A Church Full of Nuts: Mark 3:20-35 - Third Sunday after Pentecost

[Jesus went home;] ²⁰and the crowd came together again, so that [Jesus and the disciples] 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.”

You don’t have to be a Martin Luther expert to know that he loved music.  To him, music has an almost sacramental power to it, to bring you into the presence of God through its beauty; and write God’s word into your heart and mind.

But many of his fellow reformers sharply disagreed.  Throughout Western Europe, you had people who were smashing pipe organs, burning hymnals, eliminating most if not all music from the church—on account that music was idolatrous, vulgar, and “too Catholic…”

And some churches in this country—within the last 100 years—introduced hymnals and singing with extreme controversy.  Tempers flared—and entire denominations split up because singing in church was such a radical departure from the norm.

To us, it would be downright nuts to exclude music from church.  But it begs the question—is there something Jesus is calling you to do that you’d say is nuts?  Could Jesus be calling our congregation to do something that people would say is nuts?

I ask this because in today’s Gospel, Jesus has humiliated his family—and gotten himself into bad trouble with the powers-that-be.   But he hadn’t joined the circus or gotten a giant tattoo on his face.  He forgave sins.  He cast out demons.  He picked grains and healed on the Sabbath.  He and his disciples didn’t fast.  He called a tax collector to be his disciple and dined with sinners.  And—he’s attracted a large following.

Seeing all that he’s done, his family publicly declares that Jesus is “out of his mind.” The religious authorities accuse him of being possessed by Beelzebul, the lord of flies and spiders.  And all because he didn’t play by the old rules.  He was unconventional.  He was different. 

What makes this so problematic was that the rules and the norms weren’t created out of nothing.  Sabbath laws existed since the time of Moses.  Fasting was considered fundamental to living out one’s devotion to God.  Tax collectors were the henchman of the hated Roman occupiers and certainly weren’t known for being honest and ethical. 

So, we can’t blame the people who were scandalized by Jesus—because his words and deeds were not normal.  At the same time, Jesus didn’t come to reinforce the old ways.  In Mark 1, Jesus says very plainly what he’s all about: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.”  In this world of sin, God’s kingdom will be anything but normal.  God’s kingdom is all about change—and the undoing of the human power structures and social boundaries that obstruct God’s work—which is precisely why people are angry with Jesus and his own family is saying that he’s nuts. 

We sinners love to believe that God somehow needs us to defend what is holy from the unholy.  We think of holiness as conformity.  We believe we can keep our churches strong and faithful by identifying anyone and anything that strikes us as unholy and casting it out.  But all we’re doing is using God’s laws and the bible’s teachings as justification for wielding power and advancing our own interests.  And we don’t need God for anything except to approve of what a good job we’re doing.

But God’s kingdom doesn’t work this way.  Neither does Jesus.  God’s ways are, by human definition, nuts.  It’s nuts that Jesus would dine with the riffraff while ignoring those who diligently prayed, fasted, and kept the Sabbath their whole lives.  It’s nuts that Jesus would take the first initiative to love sinners and give his life away to them.  It’s nuts that God would conquer sin and death by handing Jesus over to be crucified and rise from the dead three days later. 

And it’s equally nuts that anyone would follow Jesus, and in so doing flaunt societal norms, discard your respectability, and disgrace your families by becoming “riffraff.”  But that’s what people did.

To be a disciple, you have to be “nuts.”  You’re doing things that other people won’t do—because your desires and your loyalties are not of this world.  You’ve loving people who won’t deserve it.  You’re serving people who can’t repay you.  You’re forgiving sins.  You’re making friends in low places.  You’re worshipping a God you can’t see; you’re trusting a God whose ways you don’t understand; you’re embracing hope as the world seems to spin completely out of control. 

God wants to make you even more nuts.  That may mean tithing or increasing your giving.  It may mean sacrificing something valuable in your life because Jesus is calling you into new vocations.  It may mean risking rejection and even disgrace to share your testimony about Jesus. 

We’re going to have to do some nutty things for our church to reach new generations!  Jesus may be calling us to new ministries and new ways of doing things that could make you uneasy or maybe even angry!  It’ll feel nuts to let youth and newcomers be leaders and make important decisions!  It’ll feel nuts to innovate with new ways of worshipping and reaching out. 

But grace is, by definition, nuts.  God’s ways are not human ways.  But if God can take the nuttiness of the cross and through it save the world, it’s a good thing to be “nuts” because it means we are open, ready, and willing for God’s grace to rock the world; to transform lives; and for God’s kingdom to dawn right before our very eyes.  Pray that God will make us a church full of nuts!