That's Crazy

In Nomine Iesu
St. Mark 3:20-35
June 10, 2018
Proper 5B

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

In last Sunday’s Holy Gospel Jesus was accused of being a Sabbath-breaker—of doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath Day. And that was a very serious allegation to make against a Rabbi in those days. But today we learn that there are things much more serious, scandalous and salacious that can be said about the Savior. It turns out that being a Sabbath-shirker is pretty tame stuff compared to the two accusations that get leveled against Jesus in today’s gospel reading from Mark chapter three.

And it begins, surprisingly, with the family of Jesus—with His mother, Mary, and His brothers. Jesus had been healing people all over Galilee—casting out demons, preaching the kingdom of God, calling disciples to follow Him. The crowds were constant. They followed Jesus everywhere—so much so that He could hardly get a bite to eat. And when His family heard about this, they thought Jesus must be crazy—beside Himself—out of His mind—not playing with a full deck. And so, with the best of intentions, Jesus’ own family showed up with a strait jacket to take Him into protective custody.

You have to appreciate the brutal honesty of the Bible. The gospels tell the whole truth even when it’s not very pretty. That’s one of the earmarks of accurate historical narrative. You write down the embarrassing stuff right along with all the good stuff. People

who say that the Bible is largely “made up” after the fact to push an agenda—they need to take another look. If you were writing a document to sway public opinion in favor of Jesus of Nazareth, you wouldn’t include this part about how His own family thought He was crazy. No, you’d include quotes from His mother and His siblings about how they always knew Jesus was special and was destined to do great things. But that’s not how it happened. Jesus’ own family thought He was mentally ill.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the religious elite from Jerusalem had a decidedly more negative take on Jesus: “He’s possessed by Beelzebub,” they said, “and He casts out demons by the prince of demons.” He’s just a demon disguised as the Messiah. He’s really a starting shortstop for Team Satan. He’s not the Christ, but the anti-Christ. Jesus’ opponents demonized Him—literally—much like we see today in the world of politics and power plays.

On one level it makes sense. This was the only card the opponents of Jesus had left to play. I mean, Jesus had been going around doing good—healing scores of people including lepers and paralytics, the fevered and the disabled. Jesus was restoring life and health to all who were oppressed and suffering. And if you accepted that those healings were from God, then you also had to accept that Jesus’ teachings were the Words of God. You had to accept that the kingdom of God had come in His coming—that He was in fact the Son of God in human flesh, the Messiah sent from the Father to save the world from sin, death, and the devil. But to the enemies of Jesus that was crazy talk. It was much easier to assert that Jesus was just a demon-possessed deceiver.

As it was for Jesus, so it is for His Church of every age. For two thousand years the one holy Christian and apostolic church has been a force for good in this fallen world: caring for the poor, setting up orphanages and hospitals—including hospitals for the mentally ill. The church has affirmed the dignity and value of all human life, including the unborn, the aged, and the disabled. The church of Jesus Christ has reached out in love to educate and elevate women and children, to protect the family, to clothe the poor, to feed the hungry, to minister to the dying, to point the way to heaven for all people of all nations.

We Christians are engaged in a battle to help save the world. But the world looks at the church today in her good fight—a fight based on love for the Lord and the truth of His Word . . . and the world doesn’t understand. The world assumes the worst about the church just as it did about Jesus. Speak the truth in love today and don’t be surprised when the world calls you crazy and evil. Speak the truth in love today about God’s gift of marriage and family, about maleness and femaleness, about the value of sexual purity and the sanctity of life in the womb, about the great value of fathers and mothers. Do this and you can expect to be judged like Jesus was judged. Expect to be slandered like the Savior. Expect to be told that you’re crazy or evil or both.

The danger is that you start to believe it. When you hear the teachings of Jesus constantly ridiculed as crazy and evil—when you hear your own deeply held beliefs about Jesus and His Word constantly labeled as crazy and evil—well, you just might start to wonder. It would be so easy to give in and go along with the world—to jump on the bandwagon and go down to celebrate Pridefest. And there’s no denying that some of our beliefs do seem somewhat crazy: Forgiving those who sin against us? Sounds crazy. Leading a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do? Sounds crazy. Managing our family finances such that our number one priority isn’t getting rich, but returning a first-fruit percentage of everything to the Lord Jesus each week? Sounds crazy.

And if the whole world, including your mother and brothers and sisters think you’re crazy or even demon-possessed for believing all of that, well, welcome to the asylum. You’re in good company. Remember, they said it all about Jesus first. He came to do battle with the devil—to bind that strong man and to liberate what is rightfully His—the souls He died to save. That’s us! We’re the Savior’s stolen property now rightfully returned to the One who loved us and gave Himself for us—the woman’s offspring who bruised the serpent’s head and defeated the devil forever by dying on the cross. He takes all of our bad—all of our crazy—and He gives us all of His good—His love, His forgiveness, His peace, and life that lasts forever.

That’s what we call the “gospel,” and it sounds really crazy—how Jesus defeated the devil by dying. Who could have imagined a love so strong? Who would have scripted a story like this? That Jesus would take our death—the wages of our sin—and make it His own? That Jesus would bind the devil by being bound to a Roman tool of torture? And that by His resurrection He would ransack the devil’s domain and rescue a world of sinners? And the result of all this is that your sins are forgiven and the kingdom of heaven is wide open to all believers?

And all of this is God’s free gift to all who trust in Him. And there’s no sin so terrible that the blood of Jesus cannot wash it away. Listen to Jesus, “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter.” Did you hear that? All sins bar none. Nothing so horrible, so messy or messed-up that Jesus doesn’t have it covered. Name your worst. Confess your “crazy.” Jesus Christ has answered for it. All the crazy stuff that we do to others and all the crazy they do to us—it has all been addressed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

What can possibly go wrong? Nothing on God’s part. On our part, well, we might confuse God’s complete forgiveness of every sin with the permission to keep right on sinning. But by no means can you casually continue in the same old sins. You are baptized! Sin is no longer the boss of you. The other possibility is that we just refuse to trust and believe this good news. This is what Jesus meant when He spoke of the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. To refuse the gift of Jesus and to call His work the work of the devil—well, that’s unpardonable, unforgiveable. Not because it’s so bad, but because it refuses to be given to. It refuses to receive.

In the end, look who gets it right this morning. Look who gets commended by Jesus. Not the mother and brothers of Jesus. Not the super-religious scribes. It was all those desperate, broken, crazy people who wouldn’t leave Jesus alone—who kept after Him—who kept receiving what He was giving, such that Jesus could hardly scarf down a sandwich. It was that bunch of misfits who had nothing better to do than follow Jesus, and listen to Jesus, and look to Jesus for help and healing and hope and forgiveness.

Jesus looked at them and called them His family. And Jesus says that about you too. Right here this morning we have the Lord’s mother and brothers and sisters. The world may call you crazy. The world may call you evil haters. But Jesus calls you kin. Here the family of faith gathers together tightly around our Lord to hear His Word, to eat the bread that is His body and to drink the wine that is His blood—to pray, praise and give thanks to a God we cannot see for a salvation that we can only believe in by faith. That may indeed be crazy—as in, out of this world and outlandish. But it’s true. It’s what we believe. It’s who we are in Christ our brother.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.