Blaspheming Against the Spirit

Mark 3 from Bible Art

Mark 3:20-35

June 9, 2024

 

This is a confusing scripture.

A lot of the lines in this story are 

taken out of their context

and have developed lives of their own.

So it’s hard to figure out what’s 

actually happening and

of course, Jesus speaks 

in metaphors which doesn’t help.

I think there are two parts in it that particularly throw things off.

First, I think Jesus relationship with this family is confusing.

We might have this idyllic idea of how Jesus got along

with his family and especially his mother.

 

Those images are mostly from Jesus birth stories in

Matthew and Luke and some later things in John.

But remember Mark was the first gospel that was written down,

and Mark doesn’t say anything about Jesus birth or much

at all to say about Jesus family.

 

Actually, this story is the most that we hear

about Jesus family in this gospel and it’s not very favorable.

They don’t seem supportive of him, they don’t understand him,

they actually seem a little embarrassed by him.

And, you know what, there’s no way to explain it away.

 

Mark’s gospel does not have high regard for Jesus birth family,

including Mary, who only gets named in passing elsewhere.

And this story shows that Jesus doesn’t seem to have

a warm fuzzy feeling for them too much either.

If we can handle that and not get hung up on trying

try to twist it around so that Jesus does get on well with his family,

like so preachers have tried to do,

it’s easier to decipher the rest of it.

 

And the other thing is right in the middle there’s

that  whole concerning piece about  the

“unforgivable sin” of blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.

 

As a pastor, I have had people come to me worrying

about this one specific passage.

Just recently, I had someone talk to me at length about it on Social Media.

They were worried because when they were younger

they said they didn’t believe in God and they said something

crude about Jesus.

 

They were worried that, even though they believed

now and were concerned enough to ask a pastor

about it, that God wouldn’t forgive them for that.

They were worried that they were going to hell.

Other people have worried because their children or grandchildren

are atheists  or reject God or Jesus or the church

and they worry about their salvation because of this verse.

 

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

in spite of this one passage, I think that more of the gospels tell us

that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

And not blasphemy or any of those other things

that some people think are unforgiveable,

and especially an something we said years ago.

 

Nothing can separate us, or anyone, from God’s love

and I think that this story actually supports just that,

if you understand it in context and don’t just pluck it out of the story

like most people do. I’ll explain that now.

 

So like we heard last week,

Jesus had a public protest when he  healed

someone in the synagogue on the Sabbath,

and the Pharisees decided for the first time

that they wanted to destroy him.

This is important context to remember.

 

After that, Jesus  appointed his apostles

and he they were traveling around the area

preaching and healing and he’s getting well known

among the people, and he stops back in his home town.

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

 

And while he’s here in his hometown,

things don’t sound like they’re going too well.

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

So lots of people want to see and hear Jesus,

but it’s not a good reception, the people of Nazareth

are actually saying that Jesus is out of his mind.

And the scribes, the other religious leaders, have followed him there,

harassing him there and trying undermine him.

They say that he must consorting with demons.

 

And so Jesus’ family are trying to get him back in the house.

Basically, they’re like

“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 if you come inside.”

 

His family can see the pattern already in process,

Jesus is being labeled as crazy or bad or evil,

he’ll probably be rejected by the community

or even cast out of the community,

and his family would be rejected

for being associated with him.

 

It had been done many times before,

so they knew what it looked like.

It happened then and it happens now.

That’s what humans do to one another.

 

We love to put people into categories of good and bad,

holy and unholy, with us and against us,

we all do it in our heads, we all don’t all act on it, but we all do it.

We do it with other drivers on the road,

we do it with people we see on the news,

we do it with people of other races and cultures,

we do it with people who have different “lifestyles” than us,

we do it with celebrities, and

we do it with politicians – a lot.

  

Political campaigns know this human tendency to divide and hate

and the capitalize on it.

You notice, they never just say that a candidate doesn’t have good

policies, or they don’t share the same priorities.

They have to be evil, horrible, the worst ever,

they hate America, they want to destroy it,

and if you support THEM, you’re the worst too.

 

And this has been taken all too often to scary ends, villainizing people,

dehumanizing them and attempting to destroy “them”

 – all of them, genocide in other words.

It all starts with this process of labeling and dividing people.

This process is divisive and destructive to humanity.

 

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

 

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.

This is Satan’s work. To accuse.

 

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.

They’re trying to demonize Jesus they accuse him.

 

So Jesus calls the scribes over,

Jesus invites them to 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.

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

This is where Jesus uses one of those popular lines

A kingdom divided against itself cannot last. that kingdom cannot stand.

And Jesus is right. He’s talking about Satan’s kingdom, but still.

Jesus is saying that a nation, house, or institution

that is always trying to accuse others and weed out

the bad can not last long, Because:  

 

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

Which is 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.

