I presented this homily at Christ Episcopal Church on June 9, 2024. It is a revision of a homily I posted online during Covid on June 6, 2021
May the words of my mouth and the mediations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen
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Jesus’ family was concerned.
You can imagine what their conversations might have been like:
“What’s going on? What is happening with Jesus?
He’s not eating right; all that preaching, all those people.
It’s not good. People are talking.
Casting out demons! What next?
Perhaps we should do a family intervention.”
So they go in search of Jesus.
* * *
They are not the only ones concerned. Prior to today’s reading from Mark, we read that word quickly spread about Jesus who was healing people and casting out demons. People from all around, even beyond the borders of Galilee and Judea, were making the journey to hear Jesus and be healed by him. And when that happens, the leadership in Jerusalem takes notice and they send some scribes (some legal experts) to hear and see what Jesus is up to.
After doing so, they arrive at a conclusion, confirming what worried Jesus’ family, “He’s out of his mind.”
Beyond that, they conclude that if Jesus is, in fact, casting out demons, it stands to reason he can do so because he’s possessed himself, and not by some generic demon, but by the Prince of demons, Beelzebul.
Imagine what Jesus must have sounded like and looked like after preaching and healing non-stop for days:
Wild-eyed with the fervor of delivering a message of hope to a world in need of hope. He most likely didn’t look the best or smell the best from the press of a never-ending flow of people who had no one else to turn to, no one else to give their hope for hope a chance. It is no wonder his family and the scribes thought he was losing his mind.
* * *
But Jesus wasn’t losing his mind. Jesus was healing minds, healing bodies, and liberating souls.
When he hears those scribes describe him as casting out demons by the prince of demons, Jesus seizes a teaching opportunity in which he offers one of his most enduring statements, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
* * *
Jesus exposes an illogic that presents itself as a resistance to evidential hope; as in, when good happens where and to whom it is never expected to happen The ones who object to such hope are those who inwardly fear they have the most to lose when hope emerges in opposition to their hard-nosed pragmatism that sees hope as a waste of time that only results in people becoming unruly, as evidenced by the press of the crowd surrounding Jesus.
Hope defies control. When hope takes shape and becomes realized, those who fear it most cast it as demonic, casts liberation as domination, and unconditional concern for those outside of one’s inner circle as subversive. Illogical theories like Satan casting out Satan are presented as fact because, in a polarized setting, one person’s hope becomes another person’s fear. Jesus exposes the fallacy of such illogical theorizing.
* * *
What comes next is one of Jesus’ most confusing statements about the eternal and unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. Mark concludes that Jesus gave the scribes this warning because they said he had an unclean spirit.
It’s not exactly clear what Jesus meant by this statement, and it may strike us as a bit over the top and out of character for Jesus. Nevertheless, it serves as a poignant warning to those who, in the name of God and religion, demonize people as a means of preventing them from entertaining hope.Jesus could be implying that those who discredit the Spirit of God in others end up severing their tie to the very Spirit that made us living souls; that it ends up diminishing their souls to the point their isn’t much left of their souls to forgive.
* * *
Another seemingly uncharacteristic moment for Jesus is when his mother, brothers, and sisters arrive and are asking for him. Instead of going out to meet them, he uses their presence as another teaching moment.
In what comes across as a being dismissive to their presence, Jesus asks the crowd surrounding him, “Who is my mother, brothers, and sisters?” Looking at those who came to hear him and be healed by him, he says, “You are. You, who are doing the will of God are my family.”
The madness of Jesus is in appearance only and he appears as such only to those who fear losing control like the scribes and those who felt powerless against a good they couldn’t understand like his biological family; a power that defied conventional wisdom as to whom such good things should happen to and be enacted by. For those whose hope was rekindled in Jesus’ preaching, who experienced his healing touch and whose souls were liberated, they saw and experienced in this wild-eyed, unkempt human being, the refining fire of God’s liberating and life-giving Spirit.
* * *
This reading is particularly appropriate for a season devoted to the movement of God’s Spirit in our world - redeeming it and restoring it one person, one moment, one event at a time. To discern the movement of God’s Spirit requires one to step back, sometimes way back, to see the bigger picture.
It requires letting go of what one thinks must happen or should happen in order to see within the madness of our times the goodness that is taking place, to recognize and hold on to a hope that emerges in some of the most seemingly hopeless places and situations. As people of faith we know this to be true. To discern the movement of God’s Spirit requires a patient and an open heart that feels the Spirit of God moving us ever closer towards the realization of God’s loving hope in us working with God’s Spirit in healing our world and liberating souls.
Amen.
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