Mark 3:20-35
Genesis 3:8-15
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Once upon a time, God created
two human beings. These people fulfilled
a need for God to be in relationship.
These people trusted God. They
had long conversations about life and meaning.
They walked together through the garden.
They created and named the animals together. The people trusted God with all their secrets
and felt safe with God. God made a
decision early on that these people would make their own decisions. God would not use God’s powers to control
them.
Things were going well until one
day, temptation entered the picture. Was
it a snake who made the suggestion, or a thought that flitted through the mind
of one of the people? So far the people
had respected the limits that God had put before them, for their own
safety. But people will be curious and
the person wondered what it would be like to know more, to understand more of
the world, to be like God. So these two
people made a decision to trespass a boundary drawn by God for their own safety
and health and happiness.
The people found it sweet to
know more, but they also began to feel ashamed to be fully known. They feared that if they were honest, God
would see them for who they were and reject them. They felt exposed. They felt naked. They felt self-conscious. They felt separate. So they covered their physical nakedness as
best they could and they started to avoid God.
Their new knowledge took them from enjoying the moment to opening their
eyes to all that could be through their power and they wanted more than what
this simple garden could give them.
God came to have one of their
usual conversations, and found two people shivering and shaking, hiding from
God, looking at God with fear in their eyes and mistrust. Something had changed, so God asked them
where they were, what had separated them from God. One of the people named his fear, which had
separated him, fear of being seen, fear of consequences of breaking the rules,
fear of God’s power. When God asked a
follow up question one person blamed another person creating a distance and
damaged relationship there, and that person blamed the snake named
temptation.
God sighed with compassion and
sadness that the people were growing up and growing apart from God. But God knew that nothing could break the
bond between God and God’s children.
However, it was time to let these children grow up, face the
consequences of their actions, and be truly free to make their own mistakes and
learn from them. So God sent them out
into the world to practice using their knowledge and independence and decide
who they would become.
Once upon a time, a family came
to be. They were happy and healthy and
shared with each other and had adventures and helped those in need. They trusted each other with their secrets
and relied on each other in times of need.
But people have free-will and people grow up, and need space to figure
out who they are. So they went their
separate ways. It was sad in some ways
because something beautiful was coming to an end, but a new creation was coming
into being, no one knew what would happen next, but God was involved in that
stage of life, too, and in time it would grow to be beautiful in its own way.
Once upon a time, a church came
to be. They shared everything in
common. They took offerings for the
poor. They served those in need. They welcomed everyone. They were creative. They related to one another and the
community. They completely trusted
Jesus. They had a lot of fun.
But they got stuck in a single
way of doing things. They liked what
they were doing so much they started to worship themselves. They became defensive of their way of
observance. It seemed the congregation
would come to an end. They hid from
God. They didn’t let themselves be
completely seen. They weren’t always
completely honest about themselves like they had been before.
But still God was in
relationship with them. God walked with
them as they learned from their mistakes, as they tried new things, as they
failed and succeeded, and as they grew into God’s new creation. They were no longer innocent and trusting as
they had been, but they were growing in awareness and they moved from focus on
God, to focus on themselves, to focus on their neighbor. They started making new connections, seeing
the world and themselves in new ways, and they started to be creative,
co-creating with God relationships and projects of beauty that glorified God
and connected with and empowered those in need.
Once there was a child named
Jesus. He followed all the rules of his
household. He followed all the rules of
his religion. He studied his scripture
and demonstrated great faith. He trusted
his parents, he trusted God, he trusted the religious leaders. He shared his every thought with his parents
and brothers and sisters. He obeyed
everything his parents told him to do.
As Jesus grew up, he started to
see the injustice in the world. He
started to see the inconsistencies and double-standards in his parents. He started to see them as the imperfect
humans they were. But Jesus had a clear
vision of God’s intention for the world, and that was for healing, love, and
abundant life. So many of the rules he
had always obeyed did not themselves obey this law of love. Instead these rules hurt people. So Jesus started breaking those rules.
People were very upset by
this. They believed the rules were
helpful. They worshipped the rules. But Jesus worshipped God and God’s vision of
new life. So these two powers were
clashing, the authority and power and vision that Jesus held up to measure all
rules, and these people all around him who wanted to keep him in line for his
own safety and for the preservation of the structures in place including their
own family name.
His family knows if you break
the rules, you might be jailed, you might be committed to an asylum, you might
be thrown out of the community, you might embarrass your family. The religious authorities enforced the rules
because they benefitted from them, kept people in their place, and gave order
to a world in chaos. The rules set the
Jews apart as Holy for God.
But Jesus knew that it wasn’t
the rules that made the people holy or different. It was the focus on what was life-giving that
the rules pointed to, but imperfectly represented. So instead of following these rules, Jesus
broke them when they hurt people and so he began to be seen as a threat to
those around him and their power and authority.
His family and the authorities
accused him of being possessed by a demon.
They tried to discredit him, explain his powers by linking them with
something malevolent. But Jesus revealed
the fault in their thinking. He is the
one who is consistent. The religious
leaders said they worked for God and yet they stood in the way of healing and
justice. Their house was divided and would
fall. Jesus was the only one who is
consistently on the side of love and life.
And Jesus went on to threaten them with a violent image of a robbery,
insinuating that his ministry was about tying up the strong man, whether that
be Satan or the religious leaders, in order to rob them of what they thought
was theirs. Jesus was coming to take the
riches and respect and the followers of these leaders and set them free to
serve God.
The leaders might have called it
self-defense, but they jailed this Jesus and hurt him. He died because of the rules he broke, the
powers of oppression that he challenged, the life he offered the lowliest of
his brothers and sisters and mothers.
But life and love have the last word, and Jesus rose from the dead and
offered forgiveness for his attackers and betrayers, all of us. So we find that we are challenged to look at
our assumptions and rules and ways of doing things and see if they match the
vision God intends of abundant life. If
they don’t, we are encouraged to break them to follow a deeper loyalty.
Jesus went on to talk about an
eternal sin, to show how serious it is when we misrepresent God to serve our
own needs or to imprison someone. Since
there are other scriptures that contradict this one, we may prefer the
scripture, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.” However, this reading suggests more than
strongly we should be careful about how we use God’s name. His name is to be used to set people free,
not to hurt them.
Family is precious to us all and
it is precious to Jesus. But more
precious is the love and life God is offering.
Jesus doesn’t say his family is not his family, but they find themselves
as outsiders sending messages to Jesus through the crowd. Jesus expands the definition of family, based
on God’s view, that we are family and related by how we respond to God. Biological Family can be freeing and
life-giving and family can also be life-taking or simply too far away to be of
help. Jesus seems to be saying not to
let the concept of family limit us, but to expand our support network, find
others who share the vision God offers of abundant life, and partner with them
to take action.
We could stay obedient and
innocent in the garden, but it is time to grow up. We are going to make mistakes. We are going to experiment with our own
powers and decision-making. This will
help us to figure out who we are. God
doesn’t abandon us or our congregations, but walks with us on the path toward
new life. Grow, become, question,
experiment. God is bringing in God’s
Kingdom among, with, and around us.
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