Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps of The Salvation Army on February 17, 2008; Swift Current Corps on February 22, 2015; 614 Warehouse Mission on 06 May 2018; Alberni Valley Ministries on 21 April 2024
By Captain (Major) Michael Ramsay
To read the 2008 version,
click here: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2008/02/mark-320-35-family-of-god.html
To read the 2018 Toronto version click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2018/05/mark-320-35-family-of-god.html
To view the 2024 Alberni Valley Ministries version, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2024/04/mark-320-35-family-of-god.html
On a quiet winter day
somewhere here in Saskatchewan, there is this fellow – John. Now John has just
finished a long tiring day of work and he is quite happy to be home. He comes
in and sits down on his chair and picks up his newspaper.
Now John has a wife, Janet,
and when she sees John sitting nicely in his easy chair, she asks him what he
is planning to do before supper.
“Well, I’m planning to read my paper,” John answers, but from the
look on Janet’s face he can tell immediately that he has actually gotten the
answer wrong. That isn’t what he is planning to do.
He looks at her in that
searching way, trying to discern what the right answer to her question could
be: what is he planning to do? …Is he planning to - pick something up at the store? …Is he planning to …pick up the
kids from somewhere? …Is he planning to…John didn’t know.
“Shovel Mrs McMillan’s
driveway,” says Janet. “You’re planning to shovel Mrs McMillan’s driveway.”
“But its 40 below![1]
…I mean…Yes dear, yes, Mrs McMillan’s driveway,” says John who, until this very
moment, had no idea that he was planning to shovel their elderly neighbour’s
driveway. So John grabs his shovel and heads out the door…
At just this time, as John
heads outside, providentially around the corner of the house comes John Jr.,
his 15 year-old son: “What are you planning to do before supper?” John
Sr. asks.
“Play on the computer…”
says John Jr. who, just like his father, has gotten the answer wrong. John Jr.
is of course now planning to shovel the driveway.
“Just let me put my school
stuff away,” says Junior who is hoping to escape into the house and forget all
about this plan to shovel Mrs McMillan’s driveway - that he never knew that he
had made in the first place.
But Dad, who is wise to
Junior’s plan, hands him the snow shovel, takes his school bag, sends him off
to Mrs McMillan’s and then John promptly disappears into the garage so as to avoid
finding out from Janet if indeed there is anything else he had planned to do
that he didn’t know about…
Now as John Jr. is standing
outside Mrs McMillan’s driveway, who should come walking by but his little
brother, Mark, and a group of his friends…Jr. yells to his 10 year-old brother
and his seven or eight friends, “guess what you guys are planning to do?!”
Mark and his friends are
all very good-natured and they do start out in earnest shovelling the walk but
they only have 3 shovels between the eight of them and it doesn’t take too long
for one of the boys to realise that this snow today actually packs quite
nicely.
This friend of Mark then
quite innocently makes one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and even
more snowballs and stacks them beside the shelter of a hedge. When he has got a
nice lot of snowballs in front of him, Mark, who has actually been working
quite diligently, notices him and asks his friend - as forcefully as he can
muster - “and what are you planning to do with all those snowballs?” to which
his friend replies by throwing one right at Mark. Within 10 minutes the eight
boys are in a full-blown snowball fight. Having completely forgotten about any
of their work when Dad comes around the corner.
“What do you think you are doing?”
Now Mark, in the boldness
of a 10 year-old surrounded by his friends, takes the initiative to show his
dad exactly what he is doing and promptly hits him with snowball. This is too
much for John who then dives behind the car where he and his eldest son
assemble their own arsenal and try to hold off the pack of eight year-old boys.
They are now divided into
two groups and they have quite a bit of fun until all of a sudden everyone goes
quiet as John and all the boys notice Janet –mom- standing, arms crossed,
asking, “And what are do are you
doing?”
“Shovelling the snow?”
Answers John - and indeed for the next
hour that is exactly what John, John Jr. and Mark are doing with their three
shovels as Janet and Mrs McMillan look on from her front room.
