Reconciliation: Unbinding Hearts
NW MN Synod
Assembly—Saturday, June 9, 2018
Lutheran Church of
the Good Shepherd, Moorhead, MN
Mark 3:20-35
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
When
I was a lad growing up on a farm in southern Minnesota, there was one unforgivable
sin.
The
worst thing I could do on our farm, especially in the spring as we tilled the
soil to prepare for planting--the unforgivable sin was getting a tractor stuck
in the mud.
Why
was that so bad? Because if you get a
tractor “good and stuck” in the mud, you can’t get it unstuck. Someone—namely my dad--would have to stop
what he was doing and come with another tractor and the heaviest-duty log chain
he had, to get me unstuck…
…and
if my Dad happened to get too close to the same mud I was stuck in, he might
get stuck, too. And then we’d have to
call a neighboring farmer or the local tow-truck guy to come out to our farm
and get us BOTH unstuck.
When you’re really stuck, you’re stuck, and
you can’t get yourself unstuck.
Here
in this story from Mark 3, all sorts of folks seem stuck.
First
there’s a restless crowd that seems stuck in their sheer fascination with
Jesus—so bound up in their determination not to miss a second of “breaking
news” about Jesus—so bound up that they can’t even eat!
Then
there’s Jesus’ nervous family who seem stuck in their fear that he’s off his
rocker, and if they don’t spirit him away and get him some help, the shame of his
delirium might somehow cling to them, making them look just as crazy.
As
if the restless crowd and the nervous family members aren’t enough, there’s a
gaggle of religious experts, know-it-all
scribes from the head office in Jerusalem, who’re watching Jesus like
hawks, all the while voicing their foregone conclusion—that Jesus isn’t on God’s
side, but that he’s in league with the devil.
“He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”
(v.22)
So
stuck are these spiritual pooh-bahs that they can’t even absorb a simple,
logical question that Jesus asks: Why
would someone allied with the Prince of Demons get rid of demons instead
of “multiplying” demons wherever he could?
Everyone’s
stuck here: the fickle crowd, the anxious relatives, the suspicious scribes…they’re all really
stuck and can’t get themselves unstuck.
…which
is exactly what Jesus encountered throughout his earthly ministry…
….and
it’s what we, who are the Body of Christ, also experience in our own day.
Think
about it—all the ways we and those around us are stuck nowadays….
So
many Americans seem stuck in resentment, fear, incivility and prejudice against
neighbors who look, speak or act in ways different from us.
Our
society is stuck in an opioid epidemic that could kill half-a million Americans
over the next decade…[1]
Our
children are stuck wondering every day if their school will be the site of the
next mass shooting…
Our
culture seems gripped by gridlock…shackled by uncertainty over what we believe
or whom we trust…unable to tell whether facts are real or “alternative” or
simply fake.
Our
churches feel rudderless, stuck in decline, unable to pass on the faith, bereft
of the youthful energy we crave so much.
“Stuckness” describes to a tee the condition
that prevails in our world, even now in this present moment…
….which
is why we constantly find ourselves uttering some of the most honest words that
ever fall from our lips: “We are captive to sin and cannot free
ourselves.”
Think
of it: there’s hardly any other encounter
in which we speak with such brutal honesty about how it is with us, than when
we confess our utter “stuckness” in sin…when we throw ourselves on the mercy of
almighty God who alone can get us unstuck, with God’s liberating word of forgiveness,
God’s resurrecting power of reconciliation.
Smack
dab in the middle of this story in Mark 3, Jesus speaks this striking one-sentence
parable: “No one can enter a strong man’s
house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then
indeed the house can be plundered.”
(v.27)
Jesus
told that parable to the know-it-all scribes, in order to get them unstuck…to propose
another possibility: that Jesus came not
to side with Satan, but to subdue Satan….to plunder Satan’s
crumbling kingdom?
That, my dear friends, is exactly what Jesus
did and is still doing.
With
every exorcism he performed, Jesus was setting loose another one of the devil’s
subjects. With every sickness he cured,
every withered limb he healed, every blind eye he opened Jesus was unbinding
those in the clutches of the Evil One.
With
every good-news-promise he uttered, Jesus was staking out God’s claim to a
world Satan mistakenly thought belonged to him.
What
we witness here in Mark 3 is God reasserting God’s rightful claim to all that
God has made.
It’s
what Jesus was always about—in his amazing life, through his bitter death, in
the surprising power of his resurrection—in
all of that Jesus was unbinding sin-stuck hearts.
And
this same risen and living Lord Jesus Christ continues to do so even today,
through the ministries he has entrusted to us, Christ’s church.
By
rights, we who are the church really ought to think of ourselves as a
24-hours-a-day/365 days-a-year tow truck service. We—the church--exist to get folks unstuck
from sin, death and the power of the devil.
We
bypass this truth at our peril, according to Jesus when he speaks here about
blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which is (according to Jesus) an unforgivable
“eternal sin.”
The
trick here—when we hear such scary talk about an “unforgivable sin”—the trick
here is to realize that Jesus wants to wake us up and shake us loose.
For
there is sin that can’t be forgiven—not because God is stingy to forgive
it—but because we can become so stuck in this sin that we don’t even desire or
seek God’s forgiveness. It doesn’t get
any worse than that: getting stuck so
deep in sin that you no longer know or care how deeply you’re stuck in sin.
What
hope is there for poor souls who’re that far gone, that deep into sin?
There
is only one hope: the hope that Someone
will come along who isn’t stuck—
Someone who is utterly free enough, strong
enough, brave enough, and merciful enough to pull us out.
There
is such a Person. His name is
Jesus.
Jesus’
own family got part of this right—he is
“out of his mind” in the sense that Jesus is not operating completely under his
own control.
And
the suspicious scribes also got some of this right—Jesus is “possessed” all
right--possessed by the Holy Spirit so completely that he’s always “ready,
willing and able” to pull us out of whatever mess we get ourselves stuck in.
This
One, this Stronger One, our Lord Jesus, has gone down to death and the grave
for us…to drag us out of the muck and mire of our waywardness….and to set our
feet on a dry, level, wide and free place once again.
As
wonderful as it is to receive such mercy and grace, we
can’t help but want to pass this on to
those who are still stuck all around us.
God in Christ saves us in order to send
us to our neighbors. God invites us to use—not a tow truck or a
winch or a heavy-duty cable with a big steel hook on it--to get others unstuck.
No,
the tools for rescuing others that God entrusts to us are entirely different. God invites us and authorizes us to help
others get unstuck with
- A Word of liberation,
- Water for washing away the mud, and the
- Bread and Wine of the New Kingdom that God is establishing even now, in the midst of Satan’s crumbling stronghold.
As
God calls, authorizes and equips us to partner with God in helping others get
unstuck, we behold first-hand how wide and far-reaching the scope of Jesus’
astonishing mercy truly is.
At
the very tail end of our gospel lesson, there’s a sentence that’s often misunderstood.
It
can sound as though Jesus is setting
aside his own earthly family….when in reality, Jesus is radically expanding his family…opening the door so
widely that anyone and everyone can gain a foothold in God’s Kingdom:
“Here
are my mother and my brothers!,” declares Jesus. “Whoever
does the will of God”—whoever is no longer stuck!--“is my
brother and sister and mother.”
That
whoever here in Mark 3:35…that
whoever includes anyone and everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.
No
exceptions!
No
exclusions!
No
one ineligible for God’s reconciling power that never ceases to unbind human
hearts.
In
the name of Jesus. Amen.
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