Welcome to the Family

 Jesu Juva

St. Mark 3:20-35                                                                             

 June 6, 2021

Proper 5B                                              

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          I returned home from a family vacation last week.  And by “family vacation,” I don’t mean that I traveled someplace fun with my immediate family.  What I mean is:  I traveled with my immediate family to go visit my extended family—one mother and one step-father, one aunt and one uncle, one sister and three sisters-in-law, three brothers-in-law, six nieces and three nephews.  Families are a gift from God.  Families and marriages are the foundation of God’s good creation.  Families are never perfect, of course; because families are always made up of sinners.  But for all the faults of my family, at least I can say that they never thought I was “out of my mind.”  They never considered me crazy.  They never showed up here on a Sunday morning to seize me with a straight-jacket.

          But as we heard today, Jesus wasn’t quite so lucky when it came to His earthly family.  But I for one am glad that Jesus’ family was troubled at times.  For one thing, it argues for the truthfulness of the Scriptures.  If Saint Mark was just writing puff-piece propaganda about a make-believe Messiah, he wouldn’t have included the part about how His own family didn’t think He was playing with a full deck.  No, he would have included quotes from His mother and siblings about how they always knew Jesus was a special kid and destined for great things.  But that’s not how it happened.  St. Mark gives us the facts, not fiction. 

          As today’s Holy Gospel picks up, it seems that Jesus’ mother and brothers had run out of patience with Jesus.  They had plans to seize Him because they thought He was out of His mind.  Perhaps it all started when Jesus had wandered out into the wilderness and down to the Jordan river where He was baptized by some guy with a cult following who wore camel’s hair and leather.  It couldn’t have helped matters when Jesus then immediately disappeared—into the wildness—alone—for forty days.  And now Jesus was wandering around from town to town, unemployed, with a growing crowd following Him every step of the way, and the religious leaders growing increasingly furious.  I don’t know if families staged “interventions” in first century Palestine; but clearly, Jesus’ mother and brothers thought it high time to bring this boy home and lock him up in the attic for a few months.

          Or perhaps they thought Jesus needed an exorcism; for scribes from Jerusalem were telling everyone that Jesus was possessed by an unclean spirit, and that all His success at casting out demons could only be chalked up to the fact that Jesus Himself was working for the Prince of Demons.  In other words, the forces of darkness listened to Jesus because Jesus Himself was in league with Satan.  Imagine it!  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 this activity was viewed by some as horrible, dangerous and downright demonic.

          As it was for Jesus, so it is today for His church.  For two thousand years the Christian church has been a force for good in the world:  caring for the poor, setting up orphanages and hospitals.  The church has affirmed the dignity of all human life, including the unborn and the aged—and those with mental illness.  The church of Jesus Christ has reached out in love to educate children, to clothe the poor, to feed the hungry, to point the way to heaven for all people of every nation. 

          But as the church continues to speak the truth in love, the church is increasingly viewed as something horrible and dangerous.  Why?  Because the church of Jesus Christ upholds the intrinsic value of family—of family built upon the cornerstone of marriage between one man and one woman.  Because of this the church is increasingly the target of hate and persecution.  Speak the truth in love about marriage—about male and female—and you can expect to be judged by the world—judged like Jesus was judged.  Jesus and His Church are concerned with the truth—but a world that lives by the lie cannot tolerate the truth.  So expect to be slandered like the Savior.  Expect to be told that you’re either out of your mind, or that you are evil.

          I have to say, though, that Jesus was quite clever at refuting the slander directed at Him.  Jesus pointed out that if He was working as a double agent for the dark side, it didn’t make much sense for Him to be dismantling and destroying the

dark side by casting out demons left and right.  A house divided against itself . . . will not be able to stand.  Those words of Jesus made such good sense that they were borrowed by Abraham Lincoln to describe the inherent instability of a nation that was divided into slave states and free states.

          Jesus makes it abundantly clear that He’s working against Satan—not with Satan.  In fact, Jesus makes public the battle plan:  He’s going to rob Satan blind.  The Savior plans to steal from Satan.  Give a listen:  No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man.  Then indeed he may plunder his house.  Do you get it?  Satan is the “strong man.”  And the “goods” this “strong man” keeps in his house of doom are people—people held in fear and captivity because of sin and death.  And that’s right where Satan wants you—stuck in his house, stuck in your sin, separated from God, doomed to die, on the road to hell.

          But Jesus—He’s not worried.  Jesus is all about breaking and entering Satan’s stronghold to set sinners free by the power of His forgiveness.  When Jesus died on the cross, Satan’s hold on you was broken.  The “strong man” was tied up and bound by the stronger Son of God.  Satan still prowls around, but he’s been defanged and declawed.  His power over you has been shattered.  Jesus is risen from the dead, sitting at the Father’s right hand, working all things for your eternal good.  At every Baptism Jesus is breaking and entering the devil’s house of doom to rescue dying sinners and give them life that lasts forever.  Jesus is plundering and pillaging, poaching and pilfering, what is rightly His—the precious people He died to save.  You could say that you and I are stolen property—now rightfully returned to the one who loved us and gave Himself for us—the woman’s offspring who has bruised the serpent’s head and defeated the devil forever.

          Think about this image:  You are stolen property, now returned to your rightful owner through the water of your baptism.  Have you ever had something valuable stolen?  It’s a terrible feeling to be robbed of something important and valuable. Some of you might remember when my laptop was stolen from my office at right about this time on a Sunday morning.  But I will never forget walking into the Whitefish Bay police department just a few days later to reclaim my stolen property—to reclaim what had been taken from me.  It was a relief—such a good feeling.  And that liberated laptop seemed even all the more valuable and precious, having been returned to me, the rightful owner.

          Beloved in the Lord, you are so much more valuable, so much more precious than some old laptop.  Jesus shed His blood and breathed His last to win you back—to name you and reclaim you as His own—to forgive you all your sins, so that you might dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  You belong to Him—to the Father who created your body, to the Son who by His blood redeemed your body, to the Holy Spirit who made your body His temple in the waters of Holy Baptism.

          Oh, and speaking of Baptism . . . when you were baptized you became part of a new family.  You were adopted into a family so big and so loud that it cannot be counted.  Jesus highlighted this new family of faith at the very moment when His mother and brothers arrived to take Him home.  Jesus looked carefully at those who were seated and circled around Him—those who were listening to His Words—taking His promises to heart.  In fact, the Greek verb means that He was looking each one of them up and down with great personal interest.  He looked at people like you—people who took His words to heart—people who trusted in Him.  And as He looked at them He said:  Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

          Welcome to the family.  Take a look around at your Christian clan!  You weren’t born into this family; but you were born again into this family.  These people matter.  When one of you hurts, we all hurt.  When one of you has a need, we all work to meet that need.  We’re a big family, a loud family at times—singing the praises of Him who plundered us and pillaged us from the devil’s domain.  Some families have secrets; but not this family.  We are totally transparent, confessing our sins, always admitting the worst about ourselves, always speaking the truth in love to one another.  You don’t have to like everybody in this family; but you are called to love them—to love them with the love we each have received from our eldest Brother, who is the firstborn of all creation, Jesus, the Christ. 

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