Mark 3:20 – 35
What is the sin against the Holy
Spirit that cannot be forgiven? In other words, is there a limit to
God's mercy? That's what Jesus seems to be saying, after all.
I think the readings for this weekend
help us to determine that. In Jesus' time, whether you were a
Sadducee or a Pharisee or a tax collector, you had grown up hearing
the stories of your people-- the story of the escape from Egypt; the
feats of Moses and Joshua and King David; the sayings of the
prophets. That was the equivalent of grade school; you learned what
made you part of the nation of Israel. Those stories sustained you
whether you were in exile, or whether you were living far from your
native land, or whether you were living in Palestine under Roman
rule. God was on your side, that's what the stories said. Someday
God would return to His people. And there were many ways you would
be able to tell – one of the first predictions was in the Book of
Genesis – you just heard that reading. God curses the serpent, and
promises that “her offspring...” will crush his head, and he will
strike at his heel. In other words, and this isn't the only place we
find the promise – the promised one will have power over demons.
And the whole of Palestine has witnessed Jesus driving out demons.
In In fact the demons themselves testified that Jesus was the
promised one – if you read the part of Mark just before this part,
you would see that. So what could be more clear?
But those who knew the law best, the
teachers, the Pharisees, could not accept this; they called Jesus
evil, they said, “He uses the power of the devil to cast out
devils”. Jesus of course showed them what a ridiculous idea this
was. But there was another group who did not believe. The Pharisees
who knew the law best, did not believe; but Jesus' relatives, who
knew Jesus best, did not believe either. They said, “He is mad!”
I am excepting Mary of course. I suspect she came along to make
sure that the mob made up of Jesus relatives did not cause him harm,
because forcibly bringing him home with the intention of locking him
up in what passed for the local psychiatric ward could very well end
up badly, given the crowds that were following him avidly.
And that is the sin against the Holy
Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit offers to guide each of us. But to
be guided requires humility; it requires at the very least, the
acknowledgment that you need to be guided. And that's a very hard
lesson for us to learn. After all, we spend much of our lives trying
to increase our ability to control everything. Two year olds act up
because they are trying to assert that they are persons distinct from
their mothers. Teenagers rebel against their parents because they
are forming their own value systems, which are almost always not
quite the value systems of their parents. People who are starting
out in their careers set goals for themselves and try to achieve
these; and they are almost always things that give them more control
over their lives. The Pharisees were not bad people; but if they
admitted that Jesus drove out demons by the power of God, their whole
world would be turned upside down. And if Jesus' relatives, probably
also not bad people, were to admit that Jesus who had abruptly left
his job in their home town and was wandering around Galilee causing
trouble was sane, they would also have to admit that God had been in
their midst all those years – and that would have turned their
world upside down.
That's what the Holy Spirit does –
He turns your world upside down. And if you have the humility to
recognize that you need this to happen in your life, he will. Having
your world turned upside down is basically what is meant by
repentance. Jesus is saying that if you don't see the need to change
yourself, if you don't see that you are a sinner and the only way you
can do something about it is to allow the Holy Spirit to change you,
then there is nothing anyone can do for you; that's the unforgivable
sin.
Pope Francis in his recent
exhortation, said that there are two heresies troubling modern
Christians. One is gnosticism; that's when I think I can control my
life and my eternal destiny by knowing the right stuff. It isn't
just knowing of course; it's being certain that I am right and then
living accordingly. The other heresy is pelagianism. Here I believe
that if my behavior is good enough, my life will go well and my
eternal destiny is assured. And the Pharisees and the relatives of
Jesus are guilty of both of these.
Jesus tells us how we can be sure we
are on the right track, how we can know that we are being lead by the
Holy Spirit. We are his brothers and sisters and even closer – his
mother – if we hear the word of God and keep it. God's word isn't
hard to find. It is expressed in scripture, in Sacrament, in our
brother and sister Christians (because he said where two or three are
gathered together in his name, He would be there). If we look to
God's word for direction in leading our lives, in dealing with other
people, in drawing closer to God, and then if we deliberately follow
those insights,those leadings, we will be putting ourselves under the
direction of the Holy Spirit. If we are not doing those things, can
there be any hope for us?