If you’ll turn with me to
Mark Chapter 3, you’ll notice that today’s pericope is also about a divided
house and a bit of a family conflict as well. You remember, of course, how our
story begins today, V. 20: “Then Jesus
entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were
not even able to eat.” Verse 21, “When his family heard about this, they went
to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’”
Jesus is portrayed here as
almost a workaholic (not quite because of course Jesus’ shows through the
dessert temptation account that he does not give into temptation – cf. Lk 4;
Jas 1:13). He is working late and he takes his work home with him and his work
right now is casting demons out of people and he has a lot of work to do.
Can you imagine the scene?
It is dinnertime. He comes to a home to eat with the twelve, his disciples, and
there is so much going on. There are so many people crowding into the house
that they aren’t even able to take time to eat. There must be people
everywhere. This must be so noisy – and Jesus is just working away – he and his
disciples are just ploughing through people healing them, casting out demons
and doing what needs to be done.
His family no doubt is
worried about his health. They are no doubt worried because he’s not eating
anything. They are no doubt worried because he is not taking enough time for
himself. He is not taking time to relax. He is just working, working, working –
without a break – this can’t possibly be healthy can it? Is it any wonder that
his mother and brothers, throw up their hands when they hear all of this and
say, Verse 21,“He is out of his mind” – “he’s crazy” – “he’s nuts.”[2]
How do you respond to those
whom you love who won’t stop working? Well, Jesus’ family decided that it is
time to go and take charge of him. They are going to make him rest and take
care of himself. (Now this is interesting because the Greek word KRATESAI
is actually the same word that is used when you go to ARREST someone. So
this is serious.) They are concerned about him and if Jesus won’t take care of
himself, they will take matters into their own hands, they will take charge of
him because, as they understand it, “he is out of his mind.”
“He is demon possessed,”
the teachers of the Law say. “He is [even] possessed by Beelzebub…the prince of
demons,”[3]
Verse 22 records the learned, esteemed, intelligent, and respected teachers as
saying – “[It is] by the prince of demons [that] he is driving out demons.”
So this is interesting.
Both Jesus’ family and the religious experts agree that Jesus is not acting
normally here. He is out of his mind; he is demon-possessed. And again, in this
crazy scene, we can probably understand what they are saying to some degree,
can’t we?
Jesus understands and he answers
the teachers who –unlike his biological family (cf. 3:31-32)[4]
- are right there maybe in the house with him and his disciples. Jesus
understands what they are saying.
Now what the Pharisees
might actually be doing here –unlike his family- is probably more than just
looking out for his well-being. What they might be doing is probably more than
just mocking him or writing him off. What they might be actually in the process
of doing is gathering evidence or at least inspiration to formulate an official
charge against him.
In our society today we
think nothing of people using the language of demon possession and witchcraft:
we hear it everyday on TV, radio, in pop culture and in casual colloquial
language. It is so common that many times we don’t even twig when we hear it
but it is different in Jesus’ day (cf. Dt. 18:10; 1 Sam 28:9; 2 Ki 19:22; 2 Chr
33:6; Micah 5:12; Na 3:4; Gal 5:20).
Witchcraft is a serious
crime. It is a sin punishable by death (cf. 1 Sam 28:9).[5]
These religious teachers cannot be left to make these remarks unchallenged. It
must be addressed. They are in essence accusing Jesus of divination, of
witchcraft, of sorcery, and in those days people won’t stand by and let that
evil go unchecked.
And Jesus won’t let these
accusations go unchecked; he speaks to them in a couple of very short parables
or metaphors.
Verse 23ff: “So Jesus
called them and spoke to them in parables: "How can Satan drive out Satan?
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is
divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself
and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.
Think about it in terms of
our world today…
Afghanistan was torn apart.
It has been balkanized and polarized for many, many years; so when we -and our
allies- launched the most recent attack on their country. The country didn’t
stand.[6]
Civilians are dying and the drug trade there -which had been virtually
eliminated before we invaded- it now provides the bulk of the world’s opium
supply.[7]
A divided house cannot stand. How can they ever be liberated, if they cannot
even be united? How can we ever be liberated if we are not united?
