Year B

Mark 3:20-35

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

To See the Way Clearly

With the great Easter season behind us, we now turn to what we refer to as the Season of Pentecost or Ordinary Time which will continue until the season of Advent that falls four weeks before the feast of Christmas. From Advent, through the feast of Pentecost, two weeks ago, the lectionary or the scriptures texts that were read on Sunday focused on the story of Jesus. Now, in the season of Pentecost, moving forward we turn our attention to the story of the people of God and the texts for today, start us off by posing the main questions that the texts throughout this season will seek to answer. What does it mean to live as the people of God under the rule of God, and what kind of life are we to live if we understand ourselves as God’s people?     

Our selected Old Testament passage today comes from the end of the era of the judges. Israel was not so much a united nation as a loose confederation of tribes, as likely to fight each other as to fight an enemy on the outside. And the leadership structure was equally loose: no elections, no line of succession, and no clarity about where the next leader would come from or what he or she would do. The judges were mostly ad hoc military heroes, raised up by God to meet Israel’s need in a time of some enemy oppression. Their “reigns” were sporadic, and sometimes localized. And without strong leadership, the nation was characterized by lawlessness and seemed to be spiritually adrift.

The last of the judges was Samuel, recognized as a national leader who led Israel solidly for a generation. He brought strength back to the land and one senses that God was leading Samuel, giving wisdom and guidance to him. But then the people saw what was ahead. Samuel was getting old, and there was no one on the horizon that seemed suitable to succeed him. And so the people come up with a solution. “Give us a king to govern us.” A king, they believed, would provide the things they had lacked before. God was never mentioned by the people and Samuel’s feelings got hurt. But God reminded him that it wasn’t Samuel the people were rejecting, it was God.

What Israel failed to recognize in their circumstance was that they already had a king, God, but God just wasn’t king enough for them. Yet, any other king that Samuel might appoint for them would represent their loss. The Lord God issues the people a sober warning through Samuel about what a king might bring. Samuel warned them that this king would steal people from Israel in order to lord it over them and reminded them that the Lord God as their king would teach them the truth and set them free. Yet, the people insist and God gives Samuel permission to grant Israel’s request. Israel traded the Lord God for Saul son of Kish. The people were, in the words of the proverb, leaning on their own understanding, and not so much on trusting God. They did not see clearly what the trade would bring about and mean for their lives.

And the trades go on through the generations from people not seeing clearly. Most of the people of Jesus’ day did not see clearly what they had in him. In today’s reading from the gospel of Mark, his family evidently did not comprehend who and what he was. The people certainly did not as they were worried and saying “he has gone out of his mind” attributing his work to the devil rather than the Spirit of God. And some months later under their influence, the mob in Pilate’s courthouse foolishly will exchange Jesus for Barabbas. What Jesus began doing and saying was unusual and almost nobody understood him. Those who knew him best, his neighbors from Nazareth, thought He was out of his mind.  And, those who knew him the least, the teachers of the law from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub-the ruler of demons.”

Both groups sought to explain him and both failed. They didn’t understand. It was H.G. Wells who said, “The pale Galilean is too much for our small hearts.” Perhaps he is. While we may not be able to know all about him, we can know him—and that is the important thing.  The religious leaders of Jesus’ day, who questioned him over his casting out of demons, certainly didn’t know him. They were face to face with the spirit of holiness and righteousness, and they judged it to be evil. In essence, Jesus’ response to them was to say, “It is not the Holy Spirit which is being judged today.” Suggesting that the unforgivable sin is the very thing they are doing by rejecting God. Similarly, God tells Samuel that the people “have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

By the religious leader’s inability to appreciate the awesome goodness of God’s Spirit that moved Christ to perform his acts of kindness, healing and mercy, they demonstrated their lack of knowledge of God and they brought judgment upon themselves. At the end of the passage, when concerned family members arrive to see Jesus, Jesus takes the opportunity to redefine family. He asks, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”  And then he points to those who do the will of God as his true family. It is a redefinition of family that helps us to understand the church and helps to answer questions like: who are we, who do we belong to, and what is our purpose as God’s people.

Paul today, we don’t want to leave him out, tries to help the church in Corinth to understand their purpose and call more clearly as Christ’s family. What could be seen was the present suffering. Whatever suffering we may be experiencing is always plainly in the field of our vision as human beings. But Paul wanted them to see what is not always apparent to us. He reminded them that the so-called “slight momentary affliction” is not just a temporary inconvenience we go through. Rather, it is an essential step on our way to our destination. For it “is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.” There is no question about the surpassing value of what is beyond, for it is made by God.

Paul wanted to encourage the Corinthians to faithfulness now so they can live forever in community with God and others in the “house not made with hands.” The life of the church should foreshadow life in the “house not made with hands.” Our purpose is not only to promote inclusive hospitality as a community here but also to promote this out into the world. It is to go with Jesus to the destitute, the hungry, those who mourn, those who are shunned and excluded, to all “the least of these.” God blesses all creation and every creature, and the church, like the people of Israel, is called to be a blessing and to spread blessing.  

God empowers the church to live together in love, peace, justice, and abundance. It does not always happen as God intends because we often cannot see clearly or understand God’s ways. Yet, like Jesus when it seemed as all the evil forces in the world had combined their opposition to his ministry-the crowds were so demanding that they would not even let him eat. His friends said, “He’s out of his mind.” The religious authorities say he is possessed by the devil and His family pleaded with him to give up his mission and come home, yet through it all, Jesus gently but firmly refused to be turned aside from the course he knew he must follow. Leaning not on his own understanding but on trusting God, the true king. May we always do likewise.