Riddles (Proper B)

Riddles
10 June 2018 Third 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

The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

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

God, give us eyes to see through temporal division and pain, to see the joyful and eternal weight of glory already present among us.  Amen. 

A friend recently told the story on Facebook of having a nurse perform a serious medical procedure on her where there was “some substantial flashing of personal parts.”  Her husband, at her side, asked her whether she should bring her husband next time.  The nurse, shocked into a wary silence, looked up only to see the ironic playfulness in his face.  All three burst into several minutes of laughter so hard that they had to restart the procedure. 

Gallows humor sometimes saves us from despair at decline or threat.  It seems counter intuitive:  when the going gets tough, the tough start laughing. 

Faith and doubt are like that.  I was having a moment of real reflection a few years ago, wondering about God.  I was wondering in both senses of the word—in awe at the good things we receive each day, but also asking myself if God heard and answered prayers.  Some of my friends 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.  One of the things you learn in training to be a Godly Play storyteller is 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, and in the power of irony and humor to unleash our inner strength and light.   The Beatitudes are basically seeing God where we have come to learn to least expect seeing him.  Blessed are the starving.  Blessed are the oppressed.  Blessed are those crushed by grief.  And most of the parables have an edge or punch line that would not work if not for a wicked sense of humor and the double meaning of “wonder.” 

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

The argument seems simple:  “You say I am in league with the devil and am casting out demons by demonic power.  But that can’t be, since I am undoing the Devil’s work!”   But Jesus pushes the riddle deeper by using the word “Satan” instead of the name Beelzebul that Jesus’ accusers had thrown 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 one in opposition.”  That’s why those Iranian students sometimes chant that the U.S. is the Great Satan.  It also means one who accuses and sets things in opposition.  By definition, Satan is at odds, seeks scapegoats, accuses and blames others instead of addressing real problems and failings over which one has control.    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. 

In this morning’s Hebrew Scripture, note the blame in Adam’s reaction upon being found naked:  “the woman, the one you gave me, made me eat it.”  The woman blames in kind: "It was the snake!"  Such is the effect of the accuser:  desire for what others have, the zero-sum game and the violence it provokes, and the resulting blame game that helps us live with ourselves in a such a hopeless world.  

The riddle of the house divided shows that Jesus’ accusers have more in common with the demons that he does.   They are the accuser, the Satan.  When you seek to blame someone, when you accuse and set them against yourself, you must first pretend that you are united, unbeatable, supposedly.  But the very nature of accusation is to accuse anyone at various times. 

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

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 the accuser, who actually controls wealth and power in this world.  I am the sneak thief who will win. 

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 our blame-game nation, community defines itself by pointing to scapegoats, by saying the truth is not in them.  It comes from all sides: fear of the foreigner and the alien, “fake news,” “alternate facts,” “deplorables,” “hypocrites,” and lies, lies, lies.  In all this, I am reminded of a comment by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “In a democracy, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.”   As Flannery O’Conner said,  “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” 

We often accuse those who see things differently from us of being crazy, just like in today’s Gospel, where the family of Jesus thinks he has gone crazy.

Jesus has seen the accuser for he is.  He sees through the sham of reason and respectability, and looks crazy to all about him.   When they press the matter, he says that he counts as his family only the ones who also see through the sham, the ones who are crazy like he is crazy.    He invites us all to join him.  He bids us to follow him.   Again, Fannery O’Conner: “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.”  

And Jesus 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.

The way of breaking through the sham is wonder, is gallows humor, and is going through pain.  The Persian Sufi mystic and poet Rumi wrote: “I said: what about my eyes?  He said: Keep them on the road.  I said: What about my passion?  He said: Keep it burning.  I said: What about my heart?  He said: Tell me what you hold inside it. I said: Pain and sorrow.  He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

Sister and brothers, I have had colleagues tell me that they pity me, ministering to a congregation with so many elderly, with so much degenerative illness, with so much death.  But I have to say, ministering here is one of the greatest blessings I have had in my life.   I get to see grace in peoples’ lives and in my own life almost every day.  I get to hear stories of real gallows humor in horrendous situations that might make others lose all faith, hope, and humor.  Those who say, “I don’t want to be a burden” don’t understand at all.  Giving those you love a chance to show their love, a chance to serve and help in hopeless situations—that is a gift, not a curse or a burden.   The family Jesus calls us to join may be crazy, but we’re a home crazed with love, defiant hope, and sometimes joyful laughter.   

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.