And there is of course
ISIS, ISIL, IS or whatever it is called now that has been created out of the
divisions made when the West invaded Iraq. Or there is Libya. Did you know that
before Canada and others began bombing that country it was one of if not the
most stable and prosperous countries in all of Africa and now they are so
divided that they even have two rival governments in two rival cities and
people are dying every day there. Let us not forget Ukraine as well. Hundreds
of thousands are dead and still dying and millions have fled and are still
fleeing after we in the West toppled their elected government in a coup. The
country has been divided. It is now broke and fighting a civil war. Divided
countries cannot stand. This is what Jesus is saying right in this parable.
And this is the kind of
thing that is playing out in our very houses here today. If husband and wife
aren’t on the same page, how can their children grow up in the strength of a
solid family? If mom won’t stop yelling at dad and dad stops coming home
altogether, how can little Janet learn to be kind to her future husband and how
can little John learn to stick it out when life gets difficult? If the house is
divided, how can it stand?[8]
We’ve seen in this country,
Canada, very quickly, the results of divided houses, haven’t we? Many of these
houses are no longer standing: “Between 1965 and 1988, Canada's divorce rate went from
being one of the lowest among industrialized nations to being one of the
highest.”[9]
Divided houses do not stand.
Like with John and his
sons, John Jr. and Mark, from our introductory story, when they were divided,
their work did not get completed and they faced the wrath of mom.
This is what Jesus is
telling his accusers. He is saying that if he is on the same side as Beelzebub,
if he is on the same side as the devil, he wouldn’t attack him because then he
would be in essence – if he WAS working for the devil – by attacking him, he
would be destroying himself. So why in the churches do we sometimes attach each
other why do we sometimes attack ourselves?
Jesus’ casting out demons
is like shovelling the walk in our earlier analogy. If that snowball fight had
persisted then that driveway would never have been shovelled.
If Jesus were working for
the devil why would he cast devils out? Why would he let them continue to play
in driveway of the demon-possessed man’s soul? He wouldn’t. He doesn’t. Jesus
comes out as stern and as commanding as Janet and orders that driveway cleared.
There can be many reasons
and motives for the Pharisees to accuse Jesus of working for the enemy but he
lets them know that their argument doesn’t make any sense.
Jesus uses the analogy also
of robbing a house. Jesus says that, Verse 27, “In fact, no one can enter a
strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the
strong man. Then he can rob his house.”
If Jesus were on the same
side as the devil, why would he even want to rob the devil of his prize? He
wouldn’t. If he was working for the devil, then he would not be freeing this
man from Satan’s power; because by casting out the demons, he is weakening the
Republic of Evil and in the process strengthening the Kingdom of God and when
one is at war, one tries to kill one’s enemies and one’s not allies. And this
is what Jesus is saying: Jesus is showing those present that indeed he is
intentionally attacking the devil’s dominion, freeing his captives, liberating
his territory and in these stories Jesus is reminding us, in effect, that no
one intentionally kills with ‘friendly fire.’ If Jesus were on the same side as
Satan, he says in this parable, he would not rob him of his prize. Instead, as
Jesus is more powerful than Satan, by freeing the demon-possessed man, he binds
the metaphorical strong man and robs his house.
Jesus makes his point. He
makes his point well. We realise, as we have seen, that divided houses cannot
stand. Houses cannot be robbed without first taking care of the security guard.
But Jesus doesn’t stop at making this point.
You’ll notice that this
story doesn’t end here. Jesus now has some strong words for the people who are
accusing him of working for the Beelzebub. He says, Verses 28-30, “I tell you
the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But
whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty
of an eternal sin.”[10]
He said this because they were saying, “He has an evil spirit.”
