Readings for the Second Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 5)
- Genesis 3:8-15
- Psalm 130
- 2 Corinthians 4:13 – 5:1
- Mark 3:20-35
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church in Eureka CA on June 6, 2021.
“The beginning of the fight against hatred, the basic Christian answer to hatred,” according to Trappist monk Thomas Merton, “is not the commandment to love, but what must necessarily come before in order to make the commandment bearable and comprehensible. It is a prior commandment, to believe. The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved. The faith that one is loved by God.”[1] It is because God loves that we have self-worth. It is because God loves us that we have reason and the responsibility to love ourselves. It is because God loves us that self-hatred is a form of blasphemy. How dare anyone ever degrade or despise that which God made in his own image and dearly loves. And it is in God’s love for us that we each discover our meaning, our purpose, and our true and ultimate identity. Your ultimate and foundational identity is a beloved child of God.
All of the other identities that we may seek and claim for ourselves (be it parent, spouse, friend, doctor, banker, teacher, priest, etc.) are what St. Paul calls “earthly tents.” These are all fine, but they are temporary; and if we seek our ultimate satisfaction in them, we will be profoundly disappointed because the only everlasting identity, the only identity that is like that “eternal home built by God” is our identity as God’s beloved child. It’s not sinful to pursue a sense of identity in our vocations and careers and social circles. In fact, it’s good. However, it can become dangerous and potentially a form of idolatry when we begin to cling desperately and excessively to these temporary “earthly tents.” And when we find our identity over and against others and at the expense of others (which is so easy to do), then we are falling prey to sin. When our attachment to any identity outside of our belovedness leads us to blame and degrade and demonize others, then we are falling prey to the seductive power of the Accuser, the Satan, the “Strong Man” whom Christ came to bind.
Often, we try to find our identity in acquiring or possessing something, perhaps some special knowledge or skill. Like Adam and Eve, we often refuse to rest in the garden of our belovedness and instead we grasp after that which will never truly satisfy. Now acquiring certain knowledge and skills is indeed healthy and good, but when we seek to find our ultimate identity in that acquisition, then we so easily fall into rivalry with others who have more knowledge and better skills. And like Adam and Eve, we quickly become more insecure than before and we start projecting our insecurities onto others by playing the blame game. We blame our spouse; we kick the dog; and we all end up cursed, just like Adam and Eve and the serpent. Failing to rest in the garden of our belovedness is the original sin, which easily leads to rivalry, insecurity, and blame.
We also find our identity in religion. I know that I do. I proudly treasure my identity as an Episcopalian; and that’s fine, but our “religious” identity is also not our ultimate identity. When we stand before the heavenly throne, God will not ask us, “Were you an Episcopalian?” God will ask us, “Did you know me? Did you know of my love for you? Did you find your ultimate identity and self-worth in my love for you?” Although Christianity is, of course, a religion, I invite you to think of authentic Christianity as a relationship; a relationship of love and trust with God in Christ. When we find our ultimate identity in our relationship with God in Christ, we are on solid ground, but when we seek to find our ultimate identity in systems of religion and politics, we are on shifting sands, which can easily lead to sin. When we mix our insecurity and rivalry with politics and religion, the inevitable blame game gets racked up several notches. Instead of just blaming others, we cloak our language in mythical and religious terms and thus demonize others. You’ve heard me say that the inclination to demonize others is, ironically, an inclination driven by the Accuser, the Satan. The Satan is often present when you hear a religious person accusing someone else of being a devil, but the Satan is on the side of the Accuser not the accused. In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus refuses to find his ultimate identity in the religious and political systems of his day, thus arousing all kinds of insecurity and suspicion. And when religious leaders get insecure, we are tempted to cling even more desperately to our religious identity and to employ religious language in hurtful ways against those who seem to threaten us. Jesus tries to teach the religious leaders of his day how exceedingly dangerous when we weaponize religion. This can lead to the “unforgivable sin.”
Anglican bishop N. T. Wright describes the unforgivable sin when he says, “Once you label what is in fact the work of the Holy Spirit as the work of the devil, there’s no way back. It’s like holding a conspiracy theory: all the evidence you see will simply confirm your belief. You will be blind to the truth. It isn’t that God get especially angry with one sin in particular. It’s rather that if you decide firmly that the doctor who is offering to perform a life-saving operation on you is in fact a sadistic murderer, you will never give your consent to the operation.”[2] Jesus invites the religious leaders of his day to find their ultimate identity not in their religious and political systems of oppression and empire but rather in the garden of their belovedness. Unfortunately, this invitation is deemed demonic.
Another circle in which so many of us find our identity is our family. And these identities are so good and essential for us. I remember standing right there three years ago when Ashley gave me a prayer labyrinth as a reminder that while I’m a priest here, I’m also a husband. And then my brother gave me a symbol as a reminder that while I’m a priest here, I’m also a son and a brother. Those identities are so deep and important; however, even those are earthly tents. And the way we uphold family values today is nothing compared to the way Jewish people upheld family values in first-century Palestine. Everything was about family. So if Jesus’s words sound jarring to us today, they were at least twice as jarring and scandalous to his original listeners. This is Jesus’s way of teaching us that even our biological and familial identities are earthly tents compared to our ultimate identity as beloved children of God. This is Jesus’s challenging way of inviting us to rest in the garden of our belovedness and to stop grasping for identities in the accumulation of knowledge, in religion, and even in families and bloodlines. He invites us to become part of the beloved and eternal family who are one in the Spirit, one in the Lord, and who are known as Christians (followers of Christ) by their love and by their belief in their belovedness.
As I mentioned last Sunday, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, but what is born of the Spirit is spirit” and being born again or born from above means finding our ultimate identity not so much in our ancestry and pedigree and family, but in the truth that we are beloved children of God. Mark’s Gospel makes it very clear that Jesus found his full and ultimate identity in this truth. If you look at the beginning of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, you will see genealogies of Jesus. These gospel authors were trying to emphasize Christ’s pedigree, trying to root and validate his identity through his bloodline as the son of Joseph, the son of David, the son of Abraham and the son of Adam. However, Mark (who always likes to strip things down to the bare essentials) provides no genealogy because he wants to emphasize something different. Look at the first verse of Mark’s Gospel: “This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1). Jesus found his full and ultimate identity not in being the son of Mary and Joseph and the son of King David, but in being the beloved Son of God. Jesus did not find his ultimate identity in being a skilled and knowledgeable carpenter, which I’m sure he was. Neither did he find his ultimate identity in being a prophet or a rabbi or a healer or a political dissident (as he so clearly is in Mark’s Gospel).[3] Like us, Jesus was tempted to find his ultimate identity in his knowledge, in his religion, and in his family (which are all earthly tents), but he chose to find his full and ultimate identity in being a beloved child of God, an identity that lasts forever, an identity that he invites each of us to claim for ourselves today. We can bank our entire lives and afterlives upon this identity. May we stop grasping for those identities which will fail to satisfy and may we learn to rest together in the garden of our belovedness. Amen.
[1] Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 74 – 75.
[2] N.T. Wright, Mark For Everyone, 38.
[3] See Ched Meyers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 1988).
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 