The scribes thought Jesus might be using the power of a demon, but spiritual evil can’t produce life and wholeness and community–that’s what the Holy Spirit does.
Vicar Lauren Mildahl
The Third Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 10 B
Texts: Genesis 3:8-15; Mark 3:20-35; also Luke 6:27-28 and Romans 12:21
God’s beloved, grace to you and peace in the name of the Father, and of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It’s only chapter 3, but Jesus has been very busy!
So far in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been baptized and has seen the heavens torn apart and Spirit descending on him like a dove, he has withstood the temptation of the devil in the wilderness, and has come out proclaiming that “the reign of God has come near.” He has called the fishermen Simon Peter and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee, to leave their boats and follow him. He has cast out demons, healed the fever of Peter’s mother-in-law, and healed a man with skin disease. He has forgiven the sins of a paralytic man who was lowered through the roof by his friends, and also healed his paralysis. He has called Levi the son of Alphaeus, and has eaten with tax collectors and sinners. He hasn’t fasted when he was supposed to, and he has plucked grain and healed a withered hand on the Sabbath when he wasn’t supposed to. And he has gathered crowds so enormous that he had to preach to them from a boat off shore and he has found time in there somewhere to appoint the twelve apostles.
No wonder Jesus went home for a rest!
But he doesn’t get one. For one, the house is too crowded with followers for him even to sit down to get a bite to eat. And for another, some scribes, some religious authorities, have come down from Jerusalem and started throwing out accusations that Jesus is possessed by, or even in league with, spiritual evil.
“He has Beelzebul,” they say, “and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”
Which can seem, to us, like a ridiculous thing for them to say.
Demons don’t tend to be part of our daily vocabulary. When was the last time you talked about Beelzebul the Lord of Flies? And even the more familiar figure Satan is more likely to inspire ridicule than terror. Our cultural image of the Devil is one of red tights and a silly goatee and horns and a pitchfork and that makes it all the easier to mock anyone who starts talking about the Devil or demon possession.
Oh those silly scribes. Imagine believing in Beelzebul. Imagine worrying about the Devil.
And I don’t want to get too bogged down in spiritual metaphysics. The fact of the matter is that the people of Jesus’ day thought about the underlying forces of the universe very differently from us. Our instinct, so often, is to lean away from the spiritual and toward the scientific. But what we assign to the random chance of a chaotic universe, the people of Jesus’ day usually assigned to spirits, busy at work in the world for good or for evil. But this pre-scientific worldview – that’s not what makes this accusation ridiculous.
Because though we may think of them in different ways and call them by different names, we do know the forces of evil. And they aren’t silly.
We know the hurts that turn into hate – the houses divided against themselves.
We know the fears that fuel isolation and violence.
We know the voids so vast and empty that they begin to consume everything.
We know the greed that destroys and sucks dry in the name of amassing more, and more, and more.
We know the spiritual evil that surrounds us. That possesses us. That binds us. That plunders us.
To use the metaphor that Jesus uses, we know the strong man that lives in our house.
And, like these scribes, we know what it’s like to think that the strong man’s game is the only game in town.
When these critics of Jesus thought of power, they thought of the strong man’s power, the power they had experienced at the hands of their oppressors. That was the kind of power they knew – the power to make others afraid and poor and hopeless. That was the kind of power that changed things.
And here was Jesus – changing all kinds of things.
So, it must be “by the ruler of demons that he was casting out demons,” they thought. Jesus must be fighting fire with fire, wielding the weapons of the strong man. That must be where this power was coming from.
And, you know, it is tempting to use the strong man’s power.
It’s tempting to want it and to even think that maybe even some good could come from it.
It’s tempting to think that if that one guy you can’t stand was just out of the way, that then you might have peace.
It’s tempting to think that if there was just one more zero at the end of your bank account balance, that then you could afford to be generous.
It’s tempting to think that if that one person who wronged you were shamed and shunned and hurt, that then you might be healed.
It’s tempting to think that if you just eat that good-looking fruit that the snake is offering, that then you might be like God.
It’s tempting to think that you could fight fire with fire, that you could destroy the master’s house with the master’s tools.
Even Jesus was tempted.
But it’s a fantasy. In fact, it’s ridiculous. Actually ridiculous to think that you could use hate to heal. That fear or greed or violence could produce love or joy or peace.
That’s the real blasphemy.
The real unforgivable sin. Not unforgivable because it is so heinous or because God’s forgiveness has limits. But unforgivable because there is no forgiveness in the world of the strong man. There is no power to redeem or to reconcile. Just hurt upon hurt, hate upon hate, centuries of division and anger and revenge and plunder.
And that’s not the reign of God. That’s not what life in the Holy Spirit looks like. Life in the Holy Spirit looks like everything that Jesus has been so very busy doing over these three chapters. It looks like wholeness: healing fevers and skin diseases and paralysis and withered hands. It looks like redemption: forgiving sins and facing those life-sucking demons so that life can flourish every day of the week. It looks like community: reaching out to those on the margins, to the poor and the outcast and to traitors and the immoral, calling them and gathering everyone in a crowd so big and so brimming with new life and hope and joy in the reign of God, that the house is overflowing.
Wholeness, redemption, community: you can’t get those using the power of the strong man.
You can’t get life by wielding the weapons of Beelzebul or Satan or Demons or whatever you want to call the forces that hate and hurt and destroy. You can’t fight fire with fire. That’s the real blasphemy.
You fight fire with water. You fight hate with love. You fight fear with joy. You fight separation with connection. You fight death with life. And you end wars by waging peace.
This is what Jesus desperately wanted the scribes to understand – wanted all of us to understand – that when you are drenched in the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit courses through you – then you start doing what the world thinks is the most ridiculous thing of all: you “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you.” You won’t “be overcome by evil but [will] overcome evil with good.”
And you will start catching glimpses of the reign of God.
There is spiritual evil in our world. We know it. But we do not lose heart. Jesus has overcome the world, has tied up the strong man, and freed us life in the Spirit.
Freed us from blasphemy. Freed us to fight fire with water.
In the name of the Father, of the ☩ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
