Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
Who Is My Family?
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC June 6, 2021, second Sunday after Pentecost. “The Call: Good Trouble” series.
Text: Mark 3:20-35
Jesus was a master at getting into “good trouble.” In Mark’s account the rumblings begin that time four people dug through the roof to lower their friend into Jesus’ healing presence. And Jesus simply does what Jesus does, he releases the friend from paralyzing guilt, with words of forgiveness and affirmation of the man’s agency to rise and be free. (Mk 2:1-12) There were some scribes there that day who were concerned about all this, evidently because it challenged their understanding of God and of what kinds of healing activity humans can do. The case against Jesus continues to build when he is caught eating with sinners and tax collectors—those deemed hostile and unruly in matters of religion and national loyalty. (Mk 2:15-16) The questions and tests keep coming and Jesus is tracked and watched as if he’s a criminal—folks just wait to catch him in a scenario they could use to accuse him. (Mk 3:2)
But Jesus’ words and actions continue to draw crowds—as we hear at the beginning of our text today, so many people to engage there’s no time to eat! //
Jesus was just being himself. Jesus was just doing what he was created and called to do. His identity and his power stirred up controversy and trouble.
And it wasn’t just the religious folk who had concerns. We hear at the beginning that Jesus’ “family” comes to “restrain” Jesus. And a brief textual note here: verse 21 is a very ambiguous phrase in the original Greek. Some translations refer not to “family” but to Jesus’ “friends,” or “kinsmen,” or “his own people”(tribe? region? nation?) At the end of our text (3:31-35), the language is very clear that Jesus’ mother and siblings arrive—his blood family. All this to say, it is not unreasonable to suggest that Jesus was stirring things up in his immediate family, in his broader community of friends and “tribe” AND in the religious community.
And what we see happening in our passage for today is a familiar tactic of response from the human playbook across time when someone is causing good trouble: slander the person and gaslight the people, appealing to their religious and moral scruples, using archetypes that trigger fear. And this is often to distance ourselves from or undermine the acceptance of people we don’t understand, who threaten our sense of what is right, of what’s familiar, or who we fear will take something away from us.
The initial verses of our passage might reflect Jesus’ friends and hometown community being concerned about his well-being in the midst of crowds, taking on so much, thinking he can do something about all that suffering, and being identified as a threat to the powers that be in the process. Or they might have been embarrassed by the chatter about Jesus on whatever functioned as social media at the time. Regardless, the text is clear that whoever these people are, they come to “restrain” Jesus, believing he is “out of his mind.”
The scribes pile on with the claim that Jesus is possessed, that he “has” Beelzebul, is filled with evil, and his actions are driven by the evil one. Jesus is literally “demonized” by those speaking for religion.
Jesus’ response to this is to simply point out the absurdly illogical nature of the scribes’ assertion. Why would Satan destroy Satan? And then we get to three verses that have puzzled people for centuries. What is all this business about blaspheming against the Holy Spirit and eternal sin?
I found it helpful to look at the Greek word translated blasphemy—βλασφημία blasphémia—which means speaking ill of that which is good, failing to acknowledge what is truly good, defaming, reviling, slandering... Another way the word is described is as calling good evil and evil good.
Jesus is clear in verse 28 that people will be forgiven their sin and blasphemies. Then in verse 29 things get confusing. In the Greek, verse 29 does NOT include the word “never” (οὐδέποτε; oudepote). The line says whoever “shall blaspheme”—which might be understood as “when” you blaspheme—there is “not” forgiveness. Jesus isn’t mincing words here, to be sure. But the issue is less about damning people to a state of “eternal sin” and more about calling people to stop doing the thing that will always disconnect us from God and others, namely, to reject, ignore, or deny the good gifts of Holy Spirit at work in others and in the world around us. Stop trying to tell people that something is good when it’s clearly harmful and that something is dangerous when it is clearly life-giving. When and as long as you continue in this behavior, you leave yourself in a state of disconnection, hamartia (ἁμαρτία), you are missing the mark, you are sinning. And this kind of sin has eternal consequences.
Jesus was accused of having “an unclean spirit.” (v. 30) And Jesus simply points out this is not true. Such an accusation is blasphemy, calling evil that which is good. Jesus isn’t filled with an unclean spirit but with Holy Spirit. The acts of compassion, mercy, and healing that are drawing crowds are not fueled by evil intent or devils but by love and justice. Jesus won’t let others define who he is or call evil or unclean what is beautiful and powerful in him.
On this first Sunday of LGBTQ Pride month, this is a beautiful thing to remember. All of us are made in the image of God and Jesus reveals to us what it looks like to bear that image fully in this world. Part of following Jesus is to emulate the one who refused to be defined by others’ attacks and misunderstanding, but rather claimed his identity and his power and offered both to the world in love. Today, again we proclaim without equivocation that LGBTQ people are beautiful and beloved of God—no matter what slanderous, blasphemous things people or church or family members have said. To call a clearly fabulous, loving, powerful, smart, creative, faithful person who happens to be LGBT or Q “evil” is pretty stunning. It is also unnecessary, damaging, and blasphemy. It is calling good, evil. As long as this blasphemy is allowed, as long as it continues, sin is propagated.
