June 6, 2021 – Mark 3:20-35
Mark 3:20-35
Binding the Adversary
Lectionary 10B – June 6, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
From Mark’s point of view, our world has been invaded.
It’s been invaded by what he calls in the Gospel today a “strong man.”
By this, he means “Satan,” or – literally translated – “the Adversary.”
In other words, our world has been invaded by a force
that is at odds with God’s intentions in creation.
The Adversary’s reign is strong.
It binds people and limits them through various means.
Mental illness, disease, shame, exclusion –
as well as systemic means such as poverty and racism.
In Mark’s view, Jesus has come to do battle with the Adversary.
And in Mark’s view, Jesus is stronger.
The term “gospel” means, as we know, “good news,”
and often meant a report of good news from the battlefield.
In Mark’s view, Jesus is involved in a cosmic struggle.
At the centre of today’s reading is a parable Jesus tells about his struggle with the Adversary.
The Adversary has entered God’s house of creation and has bound its inhabitants.
Jesus’ task is to bind the “strong man” himself, and set free those in bondage –
to illness, disease, shame, guilt, exclusion, poverty, racism, etc.
And that is what he has been doing and what he will continue doing in Mark’s Gospel.
One commentator suggests that
this little parable could almost be taken as Jesus’ mission statement:
to bind the “strong man” and set free those whom he has bound.
Well this is all great, and maybe we are so used to Jesus we can no longer see
just how strange his program must have seemed in his own context.
But today you get a clear sense of that.
The parable about the “strong man” at the centre of the reading today is surrounded by
references to Jesus’ family and the religious authorities – the scribes – from Jerusalem.
Neither his family nor the religious authorities understand what Jesus is doing.
Indeed, both are intent on “restraining” or “binding” or “seizing” Jesus –
which is ironic given that Jesus is trying to free them from the strong man by
binding the strong man himself.
First: his family.
Regardless of what our translation says, it is not “people” who think Jesus has lost his mind,
it is very clearly his own family.
And when it says they want to “restrain” him,
“restrain” is the same word used later for when the authorities want to “arrest” Jesus.
Whoa.
Jesus is at odds with his family.
He has defied expectations of what an eldest male child should do in that culture.
He has been behaving oddly and associating with all kinds of people
who have brought shame to his family by his association with them.
Literally it says his family thought he was “out of his mind.”
And then there are the religious authorities, “the scribes.”
These are the most learned people who have come from the head office in Jerusalem,
the authoritative theologians, if you like – the gatekeepers.
They accept Jesus is doing powerful things like casting out bad spirits and healing the sick.
But they insist that the power is coming from Satan, and not from God.
Which, of course, Jesus counters as an absurd notion.
Then he accuses them of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of God which cannot be forgiven.”
To us, this seems like a strange thing to say, even an extreme thing to say,
but we know Jesus was an extreme person who often spoke in hyperbole to make a point.
And what was his point?
His point was that they are mistaking the work of God’s Holy Spirit for the work of the devil.
I mean, all around them people are being set free from their demons and experiencing
healing, wholeness, and life all while having their human dignity affirmed.
He is saying that if the scribes cannot see that through his ministry people are being freed from
everything that keeps them from thriving,
then their vision is so marred there is simply no help for them.
In the end, Jesus identifies as his true family not his family of origin,
but his collaborators in displacing the Adversary’s reign with the reign of God.
Yes, I know: it is always strange to get this reading between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
But for Jesus, family is not the most important thing in life:
for Jesus, displacing the binding reign of the Adversary with the freeing Reign of God is.
All this is obviously central to understanding Jesus and his mission.
Indeed, I would say we cannot understand Jesus and his mission
without understanding this little excerpt from Mark.
Jesus is about displacing the forces that prevent human beings from thriving.
Sadly, sometimes today, families of origin prevent some family members from thriving.
And – just as sadly today, sometimes churches get in the way of human thriving.
As one commentator notes,
think of our own church struggles over LGBTQ inclusion,
how long it took to get it right and how long it takes to continue to be reconciled.
And speaking of reconciliation, let us all be thankful that we belong to a church – the ELCIC –
that is pro-actively involved in reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada.
As the events of the past week have shown so clearly,
sometimes the church has gotten severely in the way of that in Canada.
The Gospel, the Good News, is that Jesus as God’s agent is involved in the struggle.
Jesus desperately wants you to thrive, to be fully human, to have your dignity acknowledged.
And Jesus wants that for every single human being on the planet.
As Professor of Preaching David Schnasa Jacobsen writes:
The good news here is that God is not far off and disengaged, but already mixing it up, “in the struggle.” There is a beautiful grace in the notion that God, or in this case the Markan divine agent, Jesus, is not pleased that people are in bondage, subject to illness, mired in something less than life.
So take comfort from that.
And remember that the invitation Jesus gives us is to participate with him in the struggle.
At First Lutheran Church, we are daily involved with Jesus in the struggle.
We minister to one another, to be sure, in many and various ways and
we affirm one another’s dignity and essential humanity in many and various ways.
And then, of course, we do the exact same thing in so many different contexts.
We offer welcome and hospitality to all at our food banks where we struggle against
poverty and indignity.
We offer listening ears to those who come to our building throughout the week and –
in normal circumstances – to worship on Sunday morning.
We use our resources in struggling against the dehumanization of war and violence when
we co-sponsor refugees and help them find a new, safe home among us in Winnipeg.
And for some time we have been a Reconciling in Christ congregation that struggles against
the exclusion of and prejudice against LGBTQIA+ people – as well as against racism.
Sometimes this work is a joy, and sometimes it is hard – sometimes it is both at the same time.
But God is involved deeply in the struggle and this is good news.
God is involved deeply in your own struggle to be free to be who God made you to be –
and that is great news.
Love will find a way, for Jesus and his love are stronger than the strong man –
and that is the best news of all.
Amen
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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