This morning, we get two powerful stories from scripture. In our story from first Samuel, we hear the story of how the people of Israel come to demand a king to rule over them instead of God and God’s appointed judges and prophets. They figure if they have a king like the other nations, then they’ll never have to worry about their safety and security. A king will defend them in a way that looks familiar – like the other nations – than a way that feels like trusting a God you cannot see. Of course, Samuel warns them – you pick a king and the king will take your daughters and sons into his service, will steal your land and produce as his own, will take your property and use it to his own benefit, will basically enslave you (not unlike the days in Egypt). But the people insist none of that matters – as long as they have a king like everyone else.
Meanwhile, in Mark’s gospel, Jesus has been healing people, driving out demons, saying some things, and generally making a raucous. Here, two groups insert themselves – the scribes, who try to claim Jesus is possessed by a demon himself, and his family, who are concerned he has lost his mind and want to restrain him. Jesus is so frustrated by their behavior, especially of his mother and brothers that he loudly states, “Who are my mother and my brother?” In other words, he denies his very own family because they cannot see the truth in what he is doing. In these two stories – of the Israelites wanting a king and of Jesus’ family demanding he behave in a certain way, we have people thinking they know better than God – taking matters into their own hands thinking they know how things should be.
I was talking to another parent recently about how parenting is probably the hardest job of all the vocations I have – particularly as a person who likes to imagine she has a modicum of control in her life. In the beginning, although parenting is physically exhausting, parenting is also manageable in a way that is not so obvious. For those infants and young children, you have a lot of control – what the child will eat and drink, what the child will wear, when the child will rest, where the child can go. But as the child ages, they make more and more of the decisions – what they will wear, where they will go, with whom they will spend time. This is, of course, how parenting should be – the raising up of an independent child. But the more your child becomes independent the more you realize how the younger years were the “good ol’ days” – the days where you felt like you were in control (or at least convinced yourself you had more control than you probably did). Parenting feels like the ultimate test for those of us who like a sense of control.
But the truth is, the ultimate test for those of us who like a sense of control is being a person of faith – following a God whose logic sometimes feels illogical, following a savior who says and does things that really push our buttons, and following a Spirit who takes us places we really do not want to go. And so, we find ourselves, much like the Israelites, accepting slavery, abuse, and the loss of freedom just to get those things we think will make us happy and whole. We find ourselves, like Mary and Jesus’ brothers, bossing around God, insisting God behave in ways that make us feel comfortable. Instead, God tells them and us to trust – to trust that God will provide leaders who will guide us in the ways of justice and truth; to trust that even the things we cannot understand will lead to good; to trust that even though we cannot know what God knows, our wholehearted trust in the will of God is all that matters.
So how do we do that? How do we, people of free will, in a country of democracy where “we the people” make decisions, in a time when choices are boundless and we must make them, how do we become people of trust – people of faith? Well, I like to go back to that story of Jesus in a crowded room from Mark’s Gospel today. Scholar Debie Thomas says, “…I can’t help but imagine what it must have felt like to be inside the house with Jesus that day. I know intimately and well, as perhaps you do, the hunger to belong, to have someone safe and loving to belong to. Regardless of our circumstances, we all know what it’s like to yearn for someone who can hold all of who we are, and love us still, without flinching. That’s exactly what Jesus does for the crowds that day. He invites them in, he asks them to stay, and he makes them family.
Yes, Jesus divides the house, and that process hurts. But he doesn’t divide [the house] to make us homeless. He divides [the house] to rebuild it. To make [the house] more spacious, more welcoming, and more beautiful. The Spirit of God is neither insane nor evil; the Spirit completes the good work he begins. His will be a house of healing for the whole world.”[i]
Holy Scripture today is not inviting us to become some mindless, fluff who walk around without aim or purpose just “trusting that God will work everything out.” God did give us freewill, and God does want us to use that freewill for good. But what the Holy Spirit is trying to remind us of is that we do not have the whole story. We cannot see the way in which Jesus is rebuilding the house. We cannot fully know the feeling of being inside that home where true healing may be. We cannot understand the fullness of the implications of our desires – which seem reasonable and justified to us. But what we can see and know and understand is that Jesus is building a house of healing for the whole world. And if we can stop trying to parent God, we can start beginning to see that God is constantly doing a new thing and inviting us into the family. We just do not get to be the parent in that family. And that is a very good thing indeed. Amen.
[i] Debie Thomas, “A House Divided,” June 3, 2018, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/1805-a-house-divided on June 5, 2024.
Seeking and Serving 