Shake, Rattle, and Roll (Sermon June 21 - Preached after the Emanuel AME shootings)

Scriptures:  I Samuel 17:32-49    2 Corinthians 6:1-13      Mark 4:35-5:20

Any Harry Potter fans, or parents of Harry Potter fans, in the house?  I actually haven’t read the books nor seen the movies – sorry.  But from what I gather, there’s a bad-guy character in the Potter books – Voldemort – whose evil is thought to be so powerful that nobody is willing even to utter his name.  The characters in the Harry Potter movies refer to Voldemort as “the dark lord” or “he who must not be named” – I guess the thought is that if you say Voldemort’s name, he’ll show up, and that’s not something you’d want.  I’d like us to tuck that idea of Voldemort – he who must not be named – into the back of your mind, as the idea – not the character – will come up later in the sermon.

In our reading from Mark’s gospel, Jesus has just finished up what amounted to his first preaching and healing tour in Galilee.   The tour has been a mixed bag, with highs and low – Jesus had cured a leper, cast out an unclean spirit from a man, chosen his twelve disciples, healed a man with a withered hand, taught in his hometown synagogue, had been chased by his family, who thought he’d gone out of his mind, had been accused of being demon-possessed by some religious leaders from Jerusalem who happened to be in town, and despite the opposition had attracted such a crowd that he had to go out in a boat on the lake to teach to avoid being trampled by the crowds.   He taught in parables, and explained the parables to his disciples.

If I’d done all of that, I’d probably tell my disciples that it was high time for a nap – but instead Jesus not only wants to keep going, but wants to expand and extend his tour – perhaps like a rock star who continually wants to add additional stops onto the tour.  Mark tells us that, when evening came, Jesus said, “Let us go across to the other side.”   We’re told that “they” – presumably the disciples and whoever owned the boat – “took Jesus in the boat, just as he was” – with no time or opportunity to bathe, Jesus was probably sweaty and smelly and exhausted, and indeed we’re told in just a bit that Jesus went to the back of the boat to catch a nap.  

Jesus had said, “Let us go across to the other side” – but what was on the other side of the lake?  More specifically, who lived on the other side of the lake?  The simple answer is “on the other side are other people”.  And they were definitely “other” – predominantly Gentile rather than Jewish.  Up to this point, Jesus’ ministry has been primarily among other Jews.  How would these Gentiles on the other side of the lake respond to Jesus and the disciples.  Would Jesus and his disciples be welcome there?  Relations between Jews and Gentiles were strained at best.  If this scene were taking place in a Star Wars movie, this is about the time when Harrison Ford would be saying, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

And, as they set out, right on cue, gale force winds whip up, and the storm surge causes huge waves of water to slam into the boat.  If things keep going as they are, the little boat’s going to go down, all hands lost.  And so they wake up Jesus, who had been curled up on a cushion in the back of the boat.  “We’re about to go under, Jesus! Teacher, don’t you care that we’re dying here?”  We’re told that Jesus woke up, rebuked the wind, said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still” – and all became calm.  “Why are you afraid?” Jesus asks the disciples.  “Have you still no faith?”  And we’re told that the disciples were amazed that even the wind and waves obeyed Jesus.

That’s where this week’s reading was supposed to end, but for this sermon I’m continuing on to include the story of what happened once Jesus got to the other side of the lake.  Remember my questions about the kind of welcome Jesus and his followers might get on the other side of the lake.  As it turns out, the welcoming committee is…..a demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs.  We’re told that the man had such strength that he could not be put in restraints – he just pulled them apart – and that he lived among the tombs or on the mountains, and day and night he howled and tried to bruise himself with stones – these days, we would call him a cutter, one who, when feeling overwhelmed, tries to cut himself.  The man runs up to Jesus, bows before Jesus, and yells, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High  God.  I beg you by God, don’t torment me.”  And Jesus asked the demon, “What is your name?”  The man replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”   The demons asked Jesus permission to enter a nearby herd of swine, which permission Jesus granted, and the herd of pigs stampeded off a cliff and drowned in the lake.   If the legion of demons were able to do that to a herd of pigs, we can perhaps imagine the self-destructive urges that the man must have felt when under their control, and what a struggle it had been just for him to have survived. The swineherds reported what happened to the townspeople, and they townspeople came and saw the formerly-possessed man “clothed and in his right mind”, and that the pigs had stampeded and drowned.  The townspeople begged Jesus and his followers to go somewhere else.  The formerly-possessed man wanted to stay with Jesus, but Jesus told him to go home to his friends and tell how much God had done for him, and what mercy God had shown.  This is unusual – often in Mark’s gospel, after healing somebody, Jesus says, “Don’t tell anyone.”  But this time, Jesus said, “Go, tell” – and the man went all through the region telling what Jesus had done for him.

