Sunday's Gospel

...and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind." And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons." And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. 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. "Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"-- 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. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you." And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." Mark 3:20-35

This year, the Season of Living into the Mission of the Church (Sundays after Pentecost) begins right away with Jesus in conflict. Conflict with friends (vs.21), conflict with authorities (vs.22), conflict with his family including his mother (vs 21,31-35), and, aiming at the scribes, Jesus' own provoking of conflict about the Holy Spirit (vs.29-30). No easing gently into the work of the kingdom. No nice long walk through fields in Galilee listening to lovely sayings and intriguing parables. Conflict.

Mark characterizes sin against the Holy Spirit as looking at the good - Jesus healing, for example -and seeing evil. To refuse to see the good implies some deep moral corruption, a purposeful willing to reject new life, to reject that “sigh too deep for words” coming to our aid (meditation one). That person wills himself against repentance- like Bunyan's man in the iron cage (meditation two). It is not that God is not “pitiful” that is, full of pity. Or that repentance at the last moment, accompanied by great rejoicing in heaven is not possible. But rather that a person disables himself by a willfully hardened heart.

In this post Pentecost-event church, you and I are called upon the carry the spirit into the darkest places (meditation three). May God give us the strength to endure.

-Suzanne

Miscellany

The enemy's behavior is like that of a military leader who wishes to conquer and plunder the object of his desires. Just as the commander of an army pitches his camp, studies the strength and defenses of a fortress, and then attacks it on its weakest side, in like manner the enemy of our human nature studies from all sides our theological, cardinal and moral virtues. Wherever he finds us weakest and most in need regarding our eternal salvation he attacks and tries to take us by storm.

-Ignatius Loyola 1491-1556
The Spiritual Exercises quoted from Gail Ramshaw's Treasures Old and New: Images in the Lectionary

from “The Answer”

"Forever round the Mercy-seat
The guiding lights of Love shall burn;
But what if, habit-bound, thy feet
Shall lack the will to turn?
"What if thine eye refuse to see,
Thine ear of Heaven's free welcome fail,
And thou a willing captive be,
Thyself thy own dark jail?
"Oh, doom beyond the saddest guess,
As the long years of God unroll,
To make thy dreary selfishness
The prison of a soul!

-John Greenleaf Whittier 1807-1892
The Answer vs 14-15-16

Meditation Three (Integration)
Without You He's Left Hanging

He needs you
That's all there is to it
Without you he's left hanging
Goes up in dachau's smoke
Is sugar and spice in the baker's hands
gets revalued in the next stock market crash
he's consumed and blown away
used up
without you

Help him
that's what faith is
he can't bring it about
his kingdom
couldn't then couldn't later can't now
not at any rate without you
and that is his irresistible appeal

-Dorothee Soelle
Meditationen und Gebrauchstexte
quoted from The Theology of Dorothee Soelle

The Last Word

Here is the Good News: Jesus is not out of his mind; Jesus is not filled with demonic spirits. Rather, Jesus has the mind of God; Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit - and invites all of us to be of the same mind and same Spirit in a new family as his sisters and brothers.

-David Ewart
www.holytextures.com

Do not care much who is with you and who is against you; but make it your greatest care that God is with you in everything you do. …
Above all things, keep peace within yourself, then you will be able to create peace among others. It is better to be peaceful than learned.

-Thomas a Kempis c. 1380-1471
The Imitation of Christ

The Sin against the Holy Spirit is injustice, overt, covert, or even ignorant, that is, not taking the care to know the consequences of your actions or attitudes. The Sin Against the Holy Spirit is rejecting the good in whatever form it comes. And that form might be change, which can be a challenge since it is natural to resist change. The Sin Against The Holy Spirit is denying reality, rejecting the effort to try to understand the dynamic of loving God and neighbor, the refusal to repent, rejecting the choice to respond. The poor Pharisees of Jesus' time are made a foil in the Gospel of Mark for those rejecting the Holy Spirit. But just look at that portrait by Duccio (above) of Caiaphas tearing his robe as he condemns Jesus. He is looking right at us.

In addition to the ones just mentioned I know that a sin against the Holy Spirit is willful despair. (I don't mean the medical condition of depression, which is quite another thing.) Willful despair can be communal, as in ignoring the climate crises because it is too late, or because you can't bear to think about the suffering at hand and the suffering to come.

There is also personal willful despair. Sometimes I get into moods of darkness thinking about how I've wasted, frittered away and sometimes ruined my life. I confront myself with my mistakes, recklessness, and recurring sins. I fall easily into despair. But I know that when I'm doing that I'm sinning against the Holy Spirit.

I've observed that no matter how often or how deeply I've messed up, the Holy Spirit has always made a nice shepherd's pie out of my left-overs. Every wrong turn yielded up a creative path toward something good in spite of myself. When I forget the work of the Holy Spirit in my life, or doubt that the Spirit can get me out of my latest scrape, I'm sinning willfully.

The Spirit says, There she goes again... Oooo. Ouch! Just watch that girl spin out of control! Okay. Let's see what kind of ART I can make with her mistake this time. Humm, we'll take a little of this part of her life... and that...throw in a tad of new stuff...voila !

Maybe it's why I love collage as an art form.

Here's the other part of the sin against the Holy Spirit: not taking delight in how the Spirit takes up the shards of a broken situation and re-assembles the pieces into something new and often better, remembering that the changes I make for the better will affect others, too.

And so, broken, but still hobbling in interesting ways,
or, maybe even better than ever, I am yours at the Edge,

-Suzanne