How Can Satan Cast Out Satan?

 Mark 3:20-35

June 6, 2021

 

This is a tough scripture today.

There are three bits that happen in the same conversation,

but almost seem unrelated,

they are often quoted separately to

support a whole variety of different things.

 

And right in the middle there’s

that whole concerning piece about  the

on “unforgivable sin” of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.

We believe in God’s forgiveness over everything,

We have many more texts to support that,

Christ even asked for forgiveness for the people that crucified him.

but as a pastor, people have come to me worrying

about this one passage.

 

They worry that maybe they once said something that could

fall into this category or that their son or daughter

or grandchildren might be unforgivable because

they said that they don’t believe in God, or they are mad at God

or they think Jesus is stupid or whatever.

 

For the record, I think the short answer is “no”

in spite of this one passage, I think that

nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Not blasphemy or any of those other things

that some people think are unforgiveable.

Nothing can separate us, or anyone,

from God’s love and I think that this

passage supports just that, in Jesus own confusing way.

The rest of the sermon is to explain that.

 

First I want to catch everyone up on

the story of Mark and where we are in it.

This is the third chapter of Mark,

pretty early in the whole story.

Just before this passage, earlier in chapter 3

Jesus heals someone in the synagogue on the Sabbath,

right in front of the Pharisees.  

And so the religious leaders start talking to each other

about how to destroy Jesus.

 

After that, Jesus  appointed his apostles

and he was embarking on a successful preaching tour.

He’s getting well known among the people

and one of his stops is, Nazareth, his own home town.

Jesus is home for the first time since he’s become someone.

 

And while he’s here in little old Nazareth,

things don’t go too well.

It’s so crowded that the disciples can’t even eat.

And they’re attracting all sorts of strange people.

Because of that, his home town people aren’t receiving Jesus well.

They saw Jesus grow up and now he’s talking

about all these high-falootin’ things,

they decide that something must be wrong with him,

they say that he’s gone crazy, insane, out of his mind.

 

And to top it off, the Pharisees have sent the

scribes down from Jerusalem to spy on Jesus.

And they’re harassing him.

Now the scribes agree with the Nazarene’s assessment

saying that he must be Satan himself,

the king of the unclean spirits.

 

 Jesus’ family are mortified by the whole thing,

trying to get him back in the house.

“Jesus, stop attracting attention,

stop  making the neighbors talk,

stop embarrassing us, you’ll  get us all in trouble,

I’ll  make you your favorite meal.

Just come in so no one can or hear you!”

 

His family can see the pattern already in process,

Jesus is being labeled as crazy.

The people are going to make him the scapegoat,

he’s going to be called unclean and expelled from the

community and the rest of his family with him.

It had been done many times before,

so they knew what it looked like.

It happened then and it happens now.

That is what humans do to one another.

 

When things get stressful,

we try to maintain our purity and our safety

by keeping “the dangerous” ones out.

The theory is that if we just get the bad eggs

outside of community the inside will

be clean and safe and pure.

 

And after it happens, then everything seems good for a while,

until the tension rises again, or something happens,

then we have to pick the next group to curse and villainize.

 

The most obvious example of this

is what Nazi Germany did to the Jewish people.

But there are more local examples, we did it in WWII ourselves

putting Japanese American families in internment camps.

We do it now with mass incarceration, we do it with immigrants,

we do it with people with mental illness and poverty.

Just get them away from us and we’ll be fine.

 

And religion has done it repeatedly throughout history,

with people labeled as heretics,

with people who said the planets revolve around the sun,

with people of different races,

with people who are too artistic,

with people who’s politics are different,

And  in most recent years, with gay and lesbian people.

 

The theory for some churches is,

if we could get “those people” out of here

or convert them and force them to change,

then we’d be righteous, more holy, more prosperous.

It’s not a new pattern, it’s as old as time.

Just the identified problem is just different.

 

And this process of labeling and expelling people is Satan at work.

Satan is not found in some place outside ourselves,

in a red suit with horns tempting us to smoke or eat chocolate cake.

Satan is found in human relationships gone wrong and destructive .

And Satan’s  favorite hobby is dividing people.

 

The word Satan in Hebrew means “accuser”.

Satan is at work when we judge others,

When we make someone into the other and cast them out.

When we believe that we are like God knowing good and evil

like that serpent promised in the Garden of Eden.

This is Satan’s work.

 

So the scribes accuse Jesus of being Satan,

saying that since he has the power over demons,

that he must be the chief of demons.

Even though in casting out demons,

Jesus is bringing people back into community.

Clever tactic, accusing the other person of what

they were actually doing, right?

 

So Jesus calls the scribes over, he tells them to come closer

join the conversation circle, and he asks them,

“How can Satan cast out Satan”?

 

Of course the accuser in all of us

tries to cast out “Satan” all the time.

Which is really the master plan—

getting everyone to not trust anyone else.

To get everyone to hate and despise and accuse

everyone else until our hate consumes us.

 

But Jesus tells them, this method of being a society cannot last.

If a kingdom is divided against itself ,

that kingdom cannot stand.

Because:  1.  in the end it’s not sustainable,

we will destroy each other if we keep up this way.

(Which is, of course, just what the accuser wants.)

And 2. Satan’s kingdom won’t be able to stand because

Jesus is reordering the very social fabric of hate that Satan has created.

 

The way Jesus is doing that is that he is putting himself

into the position of the condemned.

God became the outcast, the one who was scapegoated,

the one who was called unclean and unholy,

and hung on a cross beside two thieves,

and left to die in a very unholy way,

to show that no one is outside the scope of God’s love.

 

Jesus compares himself to a thief in this gospel.

He is breaking into the house of the strongman,

Satan, who Jesus intends to bind up.

He will take the strongman’s property –

which is US, all of humanity –

and release the strongman’s captives using  the Holy Spirit’s tools:

love, compassion, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

 

And those who don’t believe in the power of the Holy Spirit,

who don’t believe in the absolute power

of love and forgiveness for everyone --

Those who still insist on accusing others and

believing that some are beyond God’s reach – like those scribes,

those are the ones that stand with Satan’s world view,

those are the ones that blaspheme, or offend the Holy Spirit.

 

But watch out! Everyone is caught in this conundrum.

If we accuse those who we think are accusers,

and want to banish them out of our society, then who is the accuser?

A house divided cannot stand.

As long as we label people bad or unholy, or unforgiveable,

or unlovable or beyond the Spirit’s grasp, we are caught in Satan’s own trap of division.

 

The bottom line is that Satan’s game is a divided humanity.

As long as we keep dividing ourselves from others, Satan wins.

 

At the end of Jesus discussion with the scribes,

“A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him,

“Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” 

They were still trying to get him safely inside.

 

And Jesus replied, looking at those who sat around him,

Including those religious scribes who he had called over

and he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!”

And that is Jesus point.  Jesus was family, even with his enemies,

with the scribes who were trying to catch him.

We are all brothers and sisters.

Even those we disagree with most.

Even those who are out to destroy us.

 

The accuser will not prevail.

Jesus has come into the world,

the Kingdom of God is at hand.

The Strong Man will not have his way .

Satan will not rule this world any more.

God’s love will win.