Pay attention to the reaction of the townspeople – because it’s odd.  Of course, the swineherds are upset over the loss of their herd, over their financial loss.  But wouldn’t they be happy that the man was no longer under demonic control?  Apparently not.   It seems that, as disruptive as the man was, the townspeople had achieved a kind of settlement with him, a kind of equilibrium – “You go out and live among the tombs and make noise and cut yourself with rocks, and we’ll warn our children and each other to stay away from you, and nobody will get hurt.  Well, at least none of us will get hurt – you’ll hurt yourself, but we can’t do anything about that.”   They had things all worked out, and then along comes Jesus to upset the applecart.   Before, they could ignore the man – indeed, it would seem they cared more about their pigs than they cared about this man.   Now they actually had to deal with the man in his right mind.  What would that be like?  What words might the man have to say to them?  No wonder they wanted to ride Jesus out of town on a rail.  And stepping back a little further, what was the bit about Jesus asking the demon to say its name?  - “Howdy there, demon, my name is Jesus. What’s your name?”  Apparently Jesus needed to name the demon in order to cast it out.

In a sense, you could say that today’s reading gives us two back-to-back exorcisms – the casting out of the disturbing forces of nature that caused the storm, and the casting out of the unclean spirit from the man who lived among the tombs.  It’s almost as if even nature itself was conspiring to keep Jesus from making that trip to the other side of the shore, conspiring to keep Jesus from healing the man who had been tormented for so long.  Mark wants us to know that Jesus has the power to calm the wind and waves on the sea, and to bring peace to our hearts and souls in the midst of torments.

This sermon turned out very different from what I’d originally intended, because of the events of Wednesday night this week in South Carolina.  Of course, at Emanuel Church here, we had our Wednesday night Bible study and praise service.  There were six of us here, and we studied Acts chapter 14, in which Paul and Barnabas heal a man, at first are greeted as gods, but soon after Paul winds up being stoned almost to death.  (It’s been an occupational hazard of pastors ever since, for people either to treat them as miracle-workers or to try to stone them.)  We studied the word, and we prayed, and I really struggled playing some unfamiliar hymns on my guitar – I went acoustic on Wednesday, thank goodness – but I think we had a good time in God’s presence.  

When I woke up Thursday morning, I learned what happened that night in Charleston, South Carolina, at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.  And what happened on Wednesday night in Charleston, South Carolina is that Satan visited Emanuel AME.  While the six of us here at Emanuel Bridesburg were reading the Word and sharing and praying and singing, twelve members of Emanuel AME, a black congregation, were doing the same – until a stranger who had visited the church that night, a 21 year old young man named Dylann Storm Roof, who had sat and listened quietly to the Bible study for almost an hour, pulled out a gun and began shooting.  As he pulled the trigger, Mr. Roof, a white man, told those in the room, “I have to do it.  You rape our women and you’re taking over our country.  And you have to go.”  Nine of those present were killed.  One little girl who was injured played dead, and thus saved her own life.  The gunman told one of the survivors, “I’m not going to kill you, I’m going to spare you, so you can tell them what happened.” 

Remember that at the beginning I talked about Voldemort of the Harry Potter movies, the Dark Lord, he who must not be named, let he appear and overwhelm us with his evil powers.  Remember also, by contrast, that when Jesus cast out the demon, he asked the demon its name before casting it out.  Our human tendency is not to want to name the demons that haunt and torment our society, our country, our city, even our neighborhood.  We don’t want to point out the elephant in the living room, don’t want to name the demon, lest it overpower us.  And yet, the example of Jesus tells us that only by naming the evil in our midst, only by naming the demons, can we begin the process of casting them out.  And so I’m going to do some naming.

First of all, the victims.  They were all black; they were beloved children of God; and they had names, and they had lives. 

