2nd Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 3:8-15
Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 Mark 3:20-35
“If a kingdom is divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself that house will not be able to stand.” In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Division. Separation. Exclusion. Fear. Isolation. All of these realities have been around since Adam and Eve decided to respond to the great lie from the serpent and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that we find in the 3rd chapter of Genesis. God placed Adam and Eve into the goodness, wholeness, and serenity of the Garden of Eden to tend and nurture the land and to be in right relationship with God. Yet it didn’t take long for evil to slither it’s way into the garden and sow the seeds of doubt and the desire to “be like God” that resulted in Adam and Eve hiding from God, afraid of their creator, because they were naked. What began as the perfect union between God and his creation was fractured, and the subsequent consequences have been a part of the human condition ever since.
The disorder brought about by the insidious reality of division, separation, isolation, and fear runs deep and wide. All one has to do is watch the headlines on cable news, listen to talk radio for one segment, and read various printed materials from big-city newspapers to national magazines to get a full dose of the hate, hubris, self-absorbed pride, exclusion, and vitriol that resides in the attitudes and behaviors of so many, including those who call themselves Christians. Sometimes the media reflects what it sees happening around them, other times they represent it. Daily acts of gun violence, unprovoked physical assaults against some of the most vulnerable members of our communities, race-baiting, and the degrading of other human beings via platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, saturate
the culture of this country and of those around the world. The division in this country over politics, race, gender, and economics, has resulted in a deepening sense of tribalism and individualism. The evil embodied in the form of a snake in the garden is alive and continues ruthlessly looking for new victims and creating chaos at breakneck speed. We are a fractured part of God’s good creation and we need to have the fragmented pieces of our lives and those of our neighbors put back together.
From the opening of Mark’s gospel, the evangelist portrays Jesus’ ministry as that of proclaiming the coming kingdom of God against that of the kingdom of this world, the calling of his band of followers, and healing those with unclean spirits and unhealthy bodies. Whether sick with demons, leprosy, or paralized, it was these illnesses that divided these individuals from the wider community. Their outer appearance of demonic possession or physical disease resulted in an inner conflict in the form of isolation and depression. They lived fractured lives to which the world offered no relief. Their proverbial houses had been overtaken by the strong man, the sower of deception and despair.
My guess is that each one of us here today has dealt with a divided house, where unity with others and ourselves was broken, or at least fractured. I’ve known of folks with divided houses due to addiction, both of drugs and alcohol. I’ve been around folks who lived in divided houses centered around the ill will associated with a bi-racial relationship of one of their children. I’ve interacted with families dealing with the internal division of guilt and anger resulting from the unexpected suicide of a family member. During my time as a banker, I was involved with a divided house over the decision of a child to have gender reassignment surgery with funds from their inherited trust fund over which I had some discretion and influence. We’ve all known those whose marriages failed and resulted in the division of divorce. The ubiquitous division and hostility over political ideas, affiliations, and the role of government has created anger and mistrust to levels I have never previously experienced. The strong man has bound many with the ropes of discord, racism, impatience, arrogance, and self-importance.
I also suspect there have been times when we have been divided in our own souls, when our “outside” lives didn’t match with our “inner” lives. I know I have spent way too much of my time and energy over the years fighting the outward picture of how I wanted to be “seen” while fully recognizing the inward, disconnected reality that knew the truth of my circumstances. In my case, it was trying to appear “financially successful,” an outward persona that had been fueled with living beyond my means and the need to be accepted by my professional peer group which created an internal anxiety of being a fraud and failure. Or consider how many times you and I have fragmented our lives into various compartments: our work lives, our social lives, our professional lives, our family lives, and our faith lives? We have been created to live lives of abundance inspired by the Holy Spirit, the fruits of which offer joy, hope, peace, and wholeness. Lives grounded in division, intentional or not, are not the lives that Jesus has called us to. Lives bound up in anxiety, frustration, addiction, hypocrisy, and unrealistic expectations cannot be made whole by our own efforts. Jesus, the one John the Baptist described as “the one more powerful” awaits to set you and me free from all that entangles us. Yes, the strong man, the serpent is formidable, but Jesus is more powerful still.
Dear friends, before Jesus can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, we must first come to grips with our own brokenness. My need to be “seen” by others as financially successful literally wore me out. The only option for renewal was to humble myself and acknowledge before Jesus that I was broken. This step was incredibly painful but my distorted view of myself had to be given over to Jesus before he was free to go to work on me and reorient my understanding of what being successful meant and looked like. Today’s gospel reading reminds me, reminds us that we’re not alone in needing to acknowledge our own brokenness and offer it to Jesus. There is no shame in admitting our brokenness, for until we do, we will continue to be bound to it. As flawed human beings, we will continue to struggle with the vagaries of life that negatively impact us. Our thoughts and actions are not always driven by love and charity. We will make mistakes and occasionally find ourselves wrapped in the cords that bind us
to the worst parts of ourselves. But the good news is that the power and strength of Jesus is greater than anything, anyone, or any circumstance that confronts us. The liberation we seek awaits us but it can’t come to fruition until we allow Jesus, the master healer, to pick up the broken pieces of our lives and to reshape the picture of who we were to whom we are becoming. The strong man will always seek to entangle us yet the stronger one, God himself, will release us to become the people we were created to be. The full and ordered mosaic of our lives, seen through the eyes of Jesus, is one filled with joy, peace, hope, love, compassion, and wholeness. That, my friends, is good news indeed!