Riddles (Proper 5B Gospel)

Riddles
7 June 2015 Second Sunday after Pentecost – Proper 5B

Homily Preached at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. Spoken Mass; 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass

Genesis 3:8-15; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-25

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen. 

We just got back from Portland, where Elena had deep brain stimulation surgery to help manage her Parkinson’s Disease.  We go back later this week for a final procedure to install generators for the implants, kind of like a pacemaker for the brain.   The surgery went well. We were a bit overwhelmed and are very thankful for all your prayers, good thoughts, and wishes.  And we are thankful to God that all has gone well so far in this very invasive procedure.  We are cautiously hopeful. 

A couple of days before we went for the surgery, we were having dinner on our deck.  I was wondering about God’s care for us.  And I realized I was wondering in both senses of the word—I was in awe and wonder at the gracious blessings we receive each day.  But I also was doubting, wondering in the negative sense, about the idea of God hearing and answering prayers.  What does this idea say and not say about God: is he out there somehow, only intervening when he can be convinced to do so?  Or is God beneath and behind everything, always tending things toward good?   Does he pick and choose when to bless and when to curse by refusing blessing?  Or is it more like the intention to bless is always there, but not always able to manifest itself right now, given that the space and time of the created universe must by definition stand apart from the goodness and love creating it and lying behind it?

I mentioned my wondering—being in awe and doubting—to some friends.  Some told me, trust don’t doubt.  But what was strange is this:  the awe and fear were all wrapped up into a single emotion and a single word—wonder.   It made me thankful that one of the things I learned in training to be a Godly Play storyteller was to welcome wonder and questioning.  “I wonder what Jesus must have meant.” “I wonder what you would do in that situation…” I wonder…   I wonder…

Jesus too focused on wonder in both senses.  The Beatitudes are basically seeing God where we have come to learn to least expect seeing him.  And the parables—well, the parables most have an edge or even a punch line that would not work if not for that double meaning of the idea “wonder.” 

Today’s Gospel says that Jesus, hearing accusations that he worked healings by being in league with the Devil, replied with parables.  In this context, a better translation might be “riddles”: the riddle of the divided house and the riddle of how to rob a strong man. 

It might seem at first glance that the argument here is as simple as this:  “You say I am in league with the devil and am casting out demons by demonic power.  But since a house divided against itself cannot stand, that must mean that devils are not divided against each other, and that I am working only for God.”  But the riddle here is deeper, and is suggested by Jesus’ use of the word Satan instead of the name Beelzebul that Jesus’ accusers threw at him.   Beelzebul was a common name for demonic power in Jesus’ day, originally being the name of a Canaanite deity Baal-zebul, or Lord of the House, who ran competition with Israel’s God, Yahweh, whose house was in Jerusalem.  Baalzebul was so offensive to most Jewish scriptural writers that they regularly distorted the name to Baal-zebub, or Lord of the flies, to suggest that this Canaanite god was just a pile of, well, whatever it is that best attracts flies.   

But Jesus here replies using the name Satan instead of Beelzebul.   Shaytan means “the accuser,” or “the one in opposition.”  By definition, Satan is at odds, seeks scapegoats, accuses and blames others instead of addressing real problems and failings.    Satan’s house by nature is divided against itself: it defines itself by division, accusation, and casting blame elsewhere.  It only appears to be unified. 

Note that the first reaction of Adam in this morning’s Hebrew Scripture lesson, upon being found naked and being aware of it, is to blame the woman, and then, subtly, God, since Adam volunteers, “the woman, whom you gave me, made me eat it.”  The woman, for her part, blames in kind: "It was the snake!"  Such is the effect of the accuser:  desire for what other’s have, the zero-sum game and the violence provoked by shortage, and the blame game that helps us live with ourselves in a violent, hopeless world.   

When Jesus throws the riddle of the house divided at his accusers, he is appealing to the logic of their own perceptions—when you seek blame in others, when you accuse and set yourself in contradistinction from the reviled other, you seek to create a façade of unity, an appearance of solidarity.   And solidarity and unity cannot be beaten, supposedly.  But here, as in all his other parables, his punch line deconstructs expectations, and undermines the normal, logical, and respectable world. 

He throws in a second riddle to explain—the riddle of robbing a strong man.  It is only by sneaking in while he is sleeping and tying him up before he wakes that the weakling can steal the strong man’s wealth. 

I am that weakling crook, says Jesus.  I am the sneak thief.  What I am doing will surprise you once you wake up, because the house of wealth, the house of blame, the house of accusation will fall to my subversive little actions.    I am not in league with, but am opposed to the accuser, to the one who controls wealth and power in this world. 

When Jesus says the Reign of God is already here, he is saying that the way of the world—the logical and reasonable, revered and respectable, tried and true way of the world is being undermined at this very moment.  The way that seeks to fix things through violence and force, affirms strength and denies weakness, and shifts blame to others and then goes after them instead of accepting one’s own responsibility—Jesus says that this way is already getting ready to collapse.    His preaching of God at work where we least expect is part of this subversive movement.  His riddles about the seed growing secretly and of the tiny seed growing into the greatest of shrubs are part of it.  His healing of illness, paralysis and palsy, of mental illness blamed on demons and bad religion or no religion at all, are part of it.  He is overthrowing the reign of the accuser, the reign of sickness, the reign of division.  He is the sneak thief tying the old monster up. 

In today’s Gospel, the family of Jesus thinks he has gone crazy.  He has seen through the sham of this world’s reason and respectability, and looks crazy to all about him.  When they press the matter after his riddles, he says that only those who also see through this sham are his family.  He invites us all to join him.  He bids us to follow him.   And he says that stubbornly sticking with the lie is the only thing that is really irredeemable.   Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, seeing again and again God and right and love breaking into the world of sham, shame, blame, and violence and then persisting in calling it evil, well, Jesus says, this is the one course of action in which there lies no hope at all. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that when Christ calls any of us to follow him, he bids us to come and die.  The illusion of the unified and strong and rich reign of accusation and violence must end.  We must lose our false selves, our smart and respectable selves, and become crazy like Jesus.  We must risk all like Jesus.  It is part and parcel of being in awe and wonder at a loving, kind Abba or Papa in whom there is no deception, no accusation, no blaming, no violence, no division or faction. 

Jesus call us to follow him, see through the sham, and be his family. Jesus bids us all to go crazy like him, and die to this sick world.

I wonder if we can heed his call.  I wonder how we can.  I wonder. I wonder. 

In the name of God, Amen.