·        The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, age 41, senior pastor of Emanuel AME, and also a state senator.

·        The Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, age 45, also a pastor at Emanuel AME, as well as a speech therapist and girls track coach at the local high school.

·        The Rev. Daniel Simmons, age 74.  He was pastor of a nearby church.  Rev. Simmons survived the initial gunshots but died on the table at the hospital operating room.

·        Myra Thompson, age 56, wife of the pastor of a nearby Episcopal church.

·        Cynthia Hurd, age 54, a librarian who managed the St. Andrews Regional Library.

·        Tywanza Sanders, age 26, the youngest of those killed.  He had just earned a degree in business administration and worked in retail.

·        Ethel Lance, age 70, the church’s custodian, and a grandmother.

·        Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance’s 87 year old cousin, a longtime church member.

·        Depayne Middleton Doctor, age 49, a member of the choir and mother of four who had recently started a job as admissions director at the Charleston campus of Southern Wesleyan University.

What motivated Dylann Roof to snuff out these lives?  What is the name of the demon that took over the life of Dylann Roof? – and I have no hesitancy whatever in stating that Dylann Roof was controlled by forces of evil beyond himself.  Mr. Roof’s life had been drifting – evidently he repeated 9^th grade, and then dropped out of school, spending most of his days since dropping out keeping to himself and playing on the computer. He’d recently had some minor brushes with the law, for trespassing and drug possession.  Some on Fox News stated that Dylann Roof was motivated by a hatred of Christians – but while those killed were indeed Christians, I don’t think Mr. Roof was saying that Christians were raping our women and taking over our country….so that’s a case of Fox News misinterpreting the news, misnaming the demon.  Some speculate that Dylann Roof was mentally ill, but at this point, there’s no evidence of any particular clinical mental disorder.  Some point to the easy availability of guns – Dylann’s father had bought him a 45 caliber pistol for his birthday.  Thanks dad.  One wonders what Dylann’s father is feeling this father’s day.

And then there’s Dylann’s racism and views of white supremacy, which he wore proudly and openly, with a Confederate States of America license plate on his car and wearing patches with the flags of apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia on his jacket.  These were views that he had increasingly expressed in recent months to his few friends, that the races should be separated and segregated – even though on Facebook he himself had both black and white Facebook friends.  And these are views he expressed to those he shot.  He wanted to start a race war.  And racism and white supremacy, hatred and fear of non-whites, are ultimately the names of the demons that brought Dylann Roof to church that night, to bring murder into the house of the Lord.

How did the demon of racism come to take over his life?  How does a 21-year-old kid even come to think about places like apartheid South Africa and of all places, Rhodesia?  In one of his teachings, Jesus said that if a demon is cast out of a man, it wanders for a time in desert places, seeking rest but finding none, but eventually will return to the place from which it had been cast out, and if that place is unoccupied, the demon will find seven spirits that are even worse and return to occupy the man, and the man’s condition will be worse than ever.  Dylann Roof’s life was empty – empty, and drifting, and crumbling. He had no job, no wife or girlfriend – apparently never had – hardly any friends, and an “on-again/off again” relationship with his parents.  And no church connection.  Apparently during his lonely hours online he stumbled onto racist and white supremacist websites.  Those websites gave Dylann someone to blame for his empty, drifting, crumbling life – and the ideas from these websites are what came to dominate his life, and what came to snuff out the lives of nine devout Christians who were reading their Bibles and praying, and singing, like we did here on the same night – and these ideas came to ruin the life of Dylann Roof himself.

It’s easy to dismiss Dylann Roof as an anomaly, as a lone nutcase – but the ideas that motivated him, the demons that drove him, are alive and active in our country.  When we think of terrorists, we think of Muslims, people with towels around their heads and exotic names and foreign accents – but according to a New York Times survey of 382 law enforcement agencies nationwide, results of which were published on Tuesday, the day before the shootings, 74% reported anti-government extremism – as in milicias, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the like - as one of their three top threats – particularly so-called “lone wolf” terrorists such as Dylann Roof.  All of this is driven by anger, and the anger is driven by fear.

