Baptism's about Gods Family (not about Hell)

I think there is a subtle connection between these readings. They may come across as a bit harsh… but with further reflection they reveal the Trinity at work… (but let's just say it takes a bit of reflection!) We may feel a bit jolted by Jesus’ statement that to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin.


I recently heard of a survey asking young people what they thought of the church. Most of the responses even from those who grew up in the church, were that “you lost me.” - “I grew up in the church… and yet you didn’t make it understandable.” [1]


And worse: Some dismiss our faith as brainwashing, sleep walking, fear driven. This is certainly my generation’s general response. You aren’t seeing a lot of “Gen-Xers” in church.


But at the end of the story - one of the interviewees said…


“You may not have me now. Christianity is not aligning with everything else I’m learning about life… but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever have me.” [2]


Coming to understand Christ… for some of us it takes a lifetime. And some of us yearn for our family members to “get it now.”


…but coming to understand the meaning of Jesus is a journey. To quote Rohr:
“Even the Gospels seem to jump over Jesus’ thirty years of uneventfulness, paralleling midlife for most of us, during which all the seeds are planted for a later sprouting.”
In our Gospel, coming to understand Jesus was also something that obviously his generation is grappling with.


His mother, who is possibly his greatest supporter and witness hesitates here. It is the only time we see this behavior. Is she really questioning his sanity? Or -are she and his family trying to protect him from the harsher charge of belonging to Satan?…


This is occurring at a time when all we’ve heard about Jesus up until now, is his incredible ministry of healing.


The claim is that he is empowered by Beelzebul, which means King of the dungheap! Lord of the Flies; the devil; Satan!


Such accusation as Jesus sees it - literally goes against the commandments…


Thou shalt have no other God’s before me… And thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain… unforgivable…


And his statement emphasizes the ultimate claim that Jesus and his healing work is coming from God.
—--


The Gospel writer of Mark used a specific style for story telling. He sandwiched parables to get his points across when telling a story - “the meat of the message” is in the middle.


Jesus’s parable is about plundering the strong man’s house. “..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.” He’s saying that that is what he is doing through the power of the Holy Spirit…


The Holy Spirit has bound Satan…and the dark forces are fleeing, being cast out, or turning on themselves…


He throws this parable into the middle of his teaching
that a divided house will fall  - and that those who suggest that his work is from Satan are blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Because it’s Satan who divides. And it is Satan who is falling…


His logic is that Satan cannot cast out Satan. Only the work of God can do this!


Within this suggestion  -  is that the breakdown of the family is occurring in real time because look what this blasphemy on the part of the crowd has created:
Division.


And the Holy Spirit is about unity.
So, How does this apply to us?!


How did Jesus’ message get so turned on its head that so many only heard a message of unforgivable sin instead of his claim to family…that we feel we were born sinful and need to be baptized to be cleansed of sin?
This is what got so many of us lost….


Contrary to what many may believe about us blindly following Christianity out of fear…


If you read the catechism, our outline of faith in the Book of Common prayer never mentions that baptism saves you from going to hell - nor does the rite of Baptism. Instead it says that baptism makes us a part of the family of God. It reads:


“Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us
as his children and makes us members of Christ's Body,
the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.
The inward and spiritual grace in Baptism is union with
Christ…birth into God’s family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit.”


We are God’s family. Here is the union that Jesus was creating through his healings, the family he was building; what he meant when 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.”


We are God’s adopted children. God’s time is eternal. And it may take some time for us to “get it.”
And while we may want our families to get it now… give it time…


Like our young interviewee said, the message of Jesus may not be lost on us forever.


Our stories remind us today that God is the creator of all things… the one who casts out Satan as the serpent… and also the one who calls to us in the garden he made, seeks us so that we may in turn find “him”…
Paul tells the community of Corinth…The Holy Spirit is working in us constantly even as we are passing away… “because we look not at what can be seen, but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.”


… an eternal family in those eternal dwelling places…


And finally, from the Gospel: Jesus who commands us, heals us, forgives us, and breaks the chains of death… doesn’t work alone:


his life isn’t the story of a strongman. Jesus’ power is in the power of the Holy Spirit who casts away darkness and brings us into life.


That Spirit has been given to us and moves at the ground level. No matter the division we feel in our personal lives, we continue to plant the Spirits’ seeds through love and forgiveness in the lives of others…
Not matter the division we witness in a World struggling to wake up, we can be assured that the power of the Holy Spirit is also working to unite us.


This is our triune God, whom we worship because we are awake and in Awe, not because we are sleepwalking through life.


To end with one of my favorite lines:


“My soul waits for the Lord,
more than watchmen for the morning, *. (Awake)
more than watchmen for the morning.”






1. This story was offered by Joy J. Moore
https://www.workingpreacher.org/authors/joy-j-moore


2. Again: I am paraphrasing Joy J. Moore here.