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Second Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 3
20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21 When his family[a] heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”
23 So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27 In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. 28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” 30 He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.”
31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

A motion to amend a motion is in order.
A motion to amend an amendment to a motion is in order.
A motion to amend an amendment to the amendment is not in order.
When a motion, an amendment, and an amendment to the amendment are before the court, three votes are required: the motion to the amend the amendment, the amendment as amended, and the amended motion itself.

Can you tell Lang and I have spent the last two days at the annual meeting of Toronto Conference? And Lang, ever the glutton for these things remains there this morning, and I got to escape to be with you. Clearly, I got the better deal.

Conference is a gathering of the regional church, representing 300 or so churches in an area that begins here in the city and fans out as far as Owen Sound in the northwest and Parry Sound in the northeast. Back in my day you could count on 500 people coming together for the meeting, but now we’re about half that number. We used to meet in hockey rinks (yes, I was ordained in a hockey rink, and I am Canadian) but now we can comfortably meet in a decent-sized church.

We do all the things you might expect church folk to do when church folk gather: we pray, we sing hymns, we listen to speakers, we debate motions. We are often tempted to talk about the state of the church, but we usually talk about the great issues of the day instead.

So, for example, someone made a motion that we tell the church pension fund people to stop investing in oil companies, and someone amended the motion to tell church members to use less fossil fuels. The guy beside me said we should amend the amendment to insist everyone get a sailboat—sailors tend to sit together—and I think we all drove off to get lunch before the question was settled.

I’m not entirely convinced this is what Jesus had in mind when he called the twelve and then sent them out to transform the world, but you never know. This afternoon Lang will be present while a half-dozen people are ordained—the next generation of leaders to carry the work of the church forward—so maybe we haven’t drifted too far from God’s plan for the church.

Still, what we do seems a little crazy. This thing called the church seems less and less sensical to the world out there. We gather to profess our love for God, for each other, and for our neighbour—a neighbour that includes a every widening group of people. The motions we make are mostly neighbour-driven: First Nations, the LGBT community, even the earth itself. All this effort, and all these topics, must seem a little crazy to the world out there.

But we’re in good company: Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” Healing the sick, eating with outcasts and sinners, drawing ordinary men and women to himself to become disciples—this must have seemed a little crazy to the world outside—but first it seemed a little crazy to his own family.

And the religious leaders, don’t even get Mark started on the religious leaders. They went right past crazy and settled on demon-possessed, then as now the best way to discredit the people who pose a threat to your way of life. ‘Only a demon can cast our demons’ was their clever line, tarring him with the same brush and trying to come up with a plausible reason for his other-worldly power. And it might have worked, except Jesus had his own clever response:

“How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

Now, my resident historians would have me pause here and mention Lincoln’s famous “House Divided” speech from 1858, but there’s just no time. I went long last week, and it won’t happen again. Because just then his mother and brothers arrived and said ‘send him out—we’re taking him home.’ When he was told that his mother and brothers were outside—on a mission to save him from himself—he shared the equally famous words “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Now, I would be in trouble at home if I didn’t tell you about at the heart of Carmen’s research, something she calls mutable ethnicity. Notice how Jesus takes a seemingly simple concept like kin and clan and expands it to include everyone who supports his work. In John (15) he says ‘I no longer call you servants but friends,’ a kind of transition from follower to disciple, but in Mark 3 he is using brother language to make everyone a member of his family.

And he sets the bar either really high or really low—depending on your perspective—when he says “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” It’s high if you recall that these people are called to pick up their cross and follow Jesus, and for this some will pay the ultimate price. But it’s low if all you need to do is love God and love your neighbour and then you are a part of the family. And you don’t even need to be very good at it: because most of the people in the house with Jesus that day were not the best sort of people, the kind of people in fact, that made Jesus’ mother and brothers unhappy in the first place.

So there are two things happening here, an anxious family who care deeply, and an anxious group of religious leaders who are deeply threatened. The first controversy is casting out demons, something God alone can be expected to do. This is the authority question that will continue to follow Jesus, first related to demons, and next related to forgiveness. Jesus will claim the right to forgive sin (Matthew 9) and extend that authority to each of us, something that has always made religious leaders uneasy.

And this takes us back to the annual meeting of Toronto Conference. Over the last two days we have heard testimonials from members of the court who spent the week in Ottawa, meeting with residential school survivors and hearing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And the United Church, of course, lives in that awkward place between wanting to support First Nations brothers and sisters and acknowledging that we were one of the churches that operated residential schools.

As religious leaders, we struggle. Throughout the presentation you could feel the tension, and understand the struggle as people alternated between saying “what the government did” and “what we did.” And of course, with a government that’s easy to dislike, people tended to the “what the government did” and “what the government continues to fail to do” rather than keep the topic on what we did as a church. By what authority can we forgive others if we fail to forgive ourselves, or even acknowledge that we are in need of forgiveness?

As religious leaders we struggle because we prefer to be on the side of the oppressed, we prefer to be the sinless ones who forgive the sins of others rather than the church that committed grave sins and needs forgiveness.

The good news is that “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” And you don’t even have to be very good at it because most of the people in the house with Jesus that day were not the best sort of people, the kind of people in fact that could forgive sins while they had more than a few of their own that needed forgiving.

And so we carry on, as that imperfect vessel called the church: that does things that are crazy in the world’s eyes—like love God and neighbour—and lives in that tension between forgiving and needing to be forgiven. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 5:44 AM