Sermon: Insiders on the Outside

 Mark 3:19b-35
Insiders on the Outside
James Sledge                                                                                      June 6, 2021

Jesus and His Apostles,
from the Russian Siysky Gospel, 1340

 As a general rule, I don’t think most people appreciate the sophistication of the biblical writers. Take the gospels for instance. Many Christians, both the conservative and more liberal, think of the four gospels as simple, straightforward accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. They simply tell what happened, or what the writer believes happened.

But none of the gospels were written to tell people the story of Jesus. They were written for congregations who already knew that story well. The gospel writers were trying to help their congregations understand the story and how it impacted their lives and their situation, and so they retold the story of Jesus in particular ways they thought addressed concerns and issues in those congregations.

Mark’s gospel is the first one written, and it seems to address a non-Jewish audience outside of Palestine. Mark’s gospel employs an interesting technique to help his readers understand Jesus and the nature of Christian discipleship. The writer frequently places one story into the middle of another so that the two stories “talk to one another,” hopefully providing the readers a fuller understanding of both stories.

Our reading this morning has one of these bracketed or sandwiched stories. Both stories take place in the same setting, at home or, more literally, in a house. This word for house is used to speak of God’s house along with God’s household. And so it can refer to the Church.

Jesus and his disciples have come into the house for a break because his fame has started to spread, and crowds gather around him wherever he goes. But the house provides little respite. The crowds gather once more, creating such a ruckus that Jesus and his friends cannot even eat in peace.

Somehow Jesus’ family gets wind of the situation and decide that he needs to be restrained. Apparently they think Jesus has taken leave of his senses. Our scripture reading says “people were saying,” that Jesus was crazy, but that seems an unfortunate translation. There is no word “people” in the original Greek. It simply says, When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for they were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” “They” could speak of “people,” but it seems more likely to mean “the family.”

But before we can finish the story of Jesus’ family coming to get him, we hear a different story. Scribes, Jewish religious experts, have also heard about Jesus’ exploits, how he is healing people and casting out evil spirits, and they come to the house. Unlike the family who thinks Jesus has gone crazy, these scribes decide that Jesus is possessed. They accuse him of being able to do miracles because he is in league with the devil.

Jesus addresses these charges with the famous line about a house divided not being able to stand, and he goes on to imply that he has tied up Satan and can now plunder his house. Far from being in league with Satan, he is the devil’s worst nightmare.

Then Jesus addresses the scribes directly saying that forgiveness is available for almost every imaginable sin, no matter how bad. There is a exception, however. To label the Spirit’s healing, life-giving work as evil is beyond the pale. I don’t know if Jesus is using hyperbole here or not, but he clearly has little use for those who come face to face with the saving, life-giving power of God and declare it to be demonic.

The scribes then evaporate from the story, and Jesus’ family arrives on the scene. They are outside the house where Jesus and a crowd are. It’s a strange, almost non-sensial image. Jesus, his disciples, and a hoard of people hoping to be healed, hoping to get near Jesus, all crammed inside the house, with the family outside. But if we hear the word house symbolically, speaking of the Church, the image may make more sense.

This house is filled with all manner of people, ruffian fishermen whom Jesus has called to follow him and desperate people hoping for some sort of healing. It’s a motley group, hardly the crème de la crème of society, but there they are, inside the house.

Strangely, the very people who would seem most likely to be inside are not. Surely Jesus’ own family should appreciate who he is and the wonderful things he is doing, but perhaps they are embarrassed by the company he keeps. Perhaps some of their neighbors are laughing at them. Whatever it is, they decide not to come in, and they would like to drag Jesus out if they could.

The family is not unlike the scribes, who of all people should understand the ways of God. They should be the ones most likely to embrace Jesus and rejoice at what God is doing. But perhaps they are also put off by the company Jesus keeps. Perhaps they are upset that he is not following standard religious protocol. Perhaps they are bothered by this strange thing that is happening outside the established church of the day. Whatever the reason, they have no use for Jesus and tell everyone that he is possessed.

But that was a long time ago. In our day, the Church, at least the church most of us a familiar with, is respectable, even stodgy. I have a hard time imagining anyone accusing us of being crazy, much less possessed. I wonder if that’s because so many people eventually decided that Jesus is a good guy, or if it’s because we look so little like Jesus.

I suppose that the Church in our day, at least the Presbyterian Church of my experience, is a mixture of family and religious experts. We have pastors and Bible scholars and theologians who’ve spent years studying how the whole Jesus thing works. But mostly we have members, the church family, brothers, sisters, siblings in Christ. Most of us are religious insiders, but in our scripture reading this morning, the tables get turned, and the insiders wind up on the outside.

As a part of that table turning, Jesus redefines family. Jesus doesn’t completely dismiss his mother and siblings who are outside, but he radically reorders things. Those related to him by birth recede in importance. It is that motley group gathered around him in the house that now occupies that space. “Here are my mother and my brothers!” says Jesus.

Jesus goes on to say, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Is Jesus saying that this motley group gathered in the house is doing God’s will? That seems a little surprising. After all, those in the house are mostly desperate crowds who just want to get close to Jesus. Are they doing God’s will? Then there are the disciples, who in Mark’s gospel do not come off very well. They always misunderstand and they always mess up. These are the ones who do God’s will?

Jesus seems to define “doing God’s will” fairly loosely. It isn’t about getting everything right. It isn’t about how righteous you are. Instead it is about recognizing the healing power of God found in Jesus. It is about being drawn to Jesus, seeing him as your hope. And it is about trying to follow him, even when you don’t fully understand what that means or looks like, even when you mess it up over and over.

Sometimes the Church gets in the way of this. We try to domesticate Jesus, dress him up nice and make him reasonable and respectable, nothing like the Jesus who scared family and religious experts alike. But when we see the biblical Jesus and say, “This is the one I must go to. This is the one who can help me, show me how to be fully alive, save me,” then we are welcomed inside, joining the rest of that motley group that has gathered around Jesus, trusting that he has just what we need to become the people we were created to be.