Unity

Scripture Text: Mark 3: 20-35 (Proper 5B)

²⁰and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” ²²And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” ²³And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 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. ²⁸“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; ²⁹but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— ³⁰for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.” ³¹Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. ³²A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” ³³And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Oh, who are we kidding? Family reunions are hard. Jesus has returned home. And the family was not all that supportive of him. Doesn’t your family reunion include some people that you sometimes wish would just be quiet, maybe not speak their mind so freely, maybe learn to filter what they say? See, Jesus was not echoing the church leaders. What a troublemaker! All of the stuff he was saying did not makes sense. So, they accuse him of being possessed by a demon. (Yes, that’s always very impressive when your family does that!)

So, Jesus, in true Jesus fashion, began teaching in parables. “Really, people? I mean, if I were possessed, if I were Satan or a demon or something, then how in the world could I heal people? How in the world could I speak of this God of grace and forgiveness? If I WERE evil and I preached AGAINST evil, then it would all fall anyway. Because any house that is divided will fall. God is a God of forgiveness. But we have to listen. We have to listen to who the Spirit is calling us to be or we cannot be close to God.”

Jesus is not denying our place in the world; Jesus is calling us to realize that the world needs us to move beyond that place. We are called to embrace our larger family, to open our eyes to their needs, to open our minds to the part of God that they can show us, and to open our lives that they might be a part of us. That is what it means to have a servant’s heart, what it means to be part of the family of God—not only to give what we have to others, but to share our very lives with them.

So, why are we being warned that our house is going to fall down? Oh, it’s not talking about our individual house. It’s also not talking about our house of worship or our denomination. (Although my own United Methodist Church has spent a little bit of time falling down lately! We have not been the bastion of unity!) And it’s also not talking about our country (although we could stand to learn some lessons from it!) It’s talking about all of us. It’s talking about the world. It’s talking about a world that right now is divided. No, correct that…it’s downright splitting at the seams. We are all so distracted by our own individual needs. We spend so much time preserving our own opinions and even wrapping ourselves in our own flag (uh, yeah, you’re not supposed to wrap yourself in the flag!) that we have forgotten who we are. We have forgotten that we are here for each other. We have forgotten that we are called to be the hands and feet and mind of Christ in the world.

So, go with me here…imagine us all standing in a circle. But you know the way we are. We stand an appropriate distance apart, not wanting to violate acceptable personal space standards and certainly not wanting anyone to violate ours. And we miss noticing that our neighbor is hurting, that our neighbor is hungry, that our neighbor needs help to ward off an enemy that has attacked them and tried to take their country. (Sorry, trying not to get political here!) We want to help but we don’t want to get TOO involved. And we certainly don’t want it to affect us. But that’s not the way a house works. Houses can’t exist with holes in them. Houses can’t exist with its parts sprawled across “acceptable” space. So, step in. Make the circle smaller. Step in enough that you’re forced to touch each other. (Yes, it’s uncomfortable!) You know what would make it more bearable? Embrace each other. It creates more comfort, more space. And yet it still holds the house together. And we start to see each other differently.

You know, if we could, if the laws of physics permitted, we could step in again. We could truly become part of each other. That’s what God intended. God intended for us to become part of each other and, in that way, as the circle came closer and closer to the center, we would also come closer to God. We were not created to exist alone, painfully holding the pieces of the house together. The house is all of us. And if we hold on, we can repair it.

It doesn’t mean that we will not have disagreements. I don’t even know if it means that we all like each other. God made us very different from one another. Thanks be to God. Because those differences are what wakes us up to the movement of God’s Spirit in our midst. But we’re called to respect each other, allow each other the freedom to be who God calls each of us to be, and, more than anything, we’re called to love each other—in our own families, in our church, and as we move, filled with God’s breath and empowered by God’s Spirit, into the world where God already is.

There is a story of a father who was desperately trying to keep his children entertained. It was a wet Saturday, the children were bored, and they were beginning to get on his nerves. But then he came up with what he thought was a very inventive (and, hopefully, a time-consuming) activity for them. He took a magazine and found a map of the world printed on one page. He tore out the page and proceeded to cut it up with scissors into small pieces. Then he jumbled up all the pieces and placed them in a pile on the floor, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He then gave his two young sons the task of putting the map together again, thinking that it would surely keep them quiet for some time. Imagine his amazement when, less than five minutes later, they returned with the completed map. “How,” he asked, “did you manage to put it back together again so quickly?” “Oh, it was easy,” replied on of his sons. “You told us it was a map of the world, and when we looked at the pieces, at first we didn’t know where to begin to sort it all out. It seemed impossible. But then we realized that there was a picture of a person on the other side, so we just put the person back together again. When we turned it over, the world had come back together again as well.” (From One Hundred Wisdom Stories From Around the World, by Margaret Silf)

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for your leader…We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. (Hopi Elders)