Father Snort

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

June 6, 2021

Proper 5, B

Genesis 3:8-15

Mark 3:20-35

“You Can’t Fight in Here. This Is the War Room.”

Strange as it may sound, today’s Gospel reading made me think of a scene from the movie Dr. Strangelove, where The U.S. President, and a Russian Ambassador, and the top U.S. General are all trying to avert nuclear armageddon when the general and the Russian ambassador start fighting, and the President shouts at them, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room!” That reminds me of our Gospel story today as I hear the scribes saying to Jesus with similar irony, “Jesus please, you can’t heal people here, we’re doing God’s work!”

How could they think healing people was bad? How could they think casting out demons was bad?

Well, healing and casting out demons wasn’t necessarily bad in and of itself, of course, but what if Jesus was turning people to trust in him, rather than in the religious system? What if, even worse, Jesus was teaching something different about God than they were, and was therefore, of course, teaching something terribly, terribly wrong about God?

That, we understand. Think of a new pastor at a new growing congregation. It’s not a church like the established churches are used to, and even some of those established church’s members are going to that new church. They are on fire, they are serving within the community in ways the established churches haven’t been doing for decades, and the established churches are all threatened by this new congregation. They don’t like the pastor. He’s doing things wrong, the church services are weird, and they feel threatened by them doing really well and doing things differently than what they know to be the right way. “Oh sure, they’re doing good work there, but “Yeah, you’re right…they still pray weird.”

We get that. We understand the scribes feeling threatened by Jesus, thinking he was leading the people down a wrong path, in spite of his healing and casting out demons. So what did they do? They demonized Jesus, saying he was doing demonic work casting out demons. It didn’t make much sense then either.

Jesus was fighting a spiritual battle against demons and cosmic powers, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (I grabbed that from Ephesians). To be fair, it wasn’t much of a fight against the demons. Jesus was like One Punch Man, but still, seeing this, the scribes chose to fight with him about it, who was right and who was wrong, and Jesus’ response was basically, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the war room.” Jesus was saying, “I’m fighting a war against demons,” (which was again pretty easy for him “Get out of there, demon!” “Ok.”) and the scribes were fighting with him about that? That was the difficult battle, people working against healing and love because they don’t agree with the person who is doing it or the methods they use.

That is still the difficulty we have today. We understand how crazy it is for the scribes to fight against Jesus when he was casting out demons and healing people. We understand how crazy it is for our church or any church to rally against another church when we see them doing good, healing ministry with the community…even if they pray weird, but when that church is ministering with the wrong kinds of people, or letting the wrong kinds of people be ministers, what then?

They’re still doing great works within the community, still healing and working with people to transform their lives, but it’s just the wrong kind of people doing the ministry? What if it’s staunch conservatives doing the ministry? What if it’s flaming liberals doing the ministry? What if the ministers are people whose beliefs and ideologies not only go against my beliefs and ideologies, but go against who I am as a person?

I don’t have a clear cut answer on this one, however, I will say this about our beliefs and ideologies. The scribes had beliefs and ideologies which led them to discount some people as unworthy of being a full part of their community, of their world. The scribes were concerned with purity and people being religiously correct enough to be acceptable for God.

Jesus, not so much. Jesus was concerned with people causing actual harm to one another. Are you being clean and pure? Jesus didn’t seem to ask that. Are you causing actual harm to someone else? That’s what Jesus seemed interested in. Are you excluding people you deem unworthy or impure? Are you keeping for yourself far more than you need while others struggle just to have enough? Are you so certain of your own righteousness that you tear others down, condemning them, rather than choosing to love them and take the risk of being wrong as you see God working in their lives too? That seems the way of Jesus in his spiritual battles, in his war room.

Yes, there is a war room, even for Jesus, but as Paul wrote in Ephesians 6, “…our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”  (Ephesians 6:10-12). Jesus was certainly against these spiritual forces of darkness, against these spiritual forces of darkness as they manifest in people. We don’t read too much, however, of Jesus being against people themselves. He wasn’t out there stirring up hatred and division, shouting about the folks people should be against. He warned his disciples privately against the teachings against some of those rather less than helpful leaders, but his focus was not to turn people against each other.

Jesus’ focus was on healing people, bringing people together, showing love, offering grace, living forgiveness. That was Jesus’ way. Healing, communion, love, grace, forgiveness, that was Jesus way, even when fighting spiritual battles for and along side folks whom others felt were the wrong sorts of folks. Healing, communion, love, grace, forgiveness, that was how Jesus fought spiritual battles in his war room, and strange as it may sound, there’s no fighting in the war room. At least there’s no fighting in Jesus’ war room. There’s striving against spiritual forces of darkness, and those battles are fought with healing and communion, with grace, and love, and forgiveness.

Paul wrote of Jesus as sitting at the right hand of God in the heavenly places (where these other gods dwelt), and Paul wrote the church as the body of Christ, dwelling as Christ’s body with God in the heavenly places right now, so that we are both here on earth living out our mortal lives and at the same time we are in the heavenly places joined together as Jesus’ body.

Paul went on to say that we are joined together with Jesus as part of God’s revelation, that we are in the heavenly places revealing even to the gods or heavenly beings, the the unity that God has in mind for all of humanity. No more tribalism and no more tribal gods. One people living in unity.

When Israel was complaining in the desert that they were going to die of hunger in the desert because they didn't like the food God daily provided for them, God sent serpents among them. Then God had Moses set up a bronze serpent for the people to look upon when they were bitten, and be healed. Now, this bronze serpent was not like Medusa in reverse. It wasn’t magic, as though if it happened to cross into someone’s line of sight, suddenly they were all better. It wasn’t an idol or a god to bring healing. The bronze serpent worked as people looked upon it and realized, “That’s what I’ve become. I’ve become as the father of lies, trusting my own anxiety and Lizard Brain rather that trusting in God who has freed us and kept us safe.” They would look upon the bronze serpent with true repentance, let Lizard Brain quiet down for a few moments, and the serpent would kill the lizard.

That’s a big part of religion and religious practices, to help us silence Lizard Brain and return to trