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It was November 1999.  Lynne and I and the kids were shopping at Walmart when we came across a roadshow display and a salesperson who knew a sucker when she saw one (that would be me).  She was barking a product called the Quick Cut 2000.  The name alone drew me in.  This food processing device could quickly and effortlessly chop up vegetables simply by loading up the bowl and turning the crank on top.  No power needed, and very few moving parts meant it would surely last forever!  Suddenly I had dreams of all the salsa we would be enjoying made from fresh veggies we would of course have recently purchased at a Farmers Market.  What a vision.  I was sold. Had it not been for what surely had to be the intervention of God, I would have purchased one for family members for Christmas.  Lynne just shook her head.  She knew how this was going to play out, but it didn’t cost much, so she didn’t put up much resistance.

     I think I used it once.  We stored it somewhere in our kitchen for several years, and I eventually sold it to some other sucker at our garage sale, but for much less than I paid, that’s for sure.  As I recall that guy’s wife was rolling her eyes just like Lynne did years before...

     Sometimes we make decisions based on what we think we want only to find out later that it was a mistake. 

     The story of the people of Israel records this perennial process over hundreds of years.  There would be moments of clarity when everyone agreed on what kind of people they were meant to be as those led by God only to be followed by stories of pain and destruction caused by their veering off course.  God was always quick to pick them up, dust them off, and help them get back on their way, but the mistakes always came with a price, which was often very high.

     Part of the vision of following God as their leader was that they would not be led by a king.  There would be judges anointed for the hardest cases, but for the most part the idea was that everyone would be guided by shalom to create shalom in community. People would look after each other and treat each other as brothers and sisters.  It was undoubtedly a messy process, but it offered the benefit of not being ruled by a king who might be susceptible to greed, power, lust, etc.  Over time, however, Israel found themselves walking down the aisle at Walmart only to discover a display for “Kings”.  Abandoning their better judgment, they just had to have one:

     All the elders of Israel got together and confronted Samuel at Ramah. They presented their case: “Look, you’re an old man, and your sons aren’t following in your footsteps. Here’s what we want you to do: Appoint a king to rule us, just like everybody else.”

     When Samuel heard their demand—“Give us a king to rule us!”—he was crushed. How awful! Samuel prayed to GOD.

     GOD answered Samuel, “Go ahead and do what they’re asking. They are not rejecting you. They’ve rejected me as their King. From the day I brought them out of Egypt until this very day they’ve been behaving like this, leaving me for other gods. And now they’re doing it to you. So let them have their own way. But warn them of what they’re in for. Tell them the way kings operate, just what they’re likely to get from a king.” – 1 Samuel 8:4-9 MSG

     A king they got.  Saul was tall, dark, and handsome, and that was about it.  He was a lousy king.  All but a handful of Israel’s kings were lousy, leading them to war, lining their pockets, not taking God seriously, with grave consequences every single time.  Yet God would always be gracious and help them get back on their feet and on their way toward shalom.

     There are other forms of leadership than royalty, of course.  In Jesus’ day, Israel was under the Roman Empire’s oppressive thumb.  To keep the peace, Rome allowed Jewish leaders to keep up their cultic religious practices, with the Chief Priest holding rank over the rest.  With power often comes corruption, and the Chief Priests were no exception.  The elite Jewish leadership became wealthy from the offerings from the mostly extremely poor Jewish people they “served.”  And, of course, they did everything they could to protect and maintain their power.  When word came to them that a man named Jesus was challenging their interpretation of scriptures as well as their demands and ethics, they sent some of their own to learn more and deal with him as necessary:

     Jesus came home and, as usual, a crowd gathered—so many making demands on him that there wasn’t even time to eat. His friends heard what was going on and went to rescue him, by force if necessary. They suspected he was believing his own press.

     The religion scholars from Jerusalem came down spreading rumors that he was working black magic, using devil tricks to impress them with spiritual power. Jesus confronted their slander with a story: “Does it make sense to send a devil to catch a devil, to use Satan to get rid of Satan? A constantly squabbling family disintegrates. If Satan were fighting Satan, there soon wouldn’t be any Satan left. Do you think it’s possible in broad daylight to enter the house of an awake, able-bodied man, and walk off with his possessions unless you tie him up first? Tie him up, though, and you can clean him out. – Mark 3:20-27 MSG

     In this scene we are seeing the consequences of choosing against shalom on the part of the Jewish leadership – the people were desperate. While the imagery of demons and such may seem antiquated, Matthew Myer Boulton (SALT Project) reminds us that it may not be as foreign as one might imagine:

     Any number of death-dealing forces today are often experienced as "possession" or being "caught up" in dynamics that far exceed our intentions or control. Think of how addiction overwhelms individuals and families; how racism shape-shifts over time between explicit and implicit forms; how anger consumes; how envy devours; how lies and conspiracies distort; or how sexism creates pervasive atmospheres of degradation. We may or may not call addiction or racism or lies or the objectification of women “demons,” but they are most certainly “demonic.” They move through the world as though by a kind of cunning. They seem to resist our best attempts to overcome them. And as we contend with them, the experience can be less like figuring out an equation and more like wrestling with a beast...

     Jesus has come into the world as a healing liberator in direct, authoritative opposition to the death-dealing forces of evil and ruin in the world.

     We are also seeing God’s response: Jesus was all about restoring shalom for one and all.  Eventually, the Jewish leadership got their way and killed Jesus.  Yet the vision remained and prospered as his disciples picked up the mantle and followed.  They were living into what it meant to be followers of Jesus. 

     The pattern of being lured into some decision only to regret it later is still with us in our time.  It will always be with us. In the Jewish stories of their beginning, they give their take on this so that everyone who would learn the story would become wise to it.  Adam and Eve in a lush garden. Forbidden fruit.  Temptation.  Blowing it.  Hiding. Blaming. Denying. And then owning up. Here we catch up after the infamous bites had been “enjoyed.” (Genesis 3:8-13 MSG):

     When they heard the sound of GOD strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from GOD.

     GOD called to the Man: “Where are you?”

     He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”

GOD said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?”

     The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.”

     GOD said to the Woman, “What is this that you’ve done?”

     “The serpent seduced me,” she said, “and I ate.”

     “The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed by the Nazis, once argued that the decisive, heart-breaking “fall” away from God isn’t the point in the story when humanity eats the forbidden fruit, but rather the moment when they hide from God afterwards, in effect turning away from their Creator and at the same time from their true identity (Boulton).”  Adam and Eve are human indeed, and eventually on the path to maturing.  Before owning up to their personal complicity in the offense, they each blame someone else.  Adam blames Eve’s excellent sales-pitching.  Eve blames the seductive snake.  That’s not maturity, that’s just classic evasion.  The mature part is when they admitted that they ate it.  They weren’t force-fed. They ate.  “I ate” is a great start on the path to shalom.  Follow up will include lots of introspective questions aimed at understanding the complexity of the dynamics that led the possibility of taking a bite in the first place.  What was happening in us that contributed toward our abandoning the path of shalom? That’s the question we must ask if we should ever hope to avoid finding ourselves in the same situation again.

     Sometimes the stakes aren’t very high.  My $20 “Quick Cut 2000” didn’t harm our financial future or hurt much more than my pride.  But some decisions away from shalom have devastating results to ourselves, our relationships, our families, our communities, our nation, and our entire world.  Taking our decisions seriously is very much connected to our faith.  As Boulton notes:

     “Follow me” means following Jesus into the fray, into the shadows, into the house of menace itself. He means follow him into the good-and-difficult work of building up from ruins, of helping to free the captives, of living with dignified responsibility — in short, the work of salvation (health!) in our hearts, in our homes, and in our neighborhoods. The good news of the Gospel is that this life-giving mission is already underway, and God calls us to take part, each in our own way, in the beautiful struggle of restoration.

     Today, what do you sense it means follow Jesus in terms or your personal life?  Your key relationships? Your family system? Your community? Your country? Your world?

Commentary from The SALT Project

Third Week after Pentecost (Year B): Mark 3:20-35 and Genesis 3:8-15

Big Picture:

1) This week the season of Ordinary Time (sometimes called the “Season after Pentecost”) begins in earnest, a period of nearly six months during which the Gospel of Mark (and occasionally John) will be our guide through the story of Jesus’ ministry. This is the first of seven weeks in a row working our way through seven chronologically selected passages in Mark.

