ROME IMPROVEMENT 6/6/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 3:20-35

Finally, we are back in the gospel of Mark. In our last Markan reading, in April, Jesus was at home, So many people had packed into the house there was no room for Jesus and his disciples, and a paralytic was being lowered through the roof because it was the only way to get to Jesus. When Jesus says, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” the scribes make charges of blasphemy because “no one can forgive sins except God alone.” With words of resurrection, Jesus tells the paralyzed man to, "Rise. Take up your mat. Go home.”

This week we again see Jesus at home. Again, the house is packed; Jesus and the disciples cannot even eat, and the scribes are still trying to restrict the deeds and teaching of Jesus. Jesus teaches in spite of their censure. If this is part of the resurrection narrative of Mark, then, although the scribes and others still attempt to limit Jesus’ activity, Jesus, who has already broken the bonds and bounds of death, is now immune to their challenge.

Thus, not limited by the scribes et al, Jesus welcomes those around him into this new relationship of resurrection freedom. Jesus invites tax collectors and sinners to join the throng, makes a man with a withered hand whole, and then, calls twelve disciples of questionable reputation to be his most immediate companions in ministry. Throughout, the demons continue to recognize the risen Christ and His authority while the world only knows the bodily-resurrected Jesus. He is truly human and truly divine.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

[After going up into the hills and naming his twelve disciples, Jesus] comes into a house and the crowd gathered again, so that they are not able bread to eat. And having heard, his people came out to hold fast to him; they were saying, “He is outside of himself.” And the scribes, having come down from Jerusalem, were saying, “He has Beelzebul,” and, “In the ruler of the demons, he casts out demons.” And having called to them, in parables he was saying to them, “How is Satan able to cast out Satan? And when a kingdom, against itself, is divided, that kingdom is not able to stand. And when a house is divided against itself, the house is not able to stand. So, when Satan rises against himself, he cannot stand but has an end. But no one having entered the house of the strong one is powerful enough to plunder his goods unless first he might bind the strong one. And then, the house of him he will plunder.

Truly, I say to you, that all will be forgiven to the sons of men, those times of missing the mark (sins) and slowness to name evil (blasphemies) when they were being slow to name evil. But whoever would be slow to call the Breath/Spirit the Good does not have forgiveness into the ages but is bound to perpetually missing the mark. [Jesus said this] because [the scribes] were saying, “He has an unclean Spirit.”

And coming to him were his mother and those of the same womb, brothers and sisters, and resolutely standing outside, sent for him calling him. Seated around him was the crowd saying to him, “See your mother and those who came from the same womb, your brothers and sisters, are seeking you out.” And answering them he says, “Who is my mother and those who have come from the same womb, my brothers and my sisters?” And having looked around those who were sitting around him, he says, “See my mother and those who came from the same womb, my brothers and my sisters! Whoever might do the will of God, that is my womb sharers, my brothers and my sisters, and my mother.”

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

In chapter two, when the crowd was so great that there was no room for them even at the door, the friends of the paralytic find a way from above for wholeness to be known. Now, in chapter three, there is no room for them to eat bread, which is at the heart of the Eucharist.

Although this crowding is often thought of as adulation, as a pre-crucifixion event, it is part of binding the strong man of the parable who is perceived as Jesus. As such, these crowd scenes may have something to do with the rejection of Jesus in the trial and an unwillingness to receive the new covenant Eucharist. It is a scene of adulation only as a post-resurrection event. Only then is it truly indicative of the desire of the people to follow Jesus and acknowledge the good news of Jesus’ bodily resurrection.

There is no room for resurrection and the hope of new life while the boot of Rome is upon their necks; there can be no understanding of eucharist (thanksgiving) in a world of oppression. Only after the resurrection can we realize that the fear of the scribes and the crowd are the strong man that needs to be bound. Subservience binds us to fear and death, but in the resurrection, this binding is removed.

This resurrection knowledge turns the world upside down. To have hope in times of despair is craziness when the powers create fear and death. But, in the resurrection, hope liberates us from the power of the scribes and the crowds, those who would silence the words of God’s justice. It’s enough to make someone speak out and act out against the injustices of the world.

When his people, his family, hears about the injustice of not allowing the eating of bread, they hold fast to him saying, “He is outside of himself.” In a pre-crucifixion world, we may read this as, “[Jesus] is crazy”, and there it might be true, but, in a post-resurrection world, the statement of being outside of himself might be a statement of fact. Jesus, in the truly human, bodily resurrected person, is beyond the constraints of the world. He is “outside of himself” and outside the judgments of the scribes.

The demons know he is not crazy; they know who he is. Even though Jesus will not let them speak, they continue to tell the hearers of Mark’s Gospel, “We know who [he is], the Holy One, of God.” and “[He is] the Son of God!”. Jesus’ resurrected presence is known by the spiritual forces of evil, but there is not yet room for that knowledge in the hearts and minds of all the people.

Still there is the desire—inquiring minds want to know, but they are skeptics. Among them are the scribes valiantly holding onto the promises of Torah, certainly not ready to recognize the new covenant of bread eating. Rather than believing that God can do something new, they charge Jesus with being part of Beelzebul—a hoax, false news, an alternate truth. They are slow to name the evil of their world and are reticent to acknowledge the engaged breath and life-giving relationship of wholeness that the resurrected Jesus can give.

This claim against the resurrected Jesus leads to understanding that because Satan, the antagonist, cannot defy the condition of the world, i.e., that the threat of death and condemnation no longer is binding, then the time of Satan’s authority is not eternal; it has an end. Indeed, Satan’s authority is ended. Division can only lead to death while being one in Christ brings life.

As the people of God are seeking Jesus, so now the family of Jesus seeks him out only to discover that the definition of family is changing. The kingdom, the household, the family of God is no longer restricted to genetics—womb-sharing. The kingdom/household/family is about sharing God’s hope-filled love and justice.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

Today, we are called to enter the arena of binding the strong man—evil—in order to liberate people from living in their worlds of fear and oppression. In our polarized world mentality of red and blue, saved and damned, gay and straight, right and wrong, white and any other ethnicity, amid this polarization, Jesus invites us to sit around him, to see him, to listen to him, to bear witness to God’s plan that all should be saved.

Salvation does not come from being born into the right family/household/political party/kingdom/ nation. Salvation comes from the liberating resurrected wholeness of Christ himself and the world of forgiveness he gives. In this new relationship of grace, we are challenged to confront without combat, resist without rebellion, persist without retaliation.

We are challenged to see the possibility of Christ’s unifying leading. Can we trust in the Holy Spirit, the breath of goodness? Or will we blaspheme, choose to be slow to name and respond to the evil that rejects God’s love and justice for all people?

HANGING THE TRIM

The power of the resurrection becomes an active part of our lives in baptism. For when we have died in Christ, death no longer has power over us. When we are also raised up in Christ, we are liberated to speak out against the powers of the strong man that would prevent the world of grace and forgiveness. Satan may have had me bound, but Jesus lifted me and you into that place of discerning what centers us and the ability to name the evil of the world. “If you are going to fight evil in the world, you first have to name it.” (Peter Lars Kjeseth).