As we come into the summer months, I've been thinking about faith. Specifically, I've been considering the difference between our faith and God's faithfulness. I don't say this to judge anyone's faith; we each know the truth about our personal faith. But no matter how strong (or not) we may feel our faith is, we can rest sure in the fact that God remains faithful.
This week, we consider a sometimes misunderstood text in Mark (see Mark 3:20-35). Here is Mark, we find Jesus defending his ministry against the scribes who are trying to demonize him and highlighting the new family that God has made out of those who are in ministry with Christ. Through this text, we consider a faith that loves us, that draws us together, that joins us together with people from different backgrounds into a new family joined by a common cause.
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Our story today begins shortly after Jesus has appointed the Twelve. Mark lists out the names of the apostles, even giving us a subtle hint that Peter, James, and John are the closest to Jesus. Jesus has been traveling the countryside followed by his disciples and casting out unclean spirits. From among his disciples, he called the Twelve and appointed them “to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons” (Mark 3:14-15, NRSV).
This is what is going on as we come to the story today. Jesus has been doing the ministry for which he is best known -- teaching, healing, casting out unclean spirits. Crowds of people are following him from all over Judea. We get the impression that it is difficult for Jesus to keep up with the crowds. The disciples must keep a boat nearby so that Jesus can escape to the water if the crowds become too intense. And then we are told they come to a house but are unable to sit and eat due to the number of people surrounding them.
It makes sense that he would have wanted to share his ministry with the Twelve. Together, they would be able to reach more people. Together, they can spread the news farther, heal more people, cast out more unclean spirits. With Jesus guiding them, there is no end to what they can accomplish together.
Mark then sets up an interesting dynamic. We are told that Jesus’ family comes to restrain him, having heard people saying that Jesus is out of his mind. Those who knew him before he took up his ministry are concerned about the things that Jesus has been saying, though probably not for the reasons we might assume. Their fear most likely stems from a fear of him being seized by the authorities.
We know that the religious experts are already offended by the vision of God’s kingdom that Jesus is proclaiming, for it is different from the well constructed ritual system they have created to worship God. Jesus does not always follow the rules. He preaches a close relationship with God, not one mediated through the Temple. He preaches against the hypocrisy he sees in their religious observances that let them ignore the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable among them. He includes outsiders in his teaching and ministry
But the great crowds that are following Jesus, that are making it difficult for him to get around, are bound to bring him to the attention of the Roman authorities as well. As Judea is part of the Empire, the Roman authorities are most concerned about maintaining peace, at least for themselves. The Pax Romana was a period of prosperity and relative peace for the Roman Empire, but it was a peace maintained through brutal violence against anyone that might upset the status quo. As Jesus’ fame began to spread with large crowds of people looking to him for hope, it is only a matter of time before the Roman authorities begin to see Jesus as a threat to peace in the region, or at least a threat to the peace that they maintained and benefited from. This is what his family fears; this is why they come to restrain him.
And then the religious scribes show up, denouncing Jesus as an agent of evil, for how else could he control the demons and unclean spirits unless he had the power of their leader? Jesus of course points out the idiocy of this charge. “How can Satan throw Satan out?” (Mark 3:23, CEB)
Both Jesus and the scribes see their current personal, social, and political lives as caught up in a struggle between good and evil, between the rule of God and the rule of Satan. Both Jesus and the scribes seek to follow God’s path, but they disagree on how that is done. Jesus seeks to draw all people into the kingdom of God. He wants all people to be included in a kingdom where love of God and love of each other are the guiding principles of life. The scribes are unable to understand what Jesus is doing, hearing only that what he says is different from what they believe and teach. So they demonize him. They call him names and accuse him of being in league with the devil, because his ways are different and they see him as a threat to their own authority.
Interestingly, Jesus first points out that whether he is from God or from Satan, he is proof that Satan is on the way out. If he comes from Satan, he is proof that Satan’s power is divided, that he is working against his own kingdom, which will therefore fall. On the other hand, as the Son of God, he is proof that God is stronger, with the authority to cast out even the servants of the enemy. Either way, God wins.
Then Jesus’ family is there again. They have surely heard what Jesus is saying. They are probably questioning whether Jesus truly has lost his mind, giving his enemies further ammunition in their crusade against him. They are calling for him to come out. Instead, Jesus addresses the crowd around him saying, “Whoever does God’s will is my brother, sister, and mother” (Mark 3:35, CEB). He doesn’t say this to deny or belittle his birth family. Instead, he is making the point that God has called together a larger family, one that is not defined by birth, but rather by their willingness to love as God loves.
As I read this story today, I wonder again that so little has changed in the last two thousand years. We live in a world that sees differing calls for peace. Some see peace as the presence of justice while others see peace as the absence of discomfort. We live in a world divided by those who see the kingdom of God as an expansive community that includes all who would come to the Table and those who see God’s kingdom as one that is narrowly defined and includes only those who follow certain rules. We see how one side routinely demonizes the other.
But I am caught up on the fact that Jesus doesn't call the scribes evil. He at times points out the hypocrisy of their point of view, but he knows that their strict adherence to the rules is as much about their love of God as his own more expansive teaching. They may differ in how they express their love of God, but they both are acting out of that love in the world. The scribes seek the comfort of a well defined process for expressing their love of God in their ritual settings. Jesus seeks to show God’s love to everyone he encounters along the way -- clean or unclean; Jew, Greek, Samaritan; man or woman; scribes, soldiers, tax collectors, prostitutes. Jesus does not limit God’s love, God’s kingdom, to a small, narrowly defined group of people.
This is the point that Jesus is making at the end of our passage today. God creates a new family. This new family is not defined by birth or even by the system of rituals that we create around the communities we are a part of. Instead, God calls together everyone to be a part of one new family. God’s family is defined by those who love God and one another.
And we are a part of that family.
When we gather at the communion table, we acknowledge that God has called us together from different places, different walks of life, different lifestyles, different backgrounds, and made us into one people, one family. Just as we may have memories of gathering at our grandmother’s house on a Sunday afternoon, we gather together here each week. Like those gatherings with family, we gather to greet one another, to love one another, to share stories with one another. And then we gather at this table, a table that Christ has set before us, to share in a meal together. A meal that unites us and strengthens us. A meal that marks us as one family, a family not defined by birth but by the blood of Christ that unites us and joins us together in common mission.
As we share in this meal today, I pray that we will recognize our place in God’s family. I pray that we will see that we are here because God called us together. I pray that we will remember that we are united in Jesus and called to participate in his ministry, to remind all people that they are beloved by God, by loving them just as we have been loved. I pray that we will recognize all the ways in which God remains faithful to us, even as we struggle with our own faith.
God loves us. All of us. And, as a friend is fond of saying, there is nothing we can do about it.