Rise Up w/ Chris Tilling W2

Anthony: All right, let’s pivot to the next passage of the month.

It’s Mark 3:20-35. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 5 in Ordinary Time, which is June 9. Chris, we’d be delighted if you’d read it for us, please.

Chris: Great.

Mark 3:20-35. This is for an Ordinary Time, June 9.

Then he went home, and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹ When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” ²² And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” ²³ And he called them to him and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶ And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. ²⁷ But 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, ²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin”— ³⁰ for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.” Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. ³² A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.” ³³ And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Anthony: My wife and I occasionally watch British TV, and we always comment about how anything a Brit says, sounds fantastic. Well, done, sir. Well, done.

Chris: That’s the one card I’ve got going for me, I think, that one.

Anthony: Tell us about the God revealed in Jesus in this pericope.

Chris: Oh, wow. That is a big question. I suppose one of the things I’d want to talk about is how Jesus casts relationship with him, and therefore relationship with God, in familial terms, with familial metaphors.

It actually came as some shock to me to realize that the New Testament doesn’t tend to speak of Christ followers (it does, but not as often as you’d expect) as believers. Rather more often, with familial terms as brothers and sisters. And this is key in the teaching of Jesus. Richard Bauckham, who’s a New Testament scholar, he says of the Gospels, with every major area, there comes a new revelation of the name of God.

So, you had Adonai; you had the divine name, the Tetragrammaton; and with Jesus, you have “Father” as the divine name being revealed, which was a fascinating way of putting it. But one way or another, this is key to the understanding of Jesus with those who are around him. You are my brothers.

We’re called into a family; we’re called into a relationship with a Father who loves us even more than the best human fathers can love us. So that would be the first place I would go for understanding, but much more could be said, of course.

[00:18:04] Anthony: Wow. I’m just thinking about what you just said there. We so often want to make it our relationship with God. We talk in terms of judgment and not always as family. So that was brilliant. Whoever does the will of God is my, here we go, familial brother, sister and mother.

So sometimes we’re reductionist when we talk about the will of God. What’s the will of God for this or that? But just big picture: what is the will of the father in the context of this text?

Chris: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this question and realized it’s quite difficult to answer. Mark is famous for not giving us much content in terms of the actual teaching. There’s a lot of talk about what Jesus taught without going into the content of that teaching.

Matthew and Luke do that much more. Mark’s Gospel, which is often depicted as a lion with images, is fast-paced. It runs through texts with a lot of stories with lots of “immediately’s.” “This now happened.” “Immediately that” and “immediately this,” without stopping to pause and give us some more content.

So, there’s a sense in which — there isn’t too much to go on here, but what can we say? That the immediate pericope seems to link doing the will of God with works of power. And this isn’t something that is necessarily comfortable to hear but there Jesus is casting out demons. And it’s very much caught up in the debate about that.

And Jesus is not casting out demons by Beelzebub, but by the Spirit of God. And of course, linked to this as well, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. And therefore, the will of God must be something about honoring the Holy Spirit. But can I just say something about that, actually? Because this is a what has been known as a text of terror for some.

Anthony: Yes.

Chris: And for those, especially those who struggle with religious scrupulosity and obsessive compulsive disorders, this is a verse that many have given up faith because of this. Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin. Oh, have I committed that eternal sin?

And lots of introspection and pain and psychological trauma is based on this. Let me just say something about the word here. Aiónios is the Greek word behind eternal there. And I think it’s better to translate that not as eternal. Ethos would have been a better word to have in that particular passage. Maybe it’s until the age or for an age, is guilty of sin until or for the age, by the way.

So, I think that’s a better way of understanding that particular passage. And for those who worry that they’ve committed the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, you almost certainly haven’t, because then you wouldn’t be worried about it.

It’s about the continued resistance that we put up against the Holy Spirit, which ultimately, I think God overcomes as well because God will be all in all. But there’s much more to talk about there. I just wanted to flag that particular passage.

Anthony: I’m glad you did. I thought about asking a question about it, but it seems to me when people come to this pericope, they get hung up there and they don’t see anything else within the text.

But even though it’s not in our passage here, in our focus, I think of our Lord on the cross. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The Spirit was there. And certainly, we were all blaspheming in some form or fashion against God. And Jesus’ words were, “Father, forgive them,” revealing the heart of God, not shielding us from an angry God, but revealing God’s heart as it’s always been.

Thank God for it. I appreciate your words.