Jesus is here to make sure that Satan’s kingdom of

hate and suspicion and fear does not stand.

 

Jesus reorders things by putting himself into the position of the condemned,

God’s own son became the outcast the one who was

scapegoated, called unclean and unholy, and hung on a cross beside

two thieves, to show that no one is outside of God’s love.

 

To further this, Jesus compares himself to a thief.

He says that no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder

his property before tying the strong man up.

Satan is the strong man. Jesus intends to bind Satan

and he will take the strongman’s property – which is All of US.

Jesus is going to release the strongman’s captives using  the Holy Spirit’s tools:

love, compassion, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

 

Which brings us to the Holy Spirit again.

Someone, I think Ann asked me a couple of weeks ago

about the title of “Advocate”. That is one of the names

that Jesus gives to himself and the Holy Spirit.

 

An Advocate is someone who pleads the cause of another.

Another name for a lawyer is Advocate, likewise in Isaiah,

the Messiah has the name “wonderful counselor”.

If Satan is the Accuser in this courtroom of the world.

then the Holy Spirit is the “advocate”, or the defense lawyer,

the one that protects us from the accuser.

And this lawyer is here to free us from this hellscape prison

that Satan has tried to hold us in,

the one of accusation and division and hate.

 

And this is where we get to the line in question:

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and

whatever blasphemies they utter;  but whoever blasphemes 

against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”

 

Jesus is not just talking in general, to the poor guy who once

said something rude about God or Jesus the Spirit.

It says that Jesus was talking to the religious leaders

who were trying to accuse him and do Satan’s work.

Remember, Jesus has the toughest things to say to

the religious leaders to shake them out of their privilege.

 

Blaspheming the Holy Spirit is not just saying a bad word,

it’s about denying the power of the

Spirit and the power of God.

It’s about believing that our sins

are stronger than God’s love and mercy.

It’s about saying that some people are beyond God’s reach.

It’s about rejecting the power of God’s forgiveness.

 

The ones that are determined to accuse and condemn

when they have no right to do it,

who want to stand in God’s place,

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

those are the ones that blaspheme the

Holy Spirit and offend God.

 

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 keep labeling people bad, or unholy, or unforgiveable,

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

 

Satan’s end game is a divided humanity.

As long as we keep dividing ourselves

into us and them, no matter who it is, Satan wins.

  

At the end of Jesus discussion with the scribes,

the story continues: “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 inside away from everyone.

 

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

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

Including those religious scribes who Jesus had called over to him

Here is Jesus family.

 

We are all brothers and sisters in Christ.

Whether we like it or not.

Even those we disagree with most.

Even the blasphemers and the sinners

 

Jesus has come to us,

and the Strong Man will not have his way.

One day Satan will not rule this world

with his lies and accusations.

One day, God’s love will win.

Healing as a Protest

 Mark 2:23-3:6

June 2, 2024

Jesus Heals
Jorge Cocco Santangelo

 

We are in Mark chapter 2.

We’ve been spending lots of time with John

and with Acts, but now we’re back in Mark.

Mark was the first gospel written down.

It’s believed that this is the Gospel that

Matthew and Luke looked at when they wrote

their gospels, so it’s like the blue print of gospels.

It is the shortest gospel and it really moves rapidly.

 

And here we are in chapter 2, right at the

beginning of the story of Jesus ministry, and we already

have Jesus involved in a non-violent protest.

An act of civil disobedience.

 

Yes, it looks on the surface like the disciples are just eating corn,

and that Jesus is doing another miraculous healing,

but don’t mistake it, this is a protest.

 

When we think of protests, some of us might have bad

connotations in our heads, we usually think of public demonstrations

and large crowds of people, and on the news we mostly see the

the bad or sensational events that can happen,

things can get out of hand, there can be conflict,

and sometimes violence can erupt, sometimes

brought on by protestors, sometimes by the authorities,

and sometimes by outsiders to the whole thing.

 

But at it’s heart, protest isn’t bad. It’s one of the main

voices that regular people have against tyranny and injustice.

I’ve been involved in many public demonstrations, 

and I’ve aided and abetted acts of civil disobedience since 

I’ve been part of the church: protests against war, 

the death penalty, unfair immigration laws, Black Lives Matter.

  

It’s funny, I went to college in San Francisco

and I was never involved in any kind of protest then,

but somehow after joining a church

in my late 20’s I’ve been involved in protests.

 

And it makes sense.

The word Protestant is based on the word protest, right?

Martin Luther objected to the rules of the

Roman Catholic church and he protested,

he brought his grievances out publicly in the 95 Theses,

which started the Protestant Revolution and

changed Christianity and the world.

 

And at its heart, that’s what protest is,

public disagreement with unjust laws or leadership.

When Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus,

she was protesting an unjust law in Alabama which said that

black people should sit in the back of the bus.

 

And in the 1960’s many people were protesting

the war in Vietnam and the draft, and I bet a few

of you here were involved in those in some way.

Some people burned draft cards in acts of civil disobedience.

 

And now, we see protests on campuses

against the injustice happening against the people of Palestine,

and some of it seems to be very conflicted and out of hand,

but that’s just what they said about the war protests in the 60’s,

and the Civil Rights movement,

and about Martin Luther in the 1500’s.

And about Jesus too.

 

Protest is the public objection to unjust use of power.

They have largely been a legitimate, peaceful form

of discourse and involvement of regular people in government.

And Jesus gives us a great example here in this gospel story.

  

Obviously, now I have to  

explain how this healing story is a protest.

 

So the third commandment is:

Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.

The interpretation of that is what we heard from

Deuteronomy today, that no work should be done

on the Sabbath day, outside of worship and rest.

 

Now in times like ours after Unions and labor regulations

have done their work, having one day’s rest

or even two days’ doesn’t seem too unusual,

but to the Israelites coming out of slavery in Egypt –

where productivity was paramount over everything–

one mandatory day of rest for everyone, including

your children, and slaves, and animals, it was pretty radical

and a message to all those who were in power:

People before productivity.

 

This was a merciful command of God,

and it really put a hit on the bottom line of bosses,

and business, governments, and emperors

and all those who didn’t do their own labor,

but employed or forced other people to do it for them.

 

Think of all the stuff you could get produced in one day.

Think of what wouldn’t get done on that Sabbath.

It really put God’s priorities in perspective.

Everyone, even animals needed their rest.

It’s a good commandment and a merciful commandment.

Living things, and their well-being were as important

as production. The sabbath was made for the people.

 

But, of course, time marches on and

in the hands of people, this good, merciful commandment

becomes a laborious chore rather than a gift.

People start getting in trouble for doing any type of work.

What was meant as a day of rest, becomes a day of obligation.

 

What began as a divine economy of grace designed

to benefit all of God’s children was turned into an unjust economy 

of oppression which disproportionately benefitted the wealthy.

 

It starts to be an excuse to monitor people, especially poor people,

to catch them doing wrong.

 

And we see this in this story when Jesus and his disciples

get scolded for picking some grain to eat on the Sabbath day.

They needed something to eat, but the religious leaders

accuse Jesus of breaking the law and not being a good man of God.

 

When they do,

Jesus points out a story of King David which

we can find in 1 Samuel chapter 21.

In this story, David has been anointed by God,

but he’s not king yet, he is being chased by Saul

who is trying to kill him.

 

David goes to the priest in the town

and asks for some food to feed his soldiers,

but all the priest has is consecrated bread.

The priest decides that it was okay to give it to them.

As long as the men hadn’t “been with” any women.

David assured them that they hadn’t and he

lets him take it for them to eat.

 

Jesus uses scripture, the highly regarded

King David, and a priest of old,

to say that certain demands of the law

were able to be put aside in favor of greater needs.

He reminds them, the Sabbath law and other laws

were made to serve humans.

Humans were not made to serve the Sabbath laws.

But the religious leaders were not swayed by this.

 

Today, religion is not, for the most part,

in charge of society, at least not ours, at least not yet,

even though some people keep trying to make that happen.

But there are still laws and they still have the

same benefits and problems.

 

Laws are good, of course,

they help maintain a just and safe society.

But in some human hands, laws can be used to oppress,

they can be levied arbitrarily and

they are often used to further punish the poor and

people who are already in unfortunate circumstances

and to control certain groups of people.

 

I was in court once for a traffic ticket,

I understand the reason for traffic tickets –

to stop people from doing stupid things with their cars.

And the ticket was like $100, not a big deal for me.

but the court cost was almost three times that much.

That was extremely annoying, but still not a big deal.

Just a minor inconvenience for me.

The ticket went away and we didn’t have to think about it again.

 

But for some of the people in the court that day,

people who didn’t have as much money,

these minor offenses were crippling.

Since they couldn’t pay the court cost,

they were stuck with old tickets on their record,

those tickets never got paid, their licenses were suspended,

then they couldn’t get to work, they couldn’t even get to court.

They could even have spent time in jail.

It was a revolving door of mounting problems for them.

One traffic ticket.

The people were serving the laws,

the laws weren’t serving the people.

 

And this is just one of the many  examples of how

poor people and the most vulnerable people are

unfairly scapegoated by the law.

Other examples immigration law, drug laws,

homelessness laws, money bail laws

all of these unfairly penalize the poor and vulnerable

and are very lenient on the rich and powerful.

 

And this is what Jesus and the disciples were confronted with.

