for whatever lies ahead.
The second lesson this passage reveals is that when we do face opposition and must endure disparaging things said to and about us, we’re not to return insult for insult. With Jesus as our example, we’re to love the people anyway, even while we reject the sin or behavior. Next, we must be careful. Even though blasphemy against God’s Spirit is difficult, if someone is determined, they can commit the unpardonable sin. Finally, our reading from St. Mark is a reminder that not everyone will listen to our witness for Jesus.
For Christians everywhere, our gospel lesson is a reminder that we can make our best case, both in actions and words, and there will still be certain people and groups who will remain unconvinced and will still oppose our efforts as disciples. But this doesn’t give us an excuse to quit trying, or to stop loving and evangelizing. Our daily efforts to share God’s good news in Jesus Christ is ongoing. We don’t know what the Holy Spirit is doing in someone’s life. As St. Paul reminds us, some are called to sow the seeds of the gospel, some are called to water, and some are called to harvest. It’s the Spirit’s work to give the increase (1 Corinthians 3:6-9).
St. Mark’s reminds us that the struggle against the forces of evil are real! Powerful people crave more power and are not going to compromise, despite the best argued logic, good intentions, and selfless acts of sacrifice. Our gospel reading closes with Jesus identifying His true family. All those who accept Jesus, follow His commands and believe that He is indeed the Way, the Truth, and the Life, are part of the kingdom of God.
Jesus’ call to discipleship is for all people whether they stayed with the family ties or who have been untied from the family traditions. It’s that simple, all who follow Jesus’ teachings and do the will of the Father are already part of the kingdom of God. Jesus looked at the crowds all around Him, and said, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” This is the good news for us today.
Amen