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Pentecost 2B
June 6, 2021
Genesis 3:8-15; Mark 3:20-35
INTRODUCTION
Today begins the season of Pentecost, a season without any big festivals or events but that focuses instead on the sort of day-to-day teachings and ministry of Jesus. We’ll hear lots of stories this summer that can guide us in our lives as humans trying to be faithful. And today, today we’ll see some of the most very human-ish of humans! We begin with the story of the fall from Genesis, as Adam and Eve are confronted with their Big Mistake of believing the serpent in the Garden of Eden when he said they could know as much as God. We’ll see the consequences of pride, and how quick humans have always been to point fingers and avoid taking the blame. In 2nd Corinthians, Paul reflects on the condition of being stuck in this flesh that is wasting away, living in this broken world, even as we await the renewal of our inner nature by Christ.
If Genesis shows us our human tendency to cast blame elsewhere, and how this behavior damages even our most important relationships, our Gospel reading does the same. We will see how quick we are to dismiss that which would challenge our beliefs, that would dare reveal something different from what we believe to be true. We see this as Jesus’ adversaries are so put off by him and his teachings that they say he is possessed by the devil himself. As you listen, as painful as this might be, try to see yourself in these stories, and hear how God’s Word can help guide our lives of faith. Let’s listen.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
From the beginning of time, humans have pointed fingers, dismissed each other’s pain, and been divided. Since the very first humans, we have hidden ourselves from one another and from God, hoping that no one else will have to see our insecurities, that if we put up a strong front and deflect any blame, then we can continue to hold onto our beliefs, no matter how misguided they may be.
I have always loved and also hated this scene in Genesis, where the insecure Adam and Eve hide themselves from God, and as soon as they are called out on their shenanigans, they point fingers anywhere else to keep themselves safe. I love it because I can relate to it… and I hate it because I can relate to it! I, too, am prone to deflect blame and accusations, to keep myself safe. But don’t we all want to feel safe? Physically safe, of course, but I mean, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually safe. We don’t want our deeply held beliefs to be challenged, we don’t like to admit that someone else could be right, and we definitely don’t want to admit that we were wrong, or that we messed up, especially not in front of anyone else. We’ve padded our various unhealthy patterns with layers and layers of reasoning and stories we tell ourselves, justifying why we act the way we do, and we do not like for those layers to be pulled away. And so, we blame, blame, blame, even if it means throwing someone else under the bus, and we cast people’s attention anywhere else to discredit the thing that might accuse us.
We see the same thing happen in the Gospel story, when Jesus comes along doing things differently from how they expected, differently from how it’s always been done before. When their ways are challenged by Jesus, they do just as Adam and Eve did and more: they hide from the truth and instead offer false information. “He’s crazy,” they say. “He’s lost his mind. He’s clearly possessed by the devil.” Discredit, dismiss, do whatever they need to do in order to protect their understanding of the world, no matter how misguided it may be, from being challenged. Hm.
Jesus’ response to this is a very logical one: “a house divided cannot stand,” he says. Basically, how could he be using the spirit of Satan to cast out Satan? Why would Satan work against himself? It doesn’t make sense.
And yet, the irony in his response is that working against ourselves is exactly what we humans do all the time. We often choose what does not bring us life. We let the voice of the devil convince us we are unlovable, even though we know ours is a God of love. We drive wedges between ourselves and other children of God by casting blame on one another, labeling and dismissing each other, making assumptions about each other, and clinging to false truths that make us feel safe. When we feel the movement of the Holy Spirit blowing us in a way that scares us, or that requires us to let go of a belief that does not bring life but does provide us a false sense of safety, we shut it down, and convince ourselves that we know better than the Spirit.
Why do we keep doing this if it does not bring us life? What are we so afraid of?
A couple weeks ago, as I mentioned in my sermon last week, we began working on telling St. Paul’s story about who we are and who God is calling us to be. (If you want to know more, check out last week’s sermon!) One thing we noticed in our conversation so far was that we sometimes struggle to find and name how God is acting even in the mundane moments of our lives. The big moments are easier – births, deaths, near-death experiences, we can see God there. But what about our day-to-day struggles: times like these Adam and Eve moments, when we are quick to blame others, when the protection we have built up around ourselves to make us feel safe is being chipped away, and we are confronted with the possibility that what we previously held true might in fact be wrong, or at least not completely right. Could we find God acting even in those moments? How might that look?
Any time you want to start searching for God in your story, you can start with recalling the foundational story of our faith: our shared faith story is one of freedom from captivity. It is one that is rooted in death but does not stay there. The story of our faith is one in which earthly powers put to death a man who challenged what they held dear, thinking that this would put him out of sight and mind, that it would keep safe their beliefs and way of life. But it didn’t work. Instead, Jesus rose from the dead and showed the world once and for all that trying to stifle God’s Word of life would get us nowhere, that no human actions can stop God from being a God of freedom and of life, a God of new life that emerges out of death and captivity. We can’t stop it!
This story is the central one of our faith, and it plays out in different ways over and over again in our lives. So, if we look, how do we see it playing out when we find ourselves acting like Adam and Eve, or like the authorities in Mark?
Well, in my experience, recognizing I am wrong can feel very much like a death – it is death to something I hold dear, something even that I thought was protecting me but was in fact only holding me back, holding me captive. And this is a death I have experienced many times in my life! When those old patterns are threatened, my inclination is to cling to them for self-protection – that is, I blame, deflect, discredit, and dismiss, so that I can continue holding onto my previously held beliefs, the ones that make me feel safe. Anyone else do that?
So what if instead of staying in death and captivity, we looked to the possibility of new life, by taking a moment to ask ourselves, “Where is God in this? What is God trying to show me here? What in me might need to die so new life can come about? What belief or story of mine is being threatened, and why do I insist on holding to it even more tightly, even at the expense of my relationships? Where is life trying to spring forth here? And if I loosen my grip a little, could I step into that life?” Suddenly, what had felt like a death – releasing the defense mechanisms we have depended upon – has turned into an opportunity for resurrection. Suddenly, we have the chance to step instead into freedom and new life.
It is vulnerable to do this. We might even feel naked, like Adam and Eve, standing before God with only a fig leaf. But friends, we were never hiding our unhealthy patterns from God – just as God knew exactly where Adam and Eve were and what they had done, God knows exactly who and how we are. We’re not fooling God with our fig leaves. But God does give us the chance to notice and name it ourselves, to come to God with broken hearts exposed and to say, “I’m doing this thing that doesn’t feel like life. I don’t want to be afraid and ashamed anymore. Bring me into life, Lord!” And God does. It may not happen immediately, and it may take lots of hard work. But ultimately, ours is a God of life, who longs to be in relationship with us, who desires for us to be free. Are we willing to seek God here? Are we willing to take the risk?
Let us pray… God of life, we are quick to discredit and dismiss people and ideas that challenge our patterns and beliefs. Yet we also know you are at work in everything, taking what feels to us like a death, and turning it into life. Help us to seek you in all things, to search for the ways you are bringing about new life. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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