Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
9^th of June 2024

Mark 3:20-35

Every liturgical ‘Year of Mark’ I remind the congregation that of all the canonical gospels of Jesus Christ, Mark’s version is the shortest, the earliest, and the most terrifying. Today we see that scariness up close, as Jesus is accused of being in league with demons and his family tries to restrain him because they believe he is out of his mind. It is a story that includes Jesus being attacked by the representatives of the Powers That Be in Jerusalem, while he attacks his biological family in favour of the outsiders gathered around him. Perhaps most difficult is Jesus’ saying: ‘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’. Today’s reading is not for the faint of heart, nor for those who are relaxed and comfortable with the status quo.

Today’s passage is an example of what biblical interpreters call a ‘Markan sandwich’. Imagine, if you will, a chicken and lettuce sandwich, or a ham and cheese toastie. The outer layer, the slices of bread, are the verses about Jesus’ family. At the beginning, either worried for his safety or embarrassed by him, they seek to contain him, by force if necessary. At the end of the reading, they ask for Jesus from outside the house where he’s staying, and are denied. In between this tale of Jesus and his family is the lettuce or the cheese: the accusation from the scribes that Jesus is suffering from demonic possession, and Jesus’ statement about those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit never being forgiven. In between the ‘bread’ of Jesus’ engagement with his family, and the ‘lettuce’ or ‘cheese’ of his engagement with the scribes, is the ‘chicken’ of the sandwich, the ‘ham’ of the toastie; the most important part of the passage; the parables about the house divided and the strong man’s house. (My apologies to all those listening who are vegetarian, lactose intolerant, or gluten-free.)

The layering of the Markan sandwich shows us that the two accusations, that Jesus is out of his mind and that Jesus is possessed by demons, are interlinked, as are Jesus’ family, which is possibly seeking to protect him, and the religious authorities, who are accusing him of a crime. Both groups, in trying to control and restrain Jesus’ ministry, are guilty of opposing the work of God, and Mark is telling us that it does not matter whether such opposition comes from love or from hate. Jesus’ family seeks to restrain him because people, whether members of the family themselves or others, think that he has gone out of his mind. The accusation by the religious authorities, the scribes from Jerusalem, is even worse. They accuse him of being in league with Beelzebul and casting out demons through him; a possession that could also be seen as a form of madness, but is here used as an accusation of magic, a capital crime.

The scribes believe that they are on the side of God, indeed that they represent God. Therefore anyone who is not on their side must be on the side of the devil, and Jesus is obviously not on their side. He tells people that their sins have been forgiven (Mark 2:5-12); he eats with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:15-17); he defends his disciples for plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath and heals the sick on it (Mark 2:23-28). Jesus has inaugurated the reign of God and so he is challenging and overturning the status quo. His message is that God is love; that God desires the health of all God’s creation; that God stands in solidarity with us; that God is determined to love and redeem us no matter the cost; and that God is with us – all of us.

It is no surprise that the scribes find this hard to accept. Their entire life has been about determining how we are to relate to God. They are part of a long and proud tradition of faithful service to God and the people of God. They help humanity keep the rules that enable us to relate to God. But Jesus is declaring that how we relate to God is not a matter of rules. The Law is not about regulating our relationship with God, but was given by God to enable God’s people to have life in abundance. So Jesus heals whenever and wherever there is need, even on the Sabbath. He welcomes everyone, even those normally excluded by religious restrictions. He liberates a world imprisoned by unclean spirits. In everything he does, Jesus reveals the wildly merciful and unpredictably gracious God who is always doing something new. Since human beings are frequently threatened by change, the new life to which Jesus is inviting people scares those who are quite happy with their current lives and the status quo. It has scared the scribes.