They were just eating some grain,

but it was on the Sabbath, and there was a law.

I guess the Pharisees thought that Jesus and the disciples

should have prepared better for the Sabbath

and collected it the day before.

But those kind of things work great for people

with extra money or homes to stay in,

and with leisure time, but not for everyone.

 

So the Pharisees said that Jesus was breaking the law.

Never mind that the Pharisees were obviously working that

day too, trying to catch Jesus breaking the law,

having meetings, conspiring with Herodians.

That didn’t count for some reason.

 

I’m sure Jesus and the disciples saw this kind hypocrisy

repeatedly growing up, the laws being used unfairly

against the poor and the sick and the stranger,

and the rich and the powerful getting away with breaking them.

 

So after this encounter, Jesus goes into the synagogue and

there was a man is asking for healing from him.

The Pharisees apparently follow him in.

They were not interested in Jesus miracle of healing,

they just want to catch Jesus breaking a law.

 

Now Jesus could have told the man to come back tomorrow.

He could have told him to catch them

around the back of the synagogue where no one was looking,

he could have gone to the man’s home later

and healed him there.

 

But Jesus doesn’t do that.

He actually brings attention to the act and focus on him.

He asks the religious leaders point blank:

"Is it lawful to do good or to do harm

on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?"

(Because they were doing harm on the Sabbath.)

 

And right at this point, it says that Jesus

“looked at them with anger”.

This is the only place in the Gospels where it says outright

that Jesus was angry.

It says he was angry at their hardness of heart –

the way they had no mercy for this man.

Jesus was angry that they were supposed to

be revealing God’s mercy and love to people,

but they were only showing judgement and contempt.

And if Jesus can get angry, sometimes we need to get angry too.

 

And then, boldly and brazenly, right in front of everyone,

Jesus heals this man on the sabbath.

Right in the beginning of the gospel of Mark, Jesus breaks the law,

in front of the religious leaders and everyone.

As sure as Rosa Parks did on that Montgomery bus in 1955,

this was a civil, non-violent protest, a display of mercy

in the face of unjustly enacted laws meant to oppress and control.

 

And at that, the Pharisees conspire with the Herodians

to get rid of Jesus, it says, they try to figure out how to destroy him.

Not just to arrest him or get rid of him, but destroy him.

 

Because Jesus was not just healing a man,

and not even just breaking the rule about Sabbath.

With his action, he was challenging their method

and means of control and oppression.

Their way of keeping people under control.

Their way of keeping their own privilege and power.

And that makes a lot of people very anxious.

It still does to this day.

 

Jesus

·       broke the unjust law,

·       in a non-violent way

·       for the sake of others,

·       in public (he didn’t try to hide it)

·       and he bore the consequences, for the sake of others.

This is how Mark begins the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

Why do I think this is important to tell you?

 

I think protesting is has a bad name

because it can be messy and chaotic.

It’s hard to keep non-violent protests non-violent.

And sometimes things do get out of hand.

But we shouldn’t just look at protests and protestors as all bad.

(The topic of protests really deserves a full discussion class.)

Jesus has shown us a way of civil disobedience

against injustice, and we shouldn’t just throw

the baby out with the bath water.

 

Too many Christians avoid real life issues of the day

because they don’t want to rock the boat or make anyone angry.

They don’t want to break the laws, even if they’re unjust and harmful.

They feel they shouldn’t get involved in political things.

And I think people have suffered

because we have refused to get into this messy stuff.

 

I think, As Christians, we’re supposed to step out of line sometimes

and when it warrants it, we’re supposed to do it publicly.

 

Like with our Reconciling in Christ status,

we’re publicly saying that we believe God loves

all people, including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people

and their relationships and lives as they are.

 

With that we’re showing God’s love to all people,

which challenges many religion’s means of control

and oppression over others.

And, as we saw at the Pride Festival yesterday,

our statements can heal people’s relationship

with God and even restore their faith.

 

And when Chimney Cove was almost sold and redeveloped,

We didn’t just sit by quietly and let it happen.

We got angry and made a difference in people’s lives on their behalf.

The Town basically said they couldn’t interfere in private ventures. 

But we could. We were uniquely situated to get involved

and to be the voice of community protest.

 

And who knows what is next?

What injustice God will lead us to confront?

 

Jesus gives us this example to follow in our lives.

Jesus heals this man’s hand.

But that’s not all he hopes to heal.

 

Jesus is out to heal more than just bodies.

Jesus is out to heal our unjust laws, and our imbalances of power,

Jesus was out to heal the religious order,

and the hardness of heart of the leaders.

And Jesus is out to heal everyone’s relationship with God,

which has often been harmed by the religious order

and the religious leaders.

 

Jesus was not just here to heal one withering hand,

Jesus was here to heal the world.