2) Jesus’ ministry is just getting up and running — and tensions are already palpable. Crowds of people seeking healing and wisdom are pursuing and pressing in on him, so much so that “he could no longer go into a town openly” (Mark 1:45). The atmosphere is a hectic mix of devotion and desperation: people from Idumea (Mark 3:8), for example, would have had to have traveled from 150 miles away! Perhaps in part because of this frenzy, local authorities are already plotting to discredit or destroy Jesus (Mark 3:6), and even members of his own family now doubt his sanity, and have come to restrain him.

3) Mark’s world is full of shadows and menace, riddled with demons who distort creation and overwhelm hearts and minds. Human beings are cast as porous creatures open to spiritual influences: Jesus himself is driven deep into the desert by the Holy Spirit, and many people are possessed by unholy ones. On first glance, this way of understanding the world can seem archaic and strange. But after all, when we read the Bible, we engage ancient texts from halfway around the world; it's only natural that they’ll feel cross-cultural and unfamiliar at first. Think of this as a kind of travel (including time travel!). The opportunity is to stay open to how another way of thinking and living can shed new light on our own.

4) For example, any number of death-dealing forces today are often experienced as "possession" or being "caught up" in dynamics that far exceed our intentions or control. Think of how addiction overwhelms individuals and families; how racism shape-shifts over time between explicit and implicit forms; how anger consumes; how envy devours; how lies and conspiracies distort; or how sexism creates pervasive atmospheres of degradation. We may or may not call addiction or racism or lies or the objectification of women “demons,” but they are most certainly “demonic.” They move through the world as though by a kind of cunning. They seem to resist our best attempts to overcome them. And as we contend with them, the experience can be less like figuring out an equation and more like wrestling with a beast.

5) The story of humanity’s “fall” into sin (Genesis 2-4) is often framed as a story of disobedience, of Adam and Eve eating a forbidden fruit. And so it is — but it’s also a great deal more than that. The story begins with humanity’s creation and call, including a portrait of remarkable intimacy between God and humankind; then human anxiety arises, along with ambiguity, mistrust, and that infamous meal; and then comes this week’s passage, an account of the first couple’s subsequent encounter with God in the garden, full of evasion, blame, and denial. Only by attending to each of these stages in the story (culminating in the final stage, humanity’s turn to violence in Genesis 4) can we fully explore sin’s breadth and depth in human life. And that exploration lays the groundwork for exploring salvation’s corresponding breadth and depth, the good news declared in the Gospel.

Scripture:

1) Mark has mentioned crowds at Jesus’ house before (Mark 2:1-12), but this throng seems even more intense, so packed in shoulder-to-shoulder that “they could not even eat” (Mark 3:20). Jesus’ family has come to restrain him, apparently concerned about rumors that he has “gone out of his mind” — a phrase that likely refers to extreme fervor or spirit possession.

2) Scribes from Jerusalem (that is, experts in religious law) pick up on this same idea, raising the stakes into a devastating charge: not only is he possessed, they declare, he’s possessed by “the ruler of demons” — and that’s why the demons listen to him! Jesus responds with a pithy analogy: a house divided cannot stand. He’s no member of Satan’s house; instead, he’s an intruder breaking into it. His ability to cast out demons demonstrates that he has bound “the strong man” himself, and so that the spirit indwelling Jesus — “the Holy Spirit” — opposes Satan outright (Mark 3:27-30). Mark frames all of this as speaking in “parables” or figures, but the overall message is clear: Jesus has come into the world as a healing liberator in direct, authoritative opposition to the death-dealing forces of evil and ruin in the world.

3) What’s more, Jesus pushes back directly against his critics: to reject the Holy Spirit as an “unclean spirit” — indeed as Beelzebul, “the ruler of demons” — is consummate blasphemy, a point Jesus underlines by calling it “an eternal sin,” a stunning, enigmatic phrase. For Mark’s storytelling purposes, this exchange puts Jesus’ mission into sharp relief: accused of being in league with death-dealing forces, he’s actually at work defeating them, all for the sake of the world’s salvation (from the Latin salvus, “health”).

