Year B

Mark 3:19b-35

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Plundering of Evil

In my opinion, there is nothing worse than having someone you think really knows you, possibly because they are family or friends, and you discover they really do not know you. This is what is happing to Jesus in the text today taken from Mark’s Gospel. Here, both Jesus’ own family and the religious scribes-the theologians of the day-conclude that he is in the grip of some evil power. There is no question that Jesus is a figure to be reckoned with and his actions lead some to believe that his good intentions originate from some hellish force. In the previous verses of this chapter, Jesus’ healing of the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath becomes the dividing moment in Mark’s gospel which leads to other healings and to Jesus casting out unclean spirits from others. All of this becomes the basis for Jesus’ opponents to level charges of insanity and demonic activity against him.

The setting today is a house in which Jesus is attempting to eat dinner after a long day. Not easy with a frenzied crowd of Jews and Gentiles outside desperate to get close to the man reported to possess power over sickness and demons. Jesus’ family is on their way to the house in order to bring him home because they are afraid he is mad and as we heard, the religious scribes are also after him, believing him to be under the power of the ruler of demons. Jesus responds to these accusations rejecting the charge of his opponents by offering a simple, commonsense reply to the religious authorities.  “How can Satan cast out Satan?” It stands to reason that someone who goes around Galilee casting out demons is not doing Satan any favors. But, the religious authorities are so eager to find ways to condemn him that they hurl an accusation that is not even logical.

Abraham Lincoln knew his Bible well and he applied Jesus’ words heard in this reading to the searing issue of slavery that was dividing the nation as he began his campaign to become a United States Senator from Illinois in opposition to Stephen A. Douglas. In his Springfield, June 16, 1858, address he stated among other things: “… A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

Just like in Abraham Lincoln’s day, it is one thing to be so eager to find fault and another to deny the possibility that God might be doing something new. To witness the broken made whole, the shackled set free, the lowly raised up, and the banished restored is anything but the work of Satan. To call that work the work of Satan Jesus says is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. The “unforgiveable sin” against the Holy Spirit here is focused on a denial that Jesus’ work of healing and releasing from captivity is of God. Touching the leper, releasing people from demons challenged all expectations about how God’s Messiah is supposed to behave, causing Jesus to be an embarrassment to those who loved him and a force to be reckoned with. We can struggle with our faith and sometimes even pretend we don’t know God but the one thing we cannot do is confuse him with Satan or put limits on the ‘Triune God’ revealed in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit which we humans at times are very good at doing.

Then, as though reason was not enough to convince them, he turns to this startling image of violence and thievery: “But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first trying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.” The message from Jesus is that he is the thief who binds the strong man, Satan, in order to plunder his house. This image of Jesus, as the strong man plundering Satan’s house, when placed in the context of the entire gospel of Mark is very revealing because later in the gospel, we see the satanic powers working through Judas, the religious establishment, the mob and the Romans who arrest and bind Jesus, and take his life. Mark uses this image in order to help us see the intensity of Christ’s struggle against the demonic powers.

When the events of Holy Week take place climaxing in the crucifixion, it is as though the strong man whom Jesus had earlier bound in the gospel had gotten loose and is now taking revenge on Jesus who plundered his realm. Yet, we know that God has the final say in the resurrection, and we are told in the scriptures, that in the end of time Satan will be bound forever. When we talk of Satan, we tend to think of someone with horns and a red tail which we know is not necessarily true, but it does name a demonic power that is actively working in our world against the compassionate and reconciling love of God; powers so intense that they continue to seek our allegiance. They are those forces that cause us to hurt ourselves, to hurt others and to hurt God.

For instance the power of race, which tells us to believe that one group is superior to another because of skin color or cultural heritage. There is the power of materialism that tells us that money gives us power and life. There is the belief that weapons and war will bring us peace and security, causing us to kill one another in the name of God. Jesus indicates in these verses in Mark, that the power of these forces must be recognized and confronted in our lives if we are to experience the fullness of the love of God.

The intensity of this struggle is so great for Jesus it is no wonder that his family misunderstands what he is doing. They come to “restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.” Jesus appears to them to be crazy. When someone confronts the powers and forces of this world, it can look like madness. Yet, the new kingdom is at hand and it is dangerous business. If someone attempts to change the world or bring about God’s rule and reign in human life then the Evil one will have to be confronted. In this great task of God, Jesus’ strategy is clear. To get to the new kingdom of God, Jesus must tie up “the strong man.” In spite of what his critics and family think Jesus’ message and actions are not demonic. Rather, they challenge the very nature and presence of evil in the world.

This text ends where it began, with Jesus’ family and his response to their call to him, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Insiders and outsiders are now defined, not by blood, but by commitment to doing God’s will in an evil world. This passage reminds us of the difficulty of following Jesus, but it also reminds us of the many possibilities that can happen when we put our trust in God and seek to do God’s will. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu would say “Goodness is stronger than hate.” Christ’s love is stronger than those powers that seek to derail us from doing God’s work. This is the good news for us today for if the way of Jesus can create even fleeting moments when the “strong man” of demonic exploitation, injustice and corruption is eventually “plundered” by “the old, old story of Jesus and his love,” then it was worth the struggle.