We may ask, “Why didn’t God protect the folks at Emanuel AME on Wednesday night.”  Well, we the church are Christ’s body in the world.  We are Christ’s hands and feet.  When we say, “Why didn’t God protect them”, we forget that we are God’s hands and feet, here in this world to protect the vulnerable.  So let me turn the question around – as members of Christ’s body, how did we, the church, let this happen?  How did we, the body of Christ, allow Dylann Roof’s mind to become so twisted with hate. And what will we do to stop this from happening again, to keep other minds from being twisted with hate?

One thing we can do – one small thing we can do – one baby step in the right direction thing we can do - is to reach out of our comfort zones to make contact with believers of other races.  There’s an organization in Philadelphia called POWER – Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Renew – a coalition of faith communities that takes in almost four dozen congregations – black, white, Catholic, Protestant, several Jewish congregations, even a Muslim congregation.   In response to Wednesday’s shootings, this group sponsored a prayer vigil on Thursday night at Mother Bethel AME downtown, which I attended.  This group is currently sponsoring a 10-day prayer vigil for education funding in Harrisburg, the kickoff of which Michael Wilkowski and I attended yesterday.  And I would like Emanuel Church – our Emanuel Church – to become a member of this coalition of people of faith in Philadelphia, so that we can make connections with people of faith across our city that we otherwise will not meet here in Bridesburg, so we can have a small role in casting out the demons of racism that plague us here in Philadelphia, here in Bridesburg, where, as in South Carolina, confederate flags are a familiar sight.  

That’s one specific thing we can do, and I actually would like to have a congregational vote.  Beyond that, remember that acts such as the shootings in South Carolina are motivated by fear.  The powers that be – those of great power and wealth in our country – encourage fear, because fear keeps people divided.  Divide and conquer is one of the oldest tactics in the book, and the corporate powers that be have us working class Americans pretty well divided and conquered, with blacks and whites are at one another’s throats, let they – lest we - unite in solidarity to confront the powers that be.   But such fear is not of God.  2 Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.”  I John 4 contains these words, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.”  And in our Gospel reading, as Jesus told his disciples, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”

Jesus told his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side” – and that is what I’m asking of us – to go to the other side of our fears.  And, as happened when Jesus stirred the pot and shook up the equilibrium that had existed, forces of evil attempted to shut Jesus down – and when we try to cross to the other side of our fears, we can expect things to get stirred up, can expect to shake, rattle, and roll - but Jesus prevailed.  As Christians motivated by the love of Christ that casts out fear, we, too, can prevail over our fears – our fears for the future, our fears of the present, our regrets about the past.  Perfect love casts out fear.  May the perfect love of Christ exorcise and cast out every demon of fear that would seek to hold us captive, and may we be liberated as never before to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors – of all races and sorts and conditions – as ourselves.  Amen.

Small Beginnings (Sermon June 14)

Scriptures:  I Samuel 15:34-16:13    Ezekiel 17:22-24      

        2 Corinthians 5:6-17      Mark 4:26-34

I don’t know whether you’ve noticed or not, but the mulberry bushes along the cemetery wall are gone.  During my first few years here, I tried to keep them within manageable proportions, taking an old, dull hand saw to cut off the branches from time to time.  Not the most effective way to deal with them, but I did what I could with the tools I had at hand.  But Michael and John saw that the roots were breaking up part of the wall, and so they dug them up by the roots and put new cement in the places where it had broken up.  If, for some reason, I wanted to break up a wall or a concrete sidewalk, I’d need a sledgehammer and a fair amount of strength and endurance.  But over time,  a plant can do that, just by growing.

Plants have power!  Today we have what could be called two seedy stories, two stories in which the power of God is compared to the power of…plants.  These parables are, of course, Jesus’ parable of the seed growing secretly and Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed.  Both of these parables speak of the unstoppable power of God in establishing God’s kingdom in a hostile world. 

The first of the two stories is a seemingly unremarkable story – a man scatters seed, the seed does its thing, and the man harvests the grain - something that happens every growing season.  Perhaps one thing Jesus is pointing to is exactly that, while the farmer is involved in deciding where the seed is planted and is involved in reaping the harvest – and, truth to tell, is also involved in weeding and tending, though that part didn’t make its way into Jesus’ parable – the real work is done by the seed and the earth – as Jesus says, “the earth produces of itself”.   The farmer could weed and tend a plot of ground all he wanted, but without the seed and without the earth, there’s no planting and no reaping.   And Jesus is comparing the reign of God to….this.

