When I was a kid, I was, let’s just say, creative! Which meant that I was often spending time in time-out for my attempts to push the boundaries on what I was allowed and not allowed to do. Usually, it was my attempt to find a loophole, but sometimes it was just because I flat out didn’t listen when I was told not to do something. Like when I would swim as many laps underwater as I could without coming up for air when I was less than 5 years old. Oops!
It’s a common occurrence in childhood to figure out what we can and can’t get away with, but if any of you were like me, you know that the consequences always got worse if you passed the blame or lied about why you did what it was that you weren’t supposed to. I think about that every time I read this story from Genesis because neither of the people in today’s story are taking responsibility for the choices that they made, instead, they want to push the blame off onto each other and the serpent.
And, while it doesn’t fully translate to our Gospel, I do think there is a parallel with the way that the community claims that Jesus is Satan because of his role in casting out demons. This feels so much more comfortable for them, to say that clearly, he is from Satan, than to admit to the ways that their societal structure has cast out and caused harm to the people around it. Honestly, it’s not much different from our “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mindset today, when people are just told that they need to work more, work harder, and stop being so dependent on others to have their needs met. We may not call it the work of Satan anymore, but society is quick to call out some names whenever someone challenges this mindset. We do not want to see our role in all of this when it’s so much easier to just blame the people in need of support and those who are trying to help them. We turn systematic issues into individual problems.
Because, as a country, we have been so quick to demonize the people who sit outside of what we want to call the norm. Immigrants, refugees, people experiencing homelessness, people struggling with addiction or mental illness. Societally, we want someone else that we can blame for all the problems. It’s why so frequently we also hear that all the sin in the world is because of Eve and her decision to eat the fruit. To that I will remind us that Adam was there watching the whole thing too and he could have made a different choice.
As a part of his rebuke, Jesus says that he can’t be from Satan because how can Satan cast out Satan? He also says, “If a household is divided according to loyalties, it will not survive” or as the NRSV reminds us, a house divided against itself cannot stand (Mark 3: 23-25). While this can have a lot of meanings when we look at it today, from our intensely contentious political divides to the way we view others as less than ourselves, and even Adam and Eve’s division when passing the blame, Jesus is calling us back to the reality that we were created for community. Since the beginning, we have been created to be in relationship with one another and the world around us. When we turn away from those things, we turn away from God too. When we are so divided that we cannot see others as created in God’s image, whether we like them or not, we cannot thrive. Jesus’ discourse defending how he isn’t from Satan goes so much deeper than anyone witnessing realizes. And, I think it’s something we need to be reminded of today too. A house divided cannot stand.
This idea gets picked up again when he points to the people around him and says, “Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my sister, my brother, my mother” (Mark 3: 35). Jesus is expanding this imagery of what makes a house beyond just the people that live under one roof. The house of God is filled with all sorts of people from many and varying life circumstances. Here Jesus is welcoming into the family those who have been pushed aside and cast out by their own families too. He’s beginning the work of reuniting this divided house.
To jump back to Genesis for a second, we often hear about how it’s all Eve’s fault and that women have been messing things up since the beginning of time. While I disagree with that view, I think the important thing to keep in mind is that this is the first time that shame has been introduced into the world. The man and the woman hide from God because they are naked and afraid (Genesis 3:7-10). And while you might be wondering how this connects; I think that the reality of shame is that it has a great burden on society. Because when people are ashamed of themselves, they disconnect from the community. Or, when we feel ashamed of others and don’t want to be associated with them, we do everything in our power to exclude them. This story in Genesis shows how shame and fear are the things that begin to crack the foundation of the house. Shame and fear are at the heart of what is dividing the house into different loyalties. Shame finds a way to seep in, and like mold, it doesn’t want to leave.
When we feel ashamed of what we have done and we don’t want other people to know about, that’s when the lying and deception start. And, just like what we learned as a kid, while there are always consequences to our actions, the consequences are almost always worse when we lie to cover up what we did. Shame is what tells us that we cannot trust others to see us as we are, and that leads to a really slippery slope of believing that even God cannot love us for who we are. The religious leaders are scared of what Jesus is doing because his actions are uncovering the things that they are ashamed of, namely the way that they treat others who they do not see as fully human. I think this is the real reason that they are so afraid of what Jesus is doing, because he is showing them a way of life that doesn’t depend on these old systems of thinking; and, they are scared and ashamed. This is even more important work now, as the house continues to divide even further, with contesting messages about who God is and what God desires for the world.
Yet, this is what God is doing. Brick by brick, the house that is divided and crumbling is being rebuilt. God is replacing fear and shame with love and forgiveness. The house is being built bigger to make space for all the people who were told that they will never be worthy enough to have a space inside. It is a slow process because we’ve let the house get into a state of total disrepair. The work of restoration is incredibly difficult, sometimes painful, and often slow. But it matters that the house is being rebuilt and that we join God in doing that work. Person by person, reminding people that they are loved and that there is grace abounding, higher than the mountains and deeper than the sea.
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Sunday May 19th, 2024 Worship