Sunday, February 4th: "Changing Identity"
First United Presbyterian Church
“Changing Identity”
Rev. Amy Morgan
February 4, 2024
Mark 3:13-35
Now Jesus went up the mountain and called to those he wanted to him and they came to him. And he appointed twelve whom he also named apostles in order to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and to have authority to cast out demons. So Jesus appointed the twelve: Peter (he gave Simon the name Peter), James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (and he gave them the name Boangerges, that is, Sons of Thunder); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the zealot, and Judas Iscariot who also betrayed him.
Later, Jesus went into a house and the crowd of women, children, and men came together again, so that they could not even eat [a morsel] of bread. And when his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for they were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the biblical scholars who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and it is by the ruler of the demons that he casts out demons.” And calling them to him, he spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast our Satan? If a realm is divided against itself, the realm 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 itself and is divided, it will not be able to stand; rather, its end has come. On the contrary, no one can enter a strong person’s house and plunder their property without first tying up the strong person and then [the robber] will plunder the house.
“Truly I tell you all that all things will be forgiven the woman-born, their sins and as many blasphemies as they blaspheme. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness rather, is guilty of an eternal sin.” For they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
Then then the mother of Jesus and his siblings came and standing outside, they sent for him and called him. Now a crowd of women, children, and men was sitting around him and they said to him, “Look! Your mother and your sisters and brothers are outside, asking after you.” And Jesus replied, “Who are my mother and [my sisters] and my brothers?” And looking at those around him sitting in a circle, he said, “Here are my mother and my siblings! Whoever does the will of God is my [sibling, my] sister and brother and mother.”
When I was a young child, my grandfather gave me the nickname “Famous Amos,” maybe because it rhymed, maybe because he believed in my potential, maybe a bit of both. But when I got to 6th grade, my homeroom teacher read my name out loud, mispronounced it, and when I corrected him – “It’s Amy Whan” – he said, “Oh, like Amy-Whan-Kenobi,” and that stuck with me through high school. One of my dance teachers in college labeled me the “girl with the mousy brown hair,” and one of my best friends who found my religious commitment comical, called me Jesus Freak. In a loving way. Once I was ordained to ministry, Jesus Freak gave way to Reverend or, as my Dad likes to call me, the Vicar. But last week, he introduced me to some people as his little girl.
All of these different nicknames and labels have had an effect on my identity, for better or worse, and sometimes a bit of both. What we are called shapes how other people see us, and how we see ourselves. And so shifting names and labels also change our identity.
Jesus understood the power of names when he called twelve of his disciples to him on a mountaintop. The location is no accident. It was on a mountaintop that God gave the Law to Moses that would shape the identity of the people of Israel. And the number 12 is, of course, significant, representing the 12 tribes of Israel. Jesus is signaling that something new is happening for the Israelites, a shift in their identity is coming.
Then Jesus gives nicknames to several of his disciples – Peter, “the rock,” and James and John, “the sons of thunder.” Perhaps these nicknames were meant to shape their identity as they followed Jesus and built the early church. Jesus also gave the disciples new jobs that carried titles of sorts – preacher and exorcist. Simon already carried the nickname zealot. And Judas was identified as the betrayer.
So our story begins with Jesus reshaping the identity of Israel and of his twelve disciples.
Then we get into what scholars call a “Markan Sandwich.” Mark likes to begin a story, insert another story, and then finish the first story. This is done deliberately to show that these stories are connected to each other in some way. Here we have Jesus’s family showing up, then a bit about the biblical scholars, and then another episode about Jesus’s family.
And what connects these stories is questions about who Jesus is and what he’s doing.
Jesus’s family shows up and labels Jesus as an incompetent lunatic. He was acting in ways they didn’t understand. Whatever his mother and siblings knew about his divine origins and auspicious birth, his current behavior did not line up with their expectations for a savior, king, or even just a good, obedient son.
The Greek term used here literally means “to stand beside oneself,” with the connotation that Jesus is acting in a way that does not align with who is really is. This accusation dishonors Jesus and his mission in the world, labeling him as someone who is unable to control their own actions, who is perhaps even a danger to society. This was a powerful label in the first century, and it is still used as weapon today in ways that damage both those who are given this label and those who live with mental illness. It stigmatizes and stereotypes those who have a mental illness by associating them with anything that falls outside the status quo, and intimates that they are dangerous and incompetent. This is a label that damages both the reputation of Jesus and the identity of those who live with a mental illness.
And then we get to the meat of this Markan sandwich. Biblical scholars, religious authorities, are sent from Jerusalem to deal with this Jesus problem. The authorities from the seat of Jewish authority come to discredit Jesus’ authority. And they do so in the most effective way: call him names. When we label people, we dehumanize them, and then we can do whatever we want to them, treat them any way we want, because they aren’t really human.