The second of Jesus’ two stories is actually a parody of a story that would have been well-known to Jesus’ listeners.  That story is the one we read this morning from Ezekiel.  Israel is compared to a twig from the very top of a cedar tree that is broken off and planted on a high and lofty mountain, where it grows into a noble, mighty cedar, which produces fruit and provides shelter for all manner of birds. 

The story from Ezekiel is God’s parable of the people of Israel.  Jesus’ parable of the kingdom of God is a bit more down to earth, literally – instead of a twig from a cedar, a tiny mustard seed; instead of a mighty cedar, a really big shrub.  One thing remains, and that’s the birds.

The thing we may miss is that the mustard seed of which Jesus speaks isn’t a plant anyone would have wanted in their garden – it was an invasive weed; therefore not only a big shrub, but an obnoxious shrub.  Once it takes hold, you couldn’t get rid of it.   Kind of like the pokeweed and sumac in our cemetery, try as you might, you can’t kill it;  it just keeps coming back.    So Jesus’ parable isn’t so much about a heroic little seed standing its ground against  all the big plants surrounding it, so much as a story illustrating the phrase, “Give it an inch and it’ll take a mile.”  And Jesus compares the reign of God to that.

So from Jesus’ parables we learn that the kingdom of God has vitality, has power – and yet a very different kind of power than that of the world.  The world’s power is top down, and is used to contain, to limit.  But the power of which Jesus speaks is from the ground up, starts small but

expands, and in its growth, indeed, in its very existence, is subversive of the powers that be, kind of like the roots of our mulberry bushes breaking up our wall. 

This is, indeed, how the followers of the way of Jesus, what would become the Christian church, began.  Last Sunday after church, during the study of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, one of those with us remembered a lyric from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, regarding when Jesus came to walk among us:  “Why’d you pick such a backward time in such a strange land?”  After all, at the time Jesus came, Israel was just a territory on the far-flung fringes of the Roman empire, and Galilee, where Jesus grew up and did most of his ministry, was on the fringe of the fringe, in the middle of nowhere.  Why not a place more at the center of things – say, Washington, DC in the 1950’s. But, as the saying goes, “That’s how God rolls” – starting on the margins, and starting small, and working in such a way that confounds human expectations at every step.

And, if we think about it, our congregation started out as a small seed in 1861, with 34 recent German immigrants and, at one point, all of $9 in the treasury.  During the period in which the church was organizing, the group was served by pastors in the Lutheran and German Methodist traditions, but felt a strong commitment to the German Reformed faith.  Bridesburg  would ultimately become predominantly Irish and Polish – and therefore mostly Roman Catholic – but the small seed called Emanuel Church took root and continues to the present day.

I’d like to go back to my story about the mulberry bushes breaking up the cemetery wall.  Our world is like a garden that God created, but that the forces of evil paved over – kind of like in the song “they paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.”  And our hearts and our spirits can feel like the land under the parking lot –fertile with possibilities, yet paved over with concrete or asphalt –cut off from the sun by circumstances that seem as permanent as a sheet of concrete.  But if we trust in the power of God, the seeds of hope planted by God in our lives can grow and crack through the concrete barriers that separate us from the lives God would have us live.

Jesus said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”  May God continue to bring growth to the small seed of faith called Emanuel Church, that we can plant seeds of faith, hope and love in the lives of those around us.  Amen.

Dysfunction Junction (Sermon June 7)

Scriptures:
I Samuel 8:1-22

2 Corinthians 4:1-18; 5:1                     Mark 3:20-35

Those of us of a certain age – a certain age slightly older than mine – may remember watching TV in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s and watching the show “Leave It To Beaver”.  Many of our longtimers remember hearing June Cleaver tell Ward, “Ward, I’m worried about the Beaver.” – referring to their son, Beaver Cleaver.  Through the years, as “Leave It To Beaver”  was replaced by the Partridge Family and the Brady Bunch and the Addams Family and the Simpsons and Family Guy and Modern Family, the situations depicted have kept pace with changes in society, and if June Cleaver were to watch Modern Family, she’d probably keel over with a case of the vapors.  But one thing that’s constant in all of these shows is that none of the families and none of the individuals in the families are perfect – after all, a TV show about a bunch of perfect people sitting around doing perfect things perfectly would be about as interesting as watching paint dry, and about as good for ratings.  Exaggerated as these shows are, they also remind us that while our families may not be as funny as the ones on TV, they are at least as imperfect and even dysfunctional. 

