Proper 5 (3 Pentecost) 2024
Mark 3: 20-35
June 9, 2024
The Rev. Clark Edward Ohanga
Trinity Church
Princeton, NJ.
One of the most relatable experiences, I believe, is that of listening to an exceptional person and finding ourselves in this space where we must decide whether they are authentic or not, especially if that decision implies a heavy commitment on us, a commitment to entrust a valuable part of us to them or their ideology. This was an experience common to the Jews of Jesus’ time who were heavy with the expectations of a savior, and who often found themselves disappointed after committing to some ideology or personality in the hope of liberation, hence their unending debates about Jesus’ identity: is he the Messiah, or another imposter?
C. S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity, famously dealt with doubts about Jesus’ identity. Lewis thought that since Jesus claimed he was God, it wasn’t possible for him to be merely a good teacher as some people argued. A good teacher cannot claim to be God. As soon as Jesus claimed he was God, he disqualified himself from the category of being just an exceptional person. Only two people can claim to be God. God himself and a lunatic.
And so, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus, after gaining public attention with his miracles, breaking the Sabbath law in the process and claiming he is God, not unexpectedly arouses a huge debate on his identity. And with the question of his identity comes the question of whether he should be trusted or not.
Understandably, some rumors begun to circulate at this time that he was mad. Well, to be fair, he looked somewhat like it. I mean, he and his disciples were doing unconventional things like abandoning family professions, breaking religious laws, forsaking their families and claiming that he was God. And they also seemed to be picky with food. That could not have been read well by diet experts.
But the problem, was not so much that Jesus was crazy, as it was that his community was blinded by unbelief. If there was any sense of alienation he felt, it was because he was surrounded by a collective mentality of doubt. One of our playwrights back in Kenya, has famously said, that “when the madness of an entire nation disturbs a solitary mind, it is not enough to say that the person is mad”. Clearly, the problem in Mark was less in the perceived madness of Jesus, and more in the people’s unbelief.
And I think this is typical of what faith is often up against. As Christians, our very identity, our noble intentions, and our faithful actions are always being pushed back by an enemy that manifests in a collective mindset of unbelief, of mistrust, of suspicion.
In Mark chapter 3, this opposition is apparent in two compatible circumstances. First, is the false judgment of Jesus’ character arising out of misinformation about him. And second is a scornful cynical attitude that totally ruled out any possibility of God’s presence in his ministry.
This unfortunate misunderstanding was enough to make anyone crazy. It is certainly not an easy thing to be doubted; to be told you are not authentic, not real. How much more when your opponent writes you off as a Satanic deception, while your family excuses your effort as a misconception?
This discord between an individual’s disposition and the contradicting collective perspective of the broader society can be deeply isolating. And nowhere is that oppressive loneliness felt more acutely than in one’s desperate need to be understood.
At the age of 17, I gave up seeking to be understood. I became contented that my circumstances were so complex for people. As a trauma response I learned to love being misunderstood. I stayed alone and avoided company. But this comfort numbed me to the damage that it was doing to my confidence and self-worth. I closed my teenage chapter and walked into my young adulthood convinced that nothing good was ever meant to come out of me.
When I finally committed to a life of faith at the age of 22 – thank God it wasn’t too late – I desperately needed to find myself again. And I knew that process had to begin somewhere. The next 9 years were not easy, as I wandered from one thing to another trying to make something out of what I had believed was nothing.
It was not easy to undo the despondence, the feelings of inadequacy, the subdued melancholic spirit and the acute lack of ambition that I had deeply fallen into.
I didn’t find it easy ether to overcome the difficult memories of the ten-year-old me picking kernels of corn from dusty market streets for lunch and dinner in 1996, or the 13-year-old me cycling 40 miles with my late father to unsuccessfully beg a school for a chance to study because he could not afford to pay fees on time. Nor was it easy to forget being expelled from high school on false accusations or being arrested and locked up at the age of 16 for a crime I did not commit.
And perhaps the more difficult was overcoming the experiences of molestation as a 15-year-old at the hands of a trusted cleric. As if that wasn’t enough, a few years later I would still have to deal with rejection by my fiancee’s family because I did not satisfy the expectations of a suitor; expectations that included having at least bachelor’s degree, a stable job and being a bit vertically endowed than I am.
Learning to trust people, to trust church spaces, to trust community, and to believe in myself again, tasked me heavily. Today’s episodes in Mark help us see how difficult it can be for anyone, believer or non-believer to discern God in people’s intentions, if not to take them for what they say they are. That is why the ability to identify Jesus in people, communities, and circumstances, that very ability itself has to be a gracious gift of God. And only with this gift, can we be empowered to make the right calls in life.
Two of those calls are important to this lesson. First is to never recoil and concede our worth when confronted with unbelief. Jesus’ calm response to the scribes embodies this thriving character of faith in the face of opposition, that quality which rises and overcomes the collective mindset.
It is in this ability to persistently reach out, that faith lovingly and relentlessly forges stronger families, based on empathy and understanding. The family of God, as Jesus later says, is not created by blood relations, rather through love that reaches out faithfully beyond the constraints of restrictive communal mindsets. When faith informs the loving pursuit of understanding, vulnerability becomes a gift, and stronger cords of empathy and tolerance are forged.
The second call is to submit to the reality of the divine power at work among us. The unforgiveable sin Jesus cautions against is not like any other blasphemy. It is a blasphemy that reveals an unyielding spirit, a heart that is frozen in unbelief, dismissing God’s work as a lie, dismissing God’s people as phony, dismissing God’s methods as weak. The scribes would not budge in their error of misidentifying the power at work among them.
Jesus’ message was that contrary to what the scribes thought, his ministry was not a sign of the enemy’s strength, but a result of his defeat. The error we must avoid, is that of mistaking victory for defeat. Mistaking freedom for captivity. And taking God for a liar. This is the danger of the unforgiveable sin; it has the uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. You can imagine trying to help someone who believes you are attempting to harm them.
The enemy does not look like love! The radical love of Christ that breaks the law for the weak, is not a threat to peace, or morality, or religion. Empathy, tolerance, justice, and inclusion are signs of victory; not defeat. They are sounds of the crumbling reign of darkness, and not the voices of terror. This is what we should never doubt. We should not doubt God’s salvation and restoration. We should not doubt his power at work in us, or who we are, the beauty of our diversities, or why we are here. We should never be in doubt about the price that has been paid for our freedom, that we may be this one big happy mosaic family. Amen.