In this case, the authorities go so far as to call Jesus the ruler of demons. They create this conspiracy theory, connecting all the dots to paint a picture of Jesus as an evil spirit. He has authority over demons, just like Beelzebul. He has no formal training from God to do this. He doesn’t act like a person who has such a right relationship with God that God would give him this power. Thus, the only reasonable conclusion is that he himself is the prince of Satan. It’s a great nickname to circulate among the crowd of adoring followers Jesus accumulates everywhere he goes.
Jesus easily points out the flaws in their logic, but it doesn’t really matter. They’ve made up their minds, and they’ve started the rumor. And so, Jesus says, God will forgive anyone anything. But if you decide that the Holy Spirit is, in fact, a Satanic spirit, God can’t help you with that. God chose not to make us automatons who think whatever God wants us to think. If we want to believe good is evil and evil is good, God’s not going to force us to change our mind. Even God’s forgiveness can’t do that.
Jesus also re-identifies himself as the one who is plundering Satan’s house, binding up the forces of evil in the world and destroying everything that belongs to that realm. He’s not in league with demons or possessed by one. He’s stronger than them, stronger than Satan, and that’s how he’s casting out demons.
To top off this Markan sandwich, Jesus’s family plays telephone through the crowd to try to get his attention. The people in the crowd identify Jesus with his biological family, but then Jesus shifts that identity, too. He identifies family not just as blood relatives or even “chosen family,” those people who get us and make us feel seen. Family also isn’t defined, as we saw at the beginning of this section, as our tribe, religion, nation, or ethnic background. The family of Jesus is defined by what people do. Do they love God and their neighbor? Then they’re a family.
Many interpreters see this episode as a rejection of Jesus’s family of origin. And that may be so, if we read the earlier comments of his family about him being out of his mind as ill-intentioned. But notice that the family came to bring him home and take care of him. It’s possible that they came to Jesus out of compassionate concern for his well-being. They may have massively misunderstood him, but that doesn’t mean they were trying to take him down, and it doesn’t mean Jesus was rejecting them. It may just mean he was expanding the definition of family rather than rejecting the definition of biological or traditional family. This is in line with Jesus’s augmentation and reinterpretation of Jewish law that we see throughout the gospels.
In these stories, we see a lot of shifting identities through changing names and labels. Jesus shifts the identity of Israel and the identities of his disciples. Jesus’s family and the biblical scholars shift Jesus’s identity by labeling him out of his mind and demonic. And Jesus shifts the identity of his family by defining it around doing the will of God.
We continue to experience the impact of shifting identities, the impact of names and labels. In baptism, we are given the name Beloved Child of God. In ordination, the work we are called to shifts our identity to elder, deacon, or minister of Word and Sacrament. In the season of Lent, we are reminded that the first human – Adam – came from the earth – “Adamah” in Hebrew – and that we, too, are from the earth and will return to it. And Paul names all the followers of Christ “saints,” reminding us that we are also sacred beings living a life that is eternal, now and always.
I would invite us this week to spend some time reflecting on other names we might be given by Jesus. Perhaps there is work we are being called to do that might change what we are called, change our identity. Perhaps there is a nickname that describes the character of our faith.
We also might take away from this text the extreme consequences of labeling other people. This is a tool that is being used to great effect today to dehumanize and divide our society. In this coming political season, I invite us to listen for those labels and check ourselves when we’re tempted to use them. Labeling one another as extremist, anti-democratic, communist, or woke allows us to treat each other as less than human. And it discredits those names that have been given to each human by God, each human made in the divine image.
Jesus warned that dehumanizing and labeling people as evil carries a great risk. We may be deciding that something is the work of Satan that is actually the work of the Holy Spirit. And those are decisions that Jesus claimed are impossible to forgive we because we don’t think we need forgiveness if we’re sure we’re right. If we’ve connected all the dots and painted a picture of people that demonizes them, no amount of forgiveness can change our mind.
Finally, this text invites us to recognize the true family of Jesus. As we gather at the table today, we do so as siblings, sisters and brothers who strive, however falteringly, to do the will of God. We carry with us all those identities we’ve picked up through our lifetime – nicknames and labels, some positive, some negative, some a bit of both. But when we take the bread and cup together, there is only one name that matters. We are the family of Jesus. We belong to him, and we belong to each other. May this name shape our identity every day, inviting us to live into who God knows us to be. May this identity feel more and more authentic, until it replaces the labels and false identities that have been given to us by others. Beloved children of God, siblings in Christ, we are a family. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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