Our Gospel reading can perhaps comfort us by reminding us that even the family of Jesus was far from perfect.  If we grew up feeling misunderstood by our families, our reading reminds us that Jesus most certainly was misunderstood by his.  Back in December, we had all the readings and carols about Mary and Joseph and the babe, but in our reading from Mark’s gospel, Joseph has left the scene – died, we assume, though we’re not told – and the babe is now 30 years old, and has at least four brothers – James, Joses, Judas, and Simon; they’re named in Mark chapter 6 – and sisters as well.  Like June Cleaver, Mary is “worried about the Beaver”….worried about Jesus, I should say – so much so that Mary and the brothers though Jesus had lost his mind and were trying to find him so that they could restrain him – chasing him with the proverbial straightjacket and butterfly net to restrain him.   Gee, I don’t think Beaver Cleaver ever had to worry about June trying to send him to Byberry.

Meanwhile, if I had to cast someone in the role of Eddie Haskell, who on Leave It To Beaver could always be relied on to stir up trouble, though it’s not a perfect analogy, I guess it would have to be the scribes who came down from Jerusalem.   “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”  Jesus’ family is already fearful for Jesus’ sanity and even safety, and along come the scribes with words that make an apparently bad situation even worse.  Jesus is not just insane, they say, he’s possessed, dominated body and soul by the Evil One. 

Welcome to Dysfunction Junction. What did Jesus do to cause all this uproar?  After being baptized by John and having the Holy Spirit descend on him, and after having spent 40 days being tempted in the wilderness, Jesus had done some healings and exorcisms, had chosen his twelve disciples – and then he went home and taught.  Extraordinary acts, to be sure, but why did Jesus’ family and why did the scribes take such a negative view of Jesus’ acts of power?  Perhaps we can forgive Jesus and his family and the townspeople who doubted; up to this point, Jesus had been the local carpenter, and were used to dealing with him in that role, used to Jesus being in that box.  “Oh, Jesus, yeah, he’s the carpenter.   Makes great tables and chairs, really sturdy.  Too bad about his father not being around.”  But now Jesus was healing and teaching with authority.  Who did he think he was?  But wouldn’t we expect the scribes, the religious authorities, to be able to discern that Jesus’ power came from God.  Alas, Jesus didn’t fit their expectations, didn’t fit into any of their boxes either – he hadn’t been to any of their schools, he hadn’t been taught – not by them, anyway. So what Jesus had to say didn’t count.

Jesus tries to reason with them.  They accused him of casting out demons by means of demonic powers.  And so he asks them a simple question, “How can Satan cast out Satan? Why would Satan be in a state of civil war against himself?  How would that benefit Satan?”  Jesus reminded them that if demons are cast out, it is by a power for good that is stronger than Satan – that is, the power of God.  That is to say, Jesus’ healings are not a trick of Satan, but a sign of the overthrow of Satan’s power by Jesus.  And, indeed, Jesus says that attributing to Satan the good works of God is not just a mistake, but a sin, an unforgivable sin, an unmistakable sign that one’s spirit is so twisted and turned inside-out that one prefers the work of the devil to the work of God.

Having tried – likely without any great success – to explain his healings and teachings to the authorities, he is told that his mother and brothers are outside, and that they would like a word with him.  And now Jesus does something that will shock and scandalize those of us with gauzy, sentimental ideals about family.  Jesus says, “Who are my mother and brothers?  Here” (referring to those seated around him) “are my mothers and brothers!  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” And, by all indications, he left Mary and the brothers standing outside and went back to teaching those who had gathered around him.

Sounds pretty cold.  I assure you Hallmark does not have a card in stock that’s appropriate for this situation.  And yet I think many of have friends, or know people who have friends, that they think of as “my brother from another mother” – that is to say, even though they’re not biologically related, they’re as close as family, maybe closer.  Perhaps more importantly, Jesus is emphatically insisting that neither the religious authorities nor his own family of origin have any claim on him, that Jesus’ call to serve God trumps even the dearest ties of blood and tradition.  Jesus is not a genealogist; one is not bound to Jesus by means of one’s family tree.  Rather, one is bound to Jesus by ties of faith and obedience and solidarity.   And notice – he said those who were with him were mother, sister, brother – but not father.  That’s because God is father.

