The Ultimate Power of God’s Will – 6 June, 2021
Mark 3:20-35
Jesus is hounded by crowds of people looking for his healing power. He could escape neither their need nor the voices of the demented who cried out, “You are the son of God!” (3:11) Surrounded by the twelve, he went home. And even there the scribes accused him of having power by the work of Satan.
Who would not be tired of this?!
Jesus’ response to his tormenters turned logic on them, speaking of the impossibility of Satan being in two places at once, of a divided house falling down, of only being able to rob a strong man by disabling him first. These are all intriguing arguments to make, and the preacher might want to spend time on them because they set Jesus’ way of thinking against the taunts and misconceptions thrown at him. He could not be Satan or a divided house. But what does plunder of a strong man’s house have to say to his mission? Is Jesus the strong man? Are the scribes trying to tie him down?
Finally, called to go out to his mother and brothers, he denies his family in favor of his followers for the sake of the will of God. The gospel of the Lord is that nothing is more important than following what God wills for God’s people. –– Melinda Quivik
2 Corinthians 4:13––5:1
Think of the Epistle text as God’s call to the church for how the people God are to respond to the gospel. Here, the admonition is not to “lose heart” and to look “at what cannot be seen.” Stuck with the desire from the first people to take no responsibility for our choices and the need to be healed by the one who is abused to death, we are still to keep the faith by training our gaze on what is eternal. This is a tall order. –– Melinda Quivik
Genesis 3:8-15
Stark in our faces in this marvelous story of the first people is the all-too-human attempt to “pass the buck.” I didn’t do it! she said. Blame the snake!
But God is neither tricked nor amused. All of the questions God asks of the two people attempt to get at truth.
“Where are you?” God calls out. This is a question all of us could helpfully ponder. Where are we? Where am I? Where is our nation? Where on earth do we think we are?
When the man says he is hiding because he is naked, God wants to know how the man knows he is naked. “Who told you…?” The man was supposed to be ignorant of his situation, having not eaten of the fruit of the tree that gives knowledge of good and evil. He could not on his own, as he was when created, know even whether he was or was not clothed. The man, God can see, has changed. Who did it to him?
And here is where the buck is first passed. “The woman… gave me fruit…”
And then the woman passes the second buck: “The serpent tricked me…”
In the face of God’s desire that the first people and all of their descendants live truthfully, we grope for an out, blame others, fail to take responsibility, and the fruit of that way of life is enmity. We have chosen to eat dust. –– Melinda Quivik
Melinda Quivik, an ordained ELCA pastor (who served churches in Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota) and former professor of worship and preaching, is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Liturgy, a writer, and a preaching mentor with backstory-preaching.mn.co.