4) Those who seek to follow Jesus, then, can only do so by taking part in this life-giving mission as well. His “family” will be constituted not by those who seek to “restrain” his healing work, he insists, but rather by “whoever does the will of God” (Mark 3:21,35). Neither kinship nor doctrine will do: what matters most is participating in God's mission of healing, hope, and restoration.

5) In the Genesis story, the first human beings, at the serpent’s suggestion, have just disobeyed God — and now they make matters even worse. Hearing God approaching in the garden, they hide, resulting in God’s question, “Where are you?” As the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber and others have argued, the question isn’t for God’s benefit (since God knows very well where they are) but rather for humanity’s benefit: like its counterpart, “Where is your brother Abel?” (Gen 4:9), the question is a call for the first couple to reorient themselves, to regain their bearings — for they have lost their way.

6) But instead up stepping up into dignified responsibility, the first humans fall further into blame, evasion, and denial — three good synonyms for sin (“sin-onyms”?). Loss compounds loss. Adam blames both God and his wife (You gave me this woman, and she gave me the fruit!), and the woman blames the serpent (He tricked me!). By failing to take responsibility for their actions (another good definition of sin), they alienate themselves even farther from God, from one another, and from their own individual integrity. Now they will physically leave the garden — but their self-imposed exile has already begun, from God and from each other.

Takeaways:

1) Jesus’ ministry involves courage and confrontation — not for its own sake, but rather for the sake of the health and life of the world. And so this week is a perfect time to challenge ourselves, as individuals and as congregations: How can we more boldly and effectively stand against the world’s death-dealing forces, in ourselves and in our neighborhoods? Are we following Jesus, filled with the Spirit, into the fray? Where is “the strong man” still at work today, and how are we called to take part in God’s mission of hope, healing, and liberation? In short, how are we “doing the will of God,” not just thinking about it or talking about it, and thereby becoming Jesus’ “brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35)?

2) These are not idle questions. This passage in Mark is also a candid testimony to the difficulties of ministry and discipleship: the needs of the world may overwhelm; authorities may oppose the work of restoration; and even our families (sometimes especially our families) may “restrain” rather than encourage. These are extremely delicate topics, and should be explored with care; Mark doesn’t seek to justify recklessness! But on the other hand, naming the difficulties of discipleship can be cathartic, affirming, and ultimately heartening. The struggle is real, as are the stakes — and naming the struggle is an important first step toward supporting each other through it.

3) Taken together, this week’s passages provide an opportunity to reflect on the nature of sin and salvation. Sin can mean being “caught up” — personally or collectively — in dynamics of ruin (addiction, racism, anger, envy, lies, degradation, and so on). And it also can mean being caught up in patterns of denial and recrimination, blaming God or others rather than taking responsibility with dignity and grace. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis, once argued that the decisive, heart-breaking “fall” away from God isn’t the point in the story when humanity eats the forbidden fruit, but rather the moment when they hide from God afterwards, in effect turning away from their Creator and at the same time from their true identity. “Where are you, Humanity?” (The Hebrew word, ‘adam, means “humanity.”) From this angle, “sin” may be framed as less about “disobedience” and more about estrangement and alienation, a debilitating separation from God and from our true selves that requires healing and reconciliation.

4) The interdependent concepts of “sin” and “salvation” are foundational for Christian life, and there’s a wide range of scriptural and theological approaches for understanding them — much wider, it turns out, than many realize. Disobedience-Forgiveness is one way of framing the Sin-Salvation relationship, but there are others: Affliction-Healing, for example, as these early chapters of Mark would suggest; or Separation-Reconciliation, as Genesis 3 would have it. How we conceive this crucial pair of ideas will move our thoughts and practices in quite different directions — and most important of all, our participation in God’s mission will be enriched accordingly.

5) For Mark, when Jesus says, “Follow me,” he means follow him into the fray, into the shadows, into the house of menace itself. He means follow him into the good-and-difficult work of building up from ruins, of helping to free the captives, of living with dignified responsibility — in short, the work of salvation (health!) in our hearts, in our homes, and in our neighborhoods. The good news of the Gospel is that this life-giving mission is already underway, and God calls us to take part, each in our own way, in the beautiful struggle of restoration.