Pentecost 3B | June 9, 2024 | Mark 3:20–35 | Judson F. Merrell |

²⁰ Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat.

²¹ And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, „He is out of his mind.“

²² And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, „He is possessed by Beelzebul,“ and „by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.“

²³ And he called them to him and said to them in parables, „How can Satan cast out Satan?

²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

²⁵ And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

²⁶ And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end.

²⁷ But 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.

²⁸ „Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter,

²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin“–

³⁰ for they were saying, „He has an unclean spirit.“

³¹ And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him.

³² And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, „Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.“

³³ And he answered them, „Who are my mother and my brothers?“

³⁴ And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, „Here are my mother and my brothers!

³⁵ For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.“

(Mark 3:20–35 ESV)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

There is a scene in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi that I love. While most people think that Star Wars is all about Luke Skywalker and the battle of good vs. evil, they are not exactly correct. Episodes 1-6 together are actually about Darth Vader and his own personal struggle. Episodes 7-9 carry on this struggle in the next generation of the films. In Return of the Jedi, once Luke learns how to control the force, he has a final confrontation with his father. As they fight with their light sabers, the conversation goes like this:

Luke: Your thoughts betray you, Father. I feel the good in you, the conflict.

Darth Vader: There is no conflict.

Now we all know that there is no such thing as life without conflict. We live in the tension of personal, social, and religious conflict on a daily basis. Conflict is all around us and to a certain degree is very healthy for us. Healthy conflict helps us to grow by challenging our understanding and reaction to the world around us. As we move through Mark during this season of Ordinary Time, we find ourselves with a lesson today in which Jesus experiences two kinds of conflict. The first of these conflicts is between Jesus and his family. This conflict serves as bookends around the second conflict, which is between Jesus and the religious leaders. While a quick glance at the text may tend to point to the negative side of conflict, a longer reading and reflection on this text lends itself to showing us how this conflict can be healthy.

In the first two verses of our text, we find Jesus surrounded by a crowd. The crowd has gotten to the point that Jesus and his family are not able to eat in their home. Our text here is a little hard to understand, because Mark presents it as the family of Jesus going outside to seize him and bring him in. The crowds and the religious leaders accuse Jesus of having a demon. In this day and age we would say Jesus was insane, beside himself, or not thinking with his right mind. The wording here is a little ambiguous in the original Greek, partly because the story stops and doesn’t pick back up until verse 31. And now, Jesus seems to be inside with his family showing up on the outside. This is where the conflict comes in… who are the members of Jesus’ family? If we are talking immediate family, then the answer is his mother and siblings. If we are talking about Children of God, then Jesus rightly answers ³⁵“For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” That is a healthy conflict in that it makes us reflect on who our brothers and sisters truly are. In the church we talk about the Fellowship of All Believers. But do our actions reflect our words and our belief? Reflecting on that is the healthy part of conflict in that it brings our attention and our focus to God and to our relationship with Him. It helps us to “practice what we preach.”

That same kind of reflection would have helped the scribes and other religious authorities when they were interacting with Jesus. They were quick to write Jesus off. He is possessed. He has a demon. He is out of his mind. But their thoughts don’t hold up with the work of the Spirit and Jesus answers them in a logical way about the power of Satan. He furthermore has to remind them that blaspheming against the Spirit is equivalent to an eternal sin that cannot be forgiven. Throughout the ages since Jesus said these things the church has struggled with what a sin such as this looks like. He doesn’t define what such a sin against the Holy Spirit is… and we therefore are simply left to the context. Those religious leaders have aligned the ministry of our Lord with Satan. They are attributing the healing and saving aspects of Jesus ministry through the work of the Spirit to the fallen angel of evil. Therefore as they reject Jesus, they reject the Spirit and God the Father and the work of the Trinity in the world. We would commit the same sin by rejecting the redemptive work of God that is still very present and active in their world.

Now…what in the world does that have to do with healthy conflict? The healthy side of this conflict is a matter of our faith. Do we understand exactly how God is at work in the world through the Spirit? No. But we have faith that the Spirit is very much at work and the healthy conflict is realizing we don’t have to understand it all. In a world where we want answers in black and white, where logic means 2+2=4, and where everyone has a differing opinion… we can find peace knowing that God is going to do what He wants to do regardless of what we say or do. That conflicts with the world around us all the time. And yet as Christians, as a part of the Fellowship of All Believers, as called and claimed children of God… we can live in that tension in a very healthy way. Our conflict becomes a conflict of peace that is not of this world. It is a conflict that goes beyond what the world tells us, and resides with our personal relationship with God. This conflict is healthy because that we cannot live without it. We are called to do the will of God and therefore are called to be a brother or sister to Jesus. This is a radical break from what the world knows and loves, but therein is where we find the God that is not of this world, the God who has claimed us and made us his own so that we will live forever with him in a kingdom that is completely conflict free. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Rev. Dr. Judson F Merrell, STS