SCRIPTURE: Mark 3:20-35
TEXT: 27But 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. THEME: Jesus is setting up a new order of living in the Kingdom of God. INTRODUCTION The lectionary readings for the season of Pentecost or Ordinary time, features the Gospel of Mark with a few diversions to the Gospel of John. At Pentecost, God’s Spirit makes a theatrical entrance. But here’s the thing; God is not in three separate persons that come and go, but is one God, with all three parts, present at all of the time. We use the Trinity as a lens to help us expand our vision of God’s activity. Using the lens of the Spirit to look into the Gospel of Mark, the June’s Sermon Series is entitled ‘Spirit in Paradise”, the same as today’s sermon. As Jesus’ ministry begins, we are more aware of the presence of God; as life giving Parent, Incarnate Savior and Holy Spirit. Jesus and his disciples make their way from one synagogue to another in the Galilean countryside. God’s Spirit is active; healing and delivering towards wholeness, calling disciples, and teaching about God. SCRIPTURE Traveling brings the ministry to Jesus’ home town. Followed by a demanding crowd, Jesus and his crew haven’t even had a chance to eat. His family got wind that Jesus was home, along with stories of unclean spirits being cast out, fevers abating, lepers made clean and even a paralytic walking, all credited to Jesus. These stories of miracles are following with the narrative from the scribes from Jerusalem saying, “Jesus has gone out of his mind.” And have wrongly attributed, the work of the Spirit to Beelzebul. The family is distressed and want to bring him back home to settle him and see for themselves what has happened to Jesus. So, they show up as Jesus is arguing with the scribes saying, “Satan casting out Satan. A kingdom divided; a divided houses cannot stand. This would be the end.” It may sound like crazy talk but it is all part of Jesus’ strategy to tie up the strong man, then plunder his house. His strategy is to release those who are captive by unclean spirits, heal the immobile, restore the outcast and broadcast a new perspective about God and about who God’s people are, beckoning us to live in relationship with God. Our relationship with God can be more than just a subjection to legalistic commandments. Jesus is not telling us what not to do, but what we can do in living with God. If you think casting out unclean spirits is radical, being in relationship with God and not under the law is over the top. APPLICATION Jesus is bringing in a way of living with God. A new set of relationship systems, paradigms and frame works for understanding who we are with God. How do we live our newness with Christ in ways that express God’s reigning in our lives? Jesus’ strategy is three-fold. 1) Participate in God’s work of; caring, wholeness and forgiveness. Jesus healed, delivered from unclean spirits, and displayed the nearness of God. This is how the Parable of the Good Samaritan is building the Wailuku Mission Housing, by our caring for our neighbors and our partnerships with the County, the State, EAH and other Foundations, 2) Jesus calls others to come and participate in God’s work among us. We too are building a community that is Inclusive, differently abled, accepted, welcomed and belonging. Then thirdly, share what we know about God with others. We listen to what others have to say so that our thinking can be informed. Sometimes what we hear sounds like they are out of their minds or it may be just crazy enough to be the voice of God saying something we need to hear. When we see the Spirit moving, share what you think about God. I was taking to my evangelical friend, I told him that during the Pandemic I have been taking CELT classes from PSR. His knee jerk reaction was that I had compromised my faith and gone liberal. I said that I didn’t like how evangelicals had portrayed themselves during the former president’s administration. And I thought their agenda blinded them to the truth. I have discovered that all that stuff we learned about the Kingdom of God was actually talking about the community of believers and how we need to not only bring people into the fold, but also be the community of God’s people, treating each other in God’s way. Our Conversation drifted to the Matthew (25) passage of Sheep and Goats. The image that stuck in my mind was from Maru, who said, “Goats are really nasty”. She had seen some at a farm and she saw, “Head butting of even bigger goats with the littlest of goats and ‘all for what?’” Sometime we lack the spirit in us, and live “‘all for what?' kind of lives”. That’s when he suggested that I had become liberal, but I said, I don’t begin with a social justice issue and then look for biblical passages to justify our actions, rather what I have found with PSR, is that they begin with the biblical passages and the Bible brings out issues that our Christian faith needs to contend with. Addressing inequity with generosity and the perception of otherness with openness, respect for humanity for all are made in the image of God. I was beginning to think that he thought me ‘out of my mind” but he admitted that our conversation made him look at thing little bit deeper. I think that is how the Spirt sometimes uses us, to take a simple conversation and with the turn of a phrase, to go deeper theologically. CONCLUSION The Spirit in Paradise is about God who is in Jesus with the Holy Spirit, in our world. The Spirit’s work is seen in Jesus and what he is able to do in people’s lives. This is all part of a strategy for the nearness of the Kingdom of God, (aka God’s Community). Jesus’ ministry reaches out to the outcast, the marginalized, the poor, the rich, the entitled, the paralytic and the sick, or as I have heard others say it, “All, ya all’. We are all called to come, to participate and belong. And then share what we know about God with others, and listen to what others have to say about God and learn. Then we can paint a portrait of God with broad strokes, showing lots of room for interpretations where the details can be varied and many. The hold of a legalistic, self-righteous, judgmental faith will give way to the movement of the Spirit in Paradise as we see the signs of God’s nearness, feel God’s calling of us to participate and discern Who God is and who we are in fellowship with God.
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