I’d like to go back to those words of Jesus, “How can Satan cast out Satan.”  Exorcisms aren’t a part of our normal experience, and so while Jesus’ words make sense, they may not seem especially relevant.  But I’d like to suggest that all of us, from time to time, or maybe even most of the time, are tempted to try to use Satan to cast out Satan – at least metaphorically.  We’ve all heard the saying, “the ends justify the means” – and yet Jesus’ words may prompt us to think – maybe not.  Maybe the ends don’t justify the means.  Maybe the means inevitably infect and corrupt the ends.  For example, remember that World War I was called “the war to end all wars”.  And yet the harsh terms imposed on Germany at the end of World War I were among the factors that undermined the Weimar Republic and led to the rise of Hitler, and to World War II.   Or, in Vietnam, we encountered phrases such as “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.”  Using Satan to cast out Satan doesn’t work.  Waging war in order to end war doesn’t work.  Revenge doesn’t work – as Gandhi is quoted as saying, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”.   Even think of an argument with a friend or family member – each side escalates the confrontation, shouting louder, waving hands more frantically – or an online conversation, with both sides adding more and more capital letters and exclamation points…..and when the confrontation finally ends, neither side’s views are changed.  We’ve all been there, myself included, and perhaps the more passionately we feel, the more often. 

And passion is a good thing – the world has never been changed, for better or worse, by people who stayed on the sidelines and minded their own business – but passion has to be channeled.  Martin Luther King said that, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hatred cannot drive out hatred; only love can do that.”  What’s needed is to change the conversation, to use love and creativity – sometimes, even humor - to short-circuit the cycle of anger and violence; or if we’re deadlocked in an argument, perhaps rather than remain locked in our positions , to ask questions – “Why do you feel so strongly on this issue? Why is this issue such a hot button for you?”  Perhaps our opponent is speaking out of some belief they grew up with that they never really examined – they were always taught growing up that gays are icky or Muslims worship Satan and never stopped to question - or perhaps their life experience has been dramatically different from ours – certainly, in our country, poor people face challenges that wealthier people don’t even realize exist and racial minorities face challenges that whites don’t even know exist - and we and our opponent can learn from one another’s experiences.   For Jesus, and for the followers of Jesus, the goal is not suppression of opposing viewpoints, but conversion; not to cast our enemies into outer darkness, but to win them over as allies, or at least to neutralize their opposition so that both sides can live and let live.  And so, in our gospel, when accused by the scribes of being possessed by Beelzebul Jesus did not respond in kind – did not respond by telling the scribes, “I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you” – but instead asked questions that pushed the scribes to see that what they were saying didn’t make sense.

As Christians, we are called to be different, not to replicate the world’s say of doing things, but to challenge it.  God called the people of Israel to do the same, and we see them fail at this in our Old Testament reading.  Under God’s guidance, Samuel has led the people of Israel as judge for many years. He has ruled justly, but he’s growing old and won’t be around forever, and his sons are corrupt.  And so the people come to Samuel and tell him, “we want a king like all the other countries around us.”   And Samuel becomes very upset, so much so that we the reader may wonder why.  Hey Samuel, don’t freak out; take a chill pill. The issue has several levels.  The issue is political – the people are asked to be ruled by a king instead of being led by a judge.   The issue is certainly personal – it’s a slap in the face to Samuel, a rejection of the leadership of Samuel’s sons.  But the issue is also theological – remember that God had explicitly told Israel that God himself would be their king, and that he had set them apart to be different from the other nations, to model a different way of living, and now the people are telling Samuel that they want a king like all the other nations.  The call for a king is a rejection of the very reason God brought Israel into being, and so God tells Samuel, “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”

For Israel to want to be like all the other nations was to reject God’s call for them to be different.  For us to say that the country or the church ought to be run like a business is to reject God’s call for us to live by a higher standard, and we all know how slimy Wall Street can be.  For us to live according to the world’s standards is to reject God’s call for us to be different, to reject the call of Jesus to be “in the world but not of it.”

Jesus says, “Who are my mother and brothers?  Here” (referring to those seated around him) “are my mothers and brothers!  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”  May we live as those called to be members of Jesus’ family….Amen.