So do you see what the
author of Mark here is doing as he relates this story about Jesus? He is
showing us that Jesus is warning the Pharisees not to say that he is
demon-possessed. He is telling them point blank that all other sins will be
forgiven – EXCEPT for blaspheming the Holy Spirit – He says that there is no
sin as bad as this one that they may be committing here. Calling the Holy
Spirit evil, rejecting God in this way. There is nothing worse Mark tells us
that Jesus says here.[11]
But what about Jesus’
family? Remember that as the Pharisees said ‘he has an evil spirit (v. 30)’,
his own family said that he was ‘out of his mind (v. 21)’ and they came to take
charge of, or even ‘arrest’ him; what about his flesh and blood relatives?
What does Jesus say when
they arrive to ‘take charge of him (v.21)?’ Verse 31. You’ll notice that they
don’t even come in. It says that they are still standing outside. They don’t
even come into where Jesus and his disciples are working. They don’t come in to
arrest him, to take him home. They, instead, want Jesus to come out to them.
I’ve seen people act like
that more than once. They come even a very long way to take control of someone
and then refuse to even come in but instead try to force their target to come
out. People who do that, they can’t be up to any good, can they?
Jesus’ family, vv. 31 &
32, send someone in and the crowd tells Jesus that his family- his flesh and
blood – those who think he’s out of his mind for doing the will of God – those
who gave birth to and those who grew up with him – Jesus’ family is here. The
crowd tells Jesus, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
What does Jesus reply? This
is important to our story, I think. Jesus replies, verse 33ff, “‘who are my
mother and my brothers?’…Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him
and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my
brother and sister and mother.’”
Jesus denies his mother and
brothers. Jesus doesn’t go out to his family in this story. He denies them. His
mother and brothers are not supporting Jesus doing the work of God and he is
not acknowledging them.
Just like Jesus told the
Pharisees, that “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be
forgiven” because they said he has an evil spirit. He now says of his mother
and brothers, who went to take charge of him, “Who are my mother and brothers?”
They are not my family if they are opposing the work and the will of God!
My family, Jesus says, is
“whoever does God’s will.” In our passage here today, the author of Mark has
revealed a great truth to us. The family of God is not necessarily the
educated, the theologians, the scholars and the pastors. The family of God is
not necessarily those who are born into the churches, Christian families and
their loved ones.[12]
The family of God is quite simply those who do the will of God, which, of
course, we discern as we pray and read Scripture.
So today, as we have looked
at divided houses –those of the parable: of the Jewish teachers,[13]
of Jesus’ own biological family – as we have looked at these divided houses, I
think we need to consider something ourselves. Are we really members of the
family of God, or are we more like some of the others represented here?
Are we like the Pharisees?
They knew a lot about God, probably more than anyone but they thought they knew
better than Jesus. Do we think we know more than God? Do we reject, by our
words and/or actions, that Jesus Christ is real in our society today? Do we
treat what he says and what he does as if it is not truly of God? This is what the Pharisees did in today’s
story. Are we like them?
Or are we like his
biological family? They grew up with him. They knew him but they wanted to
‘take charge’ of him. Do we ever want to ‘take charge’ of Jesus, like his
family whom Jesus even refused to acknowledge in this story? Do we ever try to
‘take charge’ of Jesus and mould him to our idea of what Jesus and God should
be rather than to let him make himself know to us? This is what his biological
family was doing in this story. Are we like them?
Or are we like his true
family, his real family, the family of God? …the disciples and others with them
here who were doing what Jesus is telling them to do? Do we in our daily lives
discern through prayer and Scripture the will of God, and seek to do it? Because when we do then we will we truly be
Jesus’ brother and sister and mother. Then will we truly be a part of the
family of God. And this is what Jesus wants. He wants us all to be members of
his family and heirs in His kingdom.
Let us pray…
---
[1] As I was
informed that a snowball fight at –40 was not probable in Northern
Saskatchewan, let’s assume for the sake of the story that John is speaking in
hyperbole here.
[2] Cf. C.L.
Mitton. The Gospel According to Mark. London: Epworth, 1957, p. 26: “If
they reveal his family's failure to understand him, they are also a measure of
their concern for him.”
[3] Cf. Williamson Jr. Interpretation:
Mar., Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983, p.84.
Beelzebub literally means, “Lord of the flies”; this was a derogatory term
derived from ‘Beelzebul’, which was the name of a Canaanite deity. By Jesus’
time the words had come to be associated with the accuser, Satan, the prince of
demons. Cf. also RCH Lenski.
