At the Time of the Evening Breeze...

Brad Sullivan

Proper 5, Year B

June 10, 2018

Emmanuel, Houston

Genesis 3:8-15

Psalm 130

2 Corinthians 4:13 - 5:1

Mark 3:20-35

At the Time of the Evening Breeze…

At the time of the evening breeze, God was walking through the Garden, and the man and the woman were afraid of God’s judgment, so they immediately started demonizing the other.  Rather than just take responsibility for their own actions, they each blame someone else.  Eve blames the serpent.  Adam basically blames God.  “You gave me the woman, and she gave me the fruit, so really, it’s kinda your fault.”  We’re still pretty good at blaming the other at the time of the evening breeze when God walks through our lives.  What if we’re not good enough?  What if God is upset about something I’m doing or something they’re doin…“Demon!”  “Burn the witch!”  We shout.  “Ooh, something new or different which seems to threaten my understanding of the world.  Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”

That’s our standard knee jerk reaction to what we don’t understand or what seems to threaten us.  Demonize the other.   In Jesus’ case, he was not working within the standard ways and means of the religious system of first century Judaism, and so the keepers of that system felt threatened by Jesus.  They felt threatened by Jesus for a variety of reasons, and they feared that at any moment, God might come walking at the time of the evening breeze, and so they had the knee jerk response of , “Kill it!  Burn it with fire.”

In the story we heard today, the scribes saw Jesus casting out a demon, and they called it the work of Satan.  In order to demonize Jesus, they said that Satan, the Adversary, was doing work of healing, unity, and wholeness.  Healing, unity, and wholeness is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.  So Jesus responded.  “As really religious people you feel threatened by something quasi new happening within your religion, and so you’re saying that healing, unity, and wholeness is being done by Satan, the Adversary?  Really guys?”

Adversarial Rule, the rule of Satan, causes division, keeps us down, keeps us fighting with each other seeking victory over peace, seeking to be right rather than to be in good relationships with each other.  Adversarial Rule has us demonize the other, has us attack anything we disagree with, has us take our hurt and our fear and lash out at our perceived enemy to try to gain back some perceived mastery over the world.  We act in this way when our world seems threatened, when groups of people whom we think are wrong are called blessed; when we think we know a better, faster solution to a problem than those working to fix the problem; when our fear and pain has us lash out at a perceived enemy, trying to control our world, rather than to give over to God our profound lack of control.

Division, anger, hurt?  These are the marks of the rule of Satan, the Adversary.  Healing, unity, and wholeness?  Not so much, and yet, as in our Gospel story today, we often see people in our world ascribing healing, unity, and wholeness to the work of the Adversary.  We see peace, healing, and wholeness happening to those deemed unworthy or sinful, and so that peace, healing, and wholeness is often ascribed to the Adversary, while at the same time, division, anger, and hatred are ascribed to the work of the Holy Spirit, ascribed to the goodness of doing what is right.

I’m not sure if this is the unforgiveable or eternal sin of which Jesus spoke, but it is certainly not what Jesus has in mind for us. 

This part of the Gospel where Jesus says there is an eternal, unforgiveable sin, blaspheming the Holy Spirit, has always been a tough passage for me.  I’m sure it’s y’all’s favorite, but we have probably all wondered, “How exactly does that eternal, unforgiveable sin work?”  I don’t know, and I’m not going to try to explain away the judgment piece, nor am I going to try to define it.  If I label the eternal sin as something we can no longer do (which I’ve seen in some commentaries), then I am just helping us ignore Jesus’ teaching for the sake of our comfort and convenience.  If, on the other hand, I declare and label something to be that eternal sin, then I’ve just scapegoated someone or something (probably something like the opposite of us), and have put myself in God’s seat of judgment.

So, instead, I’m going to say this.  Jesus certainly took extremely seriously our propensity for condemning something good simply because we feel threatened by it.  Seeing the work of the Holy Spirit and calling it the work of Satan is an extremely serious offense in Jesus’ book, and I think our history bears out the damage caused by such actions.

Look, there is work of healing and unity happening in the case of two people who love each other and want to be married.  One has really dark colored skin, and the other has really light colored skin.  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”  Look, there is healing and unity happening in the lives of two people who love each other and want to commit to sharing their lives together, but we think some parts of our religion say it’s wrong.  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”  Look, “how good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity,” but some of those people are the wrong religion or group, and we feel threatened by that.  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”  We fear, and so we blame and shame and demonize.

I can imagine a good amount of other blaming fear on the part of the scribes when they saw Jesus and the following he was gathering.  They knew the scriptures, they knew what happened to Israel when people started worshipping something other than God.  They were exiled or conquered.  So, the Scribes saw folks following Jesus, and he didn’t follow the religion the way they thought he should, so out of their fear for their nation and their people, they had the knee jerk “kill it, burn it with fire” response. 

As I said earlier, we still have this response today.  We really always have, and boy is it obvious and pronounced today.  One side feels the nation is threatened by the other side’s beliefs, and so we have that response:  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”  We see or hear something different happening within our religion, and we’re afraid of what is to come, and so we have that response:  “Kill it!  Burn it with fire!”

Into these situations, Jesus says, “Dude, you gotta chill.  Following every aspect of your religion perfectly?  Yeah, Dad’s not into that all that much.  Seeing work of healing and unity, bringing exiled or banished people back into the fold, and calling that the work of Satan?  Dad’s especially against that.  You may be trying to save your nation or your religion by condemning those you see as outliers and calling the work of Satan any who would declare them clean, but really, you’re just condemning yourself…that goes for Republican and Democrat, Progressive and Conservative, by the way.”

Amidst our fears of doing the wrong thing and angering God, Jesus reminds us that God is not really concerned with us doing our religion correctly.  If something is bringing healing, unity, and wholeness, it’s a good bet God is for it.  God is not interested in our demonizing of the other.  God is not interested in us trying to look good in his eyes by seeing healing, unity, and wholeness and being afraid of it.  God wants to walk with us at the time of the evening breeze and be glad that he is there, not to hide or to fall in to fear.  As God walks with us at the time of the evening breeze, God wants us to join in healing, unity, and wholeness, and to fall together into his love and mercy.