The scribes’ fear is understandable, but not their response to identify what they fear with the demonic. The Holy Spirit that descended like a dove on Jesus as he was baptised by John is blowing where She will, bringing new things to birth, and the scribes are not simply trying to cage Her. They are accusing Her of being demonic. This is the ‘eternal sin,’ blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, calling God’s work satanic. The trouble for us, as we strive not to imitate the scribes, is that it can take time to determine which new things are the work of the Holy Spirit, and which are not. I recently read a biography of the eighteenth-century wit, Rev. Sydney Smith, mainly because he was the sort of clergyman who appears in the novels of Jane Austen, and discovered that he hated the Methodists, saying that he preferred Catholicism, which had ‘some excuse in the dark and ignorant ages in which it originated. The religious enthusiasm manufactured by living men before my own eyes [Methodism] disgusts my understanding as much, influences my imagination not at all, and excites my apprehensions much more [than Catholicism].’[1] It is hard to rightly judge enthusiasm manufactured by living men before our own eyes, whether that enthusiasm is the Jesus Movement within first-century Judaism, the excesses of Francis of Assisi, Protestantism, Methodism, the movement for the ordination of women, the struggle for churches to welcome LGBTIQ+ people, Pentecostalism, and so on, and so forth. If we are not going to join the scribes in their eternal sin, we need to be constantly open to the new things the Holy Spirit is doing, and this will demand much discernment.

Jesus, in his response to the scribes, turns defence into offence. He asks the scribes: ‘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.’ (Mark’s audience would have been aware of this; they would have seen the internal divisions that brought about the defeat of the Jews in the Jewish wars, and the instability in Rome that followed the death of Nero.) If Jesus is in league with Satan, and casting out Satan, then Satan will fall. If Jesus is not in league with Satan, then the scribes have no case. Either way, Satan’s end is coming at the hands of Jesus.

Jesus’ second parable is that ‘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.’ Mark’s version of the gospel assumes that the house of the world is in the hands of Satan, the strong man, but, as John the Baptist announced, Jesus is the more powerful one, the one who can bind the strong man. Jesus’ exorcisms and healings are the binding that can free the oppressed from Satan’s rule. We do not use the same sort of language, but we still recognise that there are powers that hold people captive, various societal and global forces that dehumanise people: racism, sexism, materialism, fear of those who are ‘different’. These are the demonic powers from which Jesus is to free the world by bringing in the reign of God.

Jesus’ family, like the scribes, does not understand what Jesus is doing and wishes to end it. Their motives may be better, they may not commit the ‘eternal sin’ of believing that his works are demonic, but they too are blind to the way God is working in the world. This is not a very family-friendly story, as the Gospel according to Mark is not a family-friendly gospel. It reminds us that the liberation that Jesus brings can sometimes be liberation from our families of origin. This is obvious when those families are abusive or neglectful, but it can be true even when they are caring and well-meaning. One American commentator I read on this passage describes growing up in the Deep South in the 1950s and 1960s, taught white supremacy and racism by loving and caring people like his mother and church leaders. He describes them as wonderful people captive to racism. He had to be liberated from that captivity.[2] Over the past few months, I have similarly been discovering the stories of anti-Zionist Jews, people who were brought up to believe that they had to support Israel as part of their Judaism.[3] Sometimes, with the absolutely best intentions, our families can hold us captive and we need to be freed from their power.

The Gospel according to Mark is terrifying because it shows us Jesus coming to overturn the status quo, to bring about a new world, to challenge religious authorities, and to free us even from our families if those who love us and take care of us also imprison us. If we are comfortable with the status quo, find the current world satisfactory, and do not want to challenge the families we love, then we will be tempted to imitate the scribes and Jesus’ own family, and try to shut down the new thing Jesus is doing. We will fail, because Jesus is the one who is stronger and the Holy Spirit always blows where She will. The good news is that Jesus, who frees people from demonic powers, is the master of an undivided household, a new family made up of those who do the will of God. Membership of this new family is not based on blood – or at least is not based on our blood. It is based on the blood of Jesus, shed for us. We, and all the world’s misfits and outsiders, are welcomed into this new family. Liberation is frightening, but it is through Christ’s liberation that we will ultimately find our true home.

[1] Sydney Smith, Peter Plymley’s Letters and Selected Essays (1893).

[2] Nibs Stroupe in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3, p. 121.

[3] See, for instance, Miko Peled, The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, Just World Books, 2016.