The Interpretation of St Mark’s Gospel. Minneapolis, Augsburg Publishing
House, 1964, p.148.
[4] Walter
W. Wessel Expositor’s
Bible Commentary, Pradis
CD-ROM:Mark/ Introduction to Mark, Book Version: 4.0.2 suggests that the family
is probably in Narareth but Jesus himself in Capernaum. RCH Lenski, pp.5-20
discusses the idea that he is possibly even in the house of John Mark himself.
Lamar Williamson Jr., p.83, points out Jesus may now be at the house of Simon
and Andrew. Either way his blood family does not appear to be actually with him
now, cf. v.31.
[5] Cf. also Gal
5:20 for a NT comment on its seriousness
[6] Esp. re:
drugs which had been albeit eliminated as a problem before our invasion
according the UN and other sources: http://opioids.com/afghanistan/index.html Andrew North BBC correspondent in Kabul,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/ 3476377.stm states that since the
invasion “an opium farmer may be earning 10 times as much as the
government soldier or policeman whose job it is to enforce the law against
growing the crop.” And the number of civilian deaths has greatly risen as a
direct result as well: http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html
[7] “U.N. drug
control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium
production in Afghanistan -- once the world's largest producer -- since banning
poppy cultivation last summer.” - Afghanistan, Opium and the Taliban:
JALALABAD, Afghanistan February 15, 2001
[8] CBC put our
rate at almost 40% in 2002:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/05/04/divorce040504.html cf. Ambert, Dr. Anne Maire DIVORCE: FACTS,
FIGURES AND CONSEQUENCES. Child and Family Canada. http://www.cfc-efc.ca/docs/vanif/00005_en.htm
[9]
http://family.jrank.org/pages/191/Canada-Divorce.html">Canada - Divorce
[10] Walter W.
Wessel Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Mark/ Book Version: 4.0.2l:
The words of v. 29—"will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal
sin"—have caused great anxiety and pain in the history of the church. Many
have wondered whether they have committed the "unpardonable sin."
Surely what Jesus is speaking of here is not an isolated act but a settled
condition of the soul—the result of a long history of repeated and willful acts
of sin. And if the person involved cannot be forgiven it is not so much that
God refuses to forgive as it is the sinner refuses to allow him. Ryle's famous
words are great reassurance to any who might be anxious about this sin: "There
is such a thing as a sin which is never forgiven. But those who are troubled
about it are most unlikely to have committed it" (J.C. Ryle, Expository
Thoughts on the Gospels [New York: Revell], 2:59). On the other hand, those who
actually do commit the sin are so dominated by evil that it is unlikely that
they would be aware of it
[11] Ibid: "because
they were saying, `He has an evil spirit'"—suggests an explanation for the
unforgivable sin. Jesus had done what any unprejudiced person would have
acknowledged as a good thing. He had freed an unfortunate man from the power
and bondage of evil (cf. Matt 12:22; Luke 11:14). This he did through the power
of the Holy Spirit, but the teachers of the law ascribed it to the power of
Satan. Taylor (p. 244) says that the sin described here is "a perversion
of spirit which, in defiance of moral values elects to call light
darkness." Further, Mitton says, "To call what is good evil (Isa
5:20) when you know well that it is good because prejudice and ill will hold
you in bondage, that is the worst sin of all. The tragedy of the `hardening of
heart' (as in Mk 3:5) is that it makes men capable of committing just this
sin" (Gospel of Mark, p. 28). Perkins, Pheme. NIB VIII: The Gospel of
Mark, p. 547: The evangelist’s comment in V. 30 shows that the judgement
saying is directed against those who have charged Jesus with using Satan’s
power.”
[12] Grant, F.C.
The Gospel According to St. Mark. Vol. 7. IB. New York: Abingdon, 1951,
p. 694: “In place of broken family relations, ostracism and persecution, was
the close and intimate relation to the Son of God.”
[13] With Jesus on one side and
his opposition on the other…
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