For ages, people have used that old playbook though—against all sorts of people. We’ve long been trained to think of some people as “bad,” as outsiders, and as certainly NOT part of the family. Sometimes this is overt training, other times it’s learned through the way society is organized.
Many of you will know that I grew up in very small town Oklahoma. My town, Kiefer, is located 20 miles southwest of Tulsa. I moved back to Tulsa after seminary and served on staff of a UMC for a couple of years before moving to DC in 1998. Over the past weeks, I’ve been newly grieved and angered at my experience of growing up in a place where the worst act of racist violence in our nation’s history occurred and not being taught anything about it. In case you don’t know, last weekend was the 100 year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, when the thriving, affluent African American community in the Greenwood District—also known as “Black Wall Street”—was attacked and looted by a white mob, its citizens assaulted, countless persons killed, and buildings burned to the ground. Lives, livelihoods, and legacies were destroyed in a matter of hours. “In the wake of the violence, 35 city blocks lay in charred ruins, more than 800 people were treated for injuries and contemporary reports of deaths began at 36. Historians now believe as many as 300 people may have died.”
I remember once, as my mother and I were driving along I-44 through the city, she told me that the area adjacent to where we were driving burned down—a whole section of the city. I think she told me that African Americans lived there. But maybe I’ve added that part. To be clear, I don’t blame my mother. I watched the PBS documentary Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten (shout out to Foundry’s own Michel Martin for her narration of the film) and was struck to learn that some Black residents of the area only learned of the atrocity years later when, in 2001, a Oklahoma state commission issued the first, comprehensive official account of what happened.
This is confirmation of the depth and breadth of the intentional cover up, the gaslighting, the erasure from memory of an experience of such magnitude through fear and control and the power of the pen and the pulpit. No one was ever charged with any crime. And, as often happens, it was the residents of Greenwood who were blamed for inciting the “riot.” As the Rev. Floyd Brown, an African American pastor in Oklahoma who himself didn’t learn of the massacre until 20 years ago said, “I think the ingrained despair caused people not really to discuss what took place…and the hurt that they felt in the aftermath.”
This is certainly not the first time I’ve pondered and lamented the radical racial segregation and silence about race in the place in which I was formed and the ways that has affected and infected my perception of reality. Certainly, there are good and beautiful things about my home and upbringing. But I was kept from knowing. Growing up in a culture that pretends something didn’t happen when it did or is silent about violence inflicted or lies about what is real and keeps whole groups of people separated from one another so that some don’t even know the others exist nearby and—like everywhere—allows casual racist references and images and slurs to appear in the regular cadence of sight and sound—all that, along with the racial tensions reverberating through the atmosphere in the Tulsa area, under the surface, like a mass grave…all that has to do something to people. Over 100, 1000, 10,000 years or to eternity, as long as this kind of thing is allowed, as long as it continues, sin is propagated, maybe even something we could call eternal sin…it is soaked up into the minds, hearts, and spirits of unsuspecting people like a virus. And the way is always open for another massacre.
For all of us (and it is all of us in one way or another) who have been taught in various ways, consciously or not, to separate, to slander, to ignore, to deny, or demonize any person or group of people—the good news is that we can wake up and work to live and love differently by the grace and power of Holy Spirit.
In the final frame of our Gospel passage today, Jesus’ mother, brothers, and sisters come calling for him. When he hears they’re present, he doesn’t renounce or rebuke them in any way. Jesus was speaking in parables, teaching, when the fam arrived and, as I read the text, Jesus continues teaching, using the moment as an opportunity to bring his point home. The point is about family—about what connects us, not what divides.
Those who slander Jesus and whisper lies and accusations against him sow division—likely because of religious loyalty and gatekeeping or because of tribal or national loyalty or gatekeeping or because of discomfort, fear, or jealousy. But here’s the thing: Jesus is not out of his mind—he is in God’s mind, has God’s mind, has God in mind. Jesus is not filled with demonic spirits—but with Holy Spirit. And people through the ages may try to undermine Jesus’ mission of saving love, forgiveness of sins, and reconciliation, and liberation, but he’s not having it. Jesus came to dismantle the tribal and religious boundaries that could ever name a beloved child of God as 3/5ths a person or as abomination or as unworthy of God’s love and grace. Jesus came to tear down the walls of division, to break the silence of injustice, and to usher in a whole new creation. Jesus created a new, always open border when he said, “My family is anyone who seeks to live and love in the wisdom and way of God.” (v.35)
By God’s grace, we receive this good news and the call to follow Jesus. If we do, there’s a good chance we will find ourselves in (good) trouble. But that trouble is for a purpose—to live in and work for the freedom of the Kin-dom of God. And when, as a result, people challenge you, “unfriend” you on FaceBook, treat you like you are ridiculous, naïve, uninformed, or downright sinful for where you stand or for who you are, remember that you are in good company. Jesus has been there, done that. And because Jesus has shown us the way, we rejoice in the truth that we are ourselves beloved children of God, siblings in the Beloved Clan, not only given a place at the family table, but honored as participants in the work of widening the circle, in making more and more room eternally, until humankind from every race, gender identity, culture, orientation, ethnicity, ability, and creed can sing and mean it: WE ARE FAMILY!
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