Last Sunday’s gospel story was about a conflict between Jesus and some Pharisees over observing the Sabbath. In today’s story, the conflict has escalated and is between Jesus and his family and Jesus and the Doctors of the Law from Jerusalem. The context is Jesus’ almost frantic healings and exorcisms in the towns and villages in the Galilee. As Jesus returns to the house which is his headquarters in Capernaum, the sick and broken continue to crowd the courtyard of the house; so much so that Jesus and his disciples can hardly eat dinner. Jesus’ family is in that crowd, and they push through and seek to “restrain him.” The image here in the Greek is most dramatic – they try to bind him with rope. They think that he’s insane. Why? It’s helpful to remember that Jesus has been away for some time. We can’t say with any certainty for how long – but Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist and typically, a discipleship lasted for years as the student would seek to learn his master’s Mishnah – his “repetition” – by rote memory and practice in 1st Century illiterate Palestine. Leaving home a youth and returning as a man, Jesus had preached his first sermon in Nazareth, which went well at first, until he claimed that the power of God’s deliverance is “fulfilled in me.” What was it that someone shouted from the back of the synagogue? “Hey, wait a minute, I know that dude!” (I paraphrase.) “Isn’t that Mary’s son?” A Jewish man is called by his father’s name: Simon bar Jonah, James and John the sons of Zebedee. To call him “Mary’s son” was to remind people of the rumors surrounding Jesus’ birth. Jesus shouts “A prophet is without honor in his hometown!” – and it went downhill fast. Jesus barely escaped with his life. In Capernaum, Jesus’ fame spread as an itinerant preacher, healer, and exorcist. And for his family, this had gone far enough. Jesus has gone beyond himself. In a culture in which one’s place in life is pre-determined by clan and tribe, by village and family, Jesus has shamed his people by presuming to be more than he is. It’s just all too much. It’s gotta stop. Hence, the rope… Or maybe that’s not what’s going on at all. Maybe his family is trying to protect him. If Jesus is perceived to be crazy, then he doesn’t deserve death. Aware of the growing opposition of the rich and powerful, Mary may be seeking to save her son, and while doing so, to protect her family’s honor. For the Jerusalem authorities, the issue is the same. What’s gotten into this Nazarene peasant? If he’s exorcising demons, he must be in collusion with the chief demon. Baal-Zebul was a Canaanite deity – a pagan god – which survived in Jewish folklore as the top demon. His name is literally translated as “Lord of the Mansion.” If the dark realm is like a household, the chief demon could evict a less powerful demon, but sooner or later, Jesus the enabler would have to pay the price – thus unleash an even greater evil into the world. Jesus says, “Don’t be absurd!” A house divided cannot long stand. To free the captives of Satan means that Satan has been bound; like a strong man whose house is being robbed. Only the power of God, working in me, can accomplish that. Jesus then says that these scholars are guilty of the “unforgiveable sin.” Now, those of you who have hung around churches for a generation or more, are aware that there’s been much speculation and not a little fear around the “unforgiveable sin.” So, let’s be clear. Jesus is accusing his critics of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. So, what’s blasphemy? The Greek word means “to slander” or “to show irreverence.” To slander God. If you can’t see God’s Spirit in Jesus’ work, and instead see it and name it as evil, would be to say, with Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost: “Evil be thou my good!” It is to see ugliness as beauty, to proclaim lies to be truth. You cannot enter into God’s dream for the world – The Kingdom of God – because you are incapable of the repentance both John and Jesus called for – to change. In this great cosmic struggle between good and evil, the failure to respond to this good work can only be due to a conscious and deliberate choice to oppose God. That’s the very definition of being hopelessly lost. It is to see young men, carrying Nazi flags and marching and chanting: “Jews will not replace us!” And calling them: “Very good people.” And believe it. I commend for your summer reading, a book C.S. Lewis published in 1945, titled, The Great Divorce. The storyteller lives in “grey town,” where it is dreary and dark, and where it’s always raining, both outdoors and in. He waits to board a bus for a day trip. As he waits, several people walk away in disgust. Those who board, find themselves carried to the outskirts of heaven, the shining country. Spirits of the passengers’ loved ones encourage them to repent and enter in. Surprisingly, most of the passengers choose to return to grey town. Each has compelling excuses. My favorite is an Anglican Bishop whose theological formulations are so intellectual and abstract, that he’s not sure if God exists apart from a cerebral construct. A sherpa, the great Celtic theologian George MacDonald, explains that those who choose to stay will find even their most painful griefs transformed into joyful memories. Indeed, any citizen of hell can choose to enter into heaven if they will let go their sly deceptions and illusions and be changed. Heaven and hell are a choice – in this life and in the next. Well, Jesus’ critics withdraw – no doubt stunned and angry – but surely not converted. Jesus goes back in the house and is surrounded by his disciples and a few villagers; when someone comes in to say “Your family is still outside.” Jesus replies most harshly “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Clearly, if they were trying to save him, Jesus did not see it that way. If they were trying to confine him by the bounds of family, clan, and custom, he is unwilling. Jesus redefines family as those who seek God’s will. The Jesus movement – this rag tag band of men and women who have responded to Jesus’ call to “follow me!” – they are his family now.
To Jesus, the reign of God was not some abstract theological ideal, but was a fellowship of men and women seeking to live lives of sanctity, compassion, and justice. In St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews, Paul writes: “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy” – the word means sacred, set apart for God’s use, being whole – “those who are made holy, are the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them” – indeed to call us – “brothers and sisters.”
Amen