Year B
Mark 3:20-35
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
Commit Your Life to God
It’s one thing for a community of people to commit themselves to the leadership of the Lord God and to promise themselves that every aspect of their life will mirror the will of God and it’s another to actually do it. We see this dilemma play out in all the texts today with Samuel presenting us with the central question posed in today’s readings: What does it mean to live as the people of God under the rule of God, and what kind of life are we to live if we understand ourselves as God’s people? What we know of God is that God desires God’s people to live together in love, peace, justice, and abundance. God is concerned for the well-being of all.
However, we are also well aware, it does not always happen as we would hope or as God intends. After God had given the people of Israel the Torah or better translated as “way” of life rather than law, God declared, of which we read in the book of Deuteronomy: “I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you. Now choose life-so that you and your descendants will live.” Up to this point, the people of Israel had chosen God as their acting ruler and had done well under the judgeship of Samuel the prophet appointed by God to lead his people.
However, it seems Samuel made a serious mistake when he appointed his sons to take over as he grew older. Unfortunately, they took advantage of their new high office and soon, corruption became the way of life in their style of government. As a result, the people became disappointed and begin to look around at other nations and their political systems. Plus, it was not always easy to hear what God desired or decreed and it became clear to the people that they needed a visible leadership because of military threats from the neighboring nations.
The people decide to ask Samuel to anoint a monarch so they can be like other nations, with a human king to govern them rather than God. This exchange today between Samuel and the people of God sounds very much like a conversation between a parent and a child. The child wants something that the parent feels is unwise. The reason given for the child’s desire is an age-old one: “Everyone else has one.” Samuel does his best to warn the people of the serious problems with monarchies but the people persist and demand a human king. God’s response to Samuel is that the people “haven’t rejected him. No, they’ve rejected the Lord God as king over them.”
The Lord gives Samuel permission to grant Israel’s request and this will prove to be a disaster for God’s people. In the words of the proverb, they are leaning on their own understanding, but not so much in trusting the Lord. God gave the people of Israel a king because they didn’t want God to be their king so they could project their own idolatries on the human king. This story sets up a tension which is only resolved eventually in Jesus, and then only in his royal, messianic death. Jesus, the true king, took upon himself in his own body the pains, folly, and shame of a thousand years of misguided monarchy.
The same tension found in the Samuel text of trying to figure out what it means to be faithful to God by choosing God is found in the text today from Mark. This discernment is not easy and often we find we are not siding with God. Jesus and his disciples after healing a man who had a paralyzed hand were attempting to eat dinner. His family is on the way in order to bring him home because they are afraid he is mad. The religious leaders from Jerusalem accuse him of being demon possessed in league with Beelzebul, the ruler of demons therefore, he must be put away. He responds that he is the one who is casting out demons in God’s name. How can “Satan rise up against Satan”? This doesn’t make sense.
He then goes on to draw the conclusion that something about the religious leaders attitude is unforgivable. Anyone can be forgiven by God but they need to be careful in suggesting that the work of the Holy Spirit, in the presence of Jesus, is really from Satan. Then, a message is conveyed to Jesus that his family is outside. He responds with a chilling rejection: they are not my family. Then, looking around at the crowd of all kinds of people and his disciples he says, “This is my family.” In this bizarre encounter, Jesus redefines his family as “whoever does God’s will” and acts like him. He is not rejecting his own biological family rather he expands the circle of his family to include all who believe in and follow him; all who live for God’s purposes.
Paul today expresses Jesus’ teaching as he continues to defend his ministry and because of his love and concern for the Corinthian Christians encourages them to faithfulness. He reminds them of God’s grace and promises so they can live forever in community with God and others in the “house not made with hands.” It is interesting that Paul, a tentmaker by profession, speaks of our bodies as an “earthly tent.” It seems that while he was in Corinth, he set up shop with his friends and fellow tentmakers, Priscilla and Aquila, and practiced his trade in the marketplace.
Scholars have suggested that there would have been people who traveled to Corinth for the Isthmian games and this would have given Paul and his friends the opportunity to meet all kinds of people, and a great opportunity to talk about the good news of Jesus Christ. This opportunity to preach and teach the good news far outweighed for him any of the inconveniences and pains he had endured because of his faith in and commitment to Jesus. With this in mind, Paul suggests that we keep our priorities in order—remembering what is truly important.
We would agree with Paul that the most important “thing” is our relationship with the Lord and the “eternal in the heavens” that brings us. This is what it means to be God’s people; a challenge for the Israelites, the early church and now for us. The purpose of the church is not only to promote unity and inclusiveness within itself as the family of God but also to promote that out there. It is to go with Jesus to all “the least of these.” These, Jesus says, are the new family of God; those who believe the gospel; do not oppose God’s rule in their lives and live like him. And when we do Paul says “The richness of well-being that we experience in this life is only magnified in the “house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”