On the first Sunday of June

 6/6

Art, Morningside Park

On the first  Sunday of June, this was my reflection for the Beverley congregation...

The sun is out. It’s warm. Like turtles in the parks, we’re easing our heads up out of the water, bit by bit, ready to feel those sun rays.  I’m sitting in the ballpark again, making plans for summer travel. At my mothers’  assisted care facility, I can take her outside and wheel her around the little lake. More and more of us are vaccinated.  Who knows? Some day we might actually be able to meet in person again for church. 

Since we’ve last met together, we have passed the one year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.  And just last week, the 100th anniversary of an event that happened in a city I once served in for 10 years.The Tulsa Race Massacre. Meanwhile all cross the country, legislatures seem to be doing all they can to bring back voter suppression. The situation with homeless people in our city seems to be getting worse. And city elections are coming by  again. 

So what’s Jesus  up to this week? He’s healing people, doing exorcisms, and drawing such big crowds there’s no time to even eat. Even his family seems to think he’s gone too far so that they want him to "tone it down.” People are saying he’s crazy. Religious authorities have come down from Jerusalem to discredit him, saying he’s casting out demons by the power of Satan. 

Let’s stop a second. Last month, May, was mental health awareness month. In Jesus day, people understood mental illness to be “demon possession.” (In some respects, that’s not that far off.) Their claim that Jesus is doing this through the power of Satan makes Jesus just about as angry as he gets. First, he uses logic. “How could I use the power of Satan to drive  out Satan”? Logically, only the power of the Holy Spirit could drive out an evil Spirit. And that’s where he gets really angry…their calling the Holy Spirit the spirit of evil is not only illogical, but blasphemous and to Jesus, the only unforgivable sin. (At least in this chapter..)

This is where another quote comes in…

4If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

These are the words Lincoln used to describe the United States on the eve of the Civil War. The kind division he saw was probably inevitable given that the whole economy and culture of the South (and let’s admit it, the riches of the north) was built on the backs of enslaved human beings. Human beings treated as property.  There is ultimately no compromise between the idea that some human beings can be owned and used as property and the belief that all human beings are inherently to be free people. There is no middle ground. The fact is the whole system of chattel slavery only worked if those enslaved were not viewed as fully human. Any kindness or generosity simply a form of humane treatment of animals. 

I might even suggest that at the end of the day, that original sin if you wish, informs the divisions we have today as resistance to the teaching of race theory grows. 

There are other ways we are and will be divided. Now when you go the game, the stadium is divided between vaccinated and un..There are bars in this city you can’t enter unless you are vaccinated. Laws banning trans athletes are being passed. Our divisions may be as deep as they were during the Civil War. Or the beginning of the Vietnam War. 

The challenge of the next few years will be how do we even begin to understand one another? We can’t even agree on what the meaning of words are. And this divide may be greatest between those of us who clam the name of Jesus as savior. I don’t have an answer for that

(Certainly the apostle Paul gave our Southern Presbyterian ancestors more than enough quotes to support their belief in slavery.)

But back to Jesus and his family. Note that he’s inside the house  and they’re out. You can’t blame his mother for being annoyed, always having a crowd of people you don’t know  hanging around. They have to send word into him to get his attention.  

His response  can seem very harsh. Who is my mother? My brothers and sisters? Then he waves his arm around pointing to his followers and says these are they. 

For people my age, that brings up memories of what it was like during the early years of Vietnam. While cleaning out my mom’s house, my sister found an 8 page letter I had written my family explaining why I had to go to Washington, DC to protest even after they had expressed their displeasure. Those were hard days.

(Let’s be honest…Jesus’ words about family can last be used manipulatively by cults and others.. …)

We understand that we have families by birth and families of choice. New York City, because of its nature, may have a disproportionately large number of families  of choice, because of the numbers of people who come here because they need to get away to be who they truly are. We can over romanticize our birth families. Some are more complex and some just outright toxic or dangerous. 

True happiness may be when your birth family and your family of choice fit together, one the extension of the other. And that’s especially true of Church families.

Jesus makes clear that his ministry is to be about forgiveness of sins, even blasphemy.  That may actually have a lot to do with what heals people. The one person most of us have difficulty forgiving is ourselves;

Recently, the HBO series “Mare of East Town” captured the imagination of a wide audience. It’s a wonderful picture of a small Delaware County (Pennsylvania) town where everyone seems to be related and all kinds of serious family issues exist. A terrible murder of a young woman has taken place and its resolution leaves a deep mark on several families. 

Months later, the whole community is in church. The young deacon who was himself accused of the crime is back after a leave. In his return sermon, he says how good it is that we are all here together after what we have been through.  But not everyone is here. Perhaps we don’t believe they deserve to be here. Perhaps they  don’t believe it themselves. But it’s not our job to determine that. We can’t really know that. All we can do is love them.

Forgiveness may be the most important word in our sermon today,. Maybe that helps heal madness. Maybe they helps heal divisions. Maybe that helps to  heal us. 

Amen

Mark 3: 20-35

. and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. 21When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” 22And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” 23And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 27But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

28“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” — 30for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

31Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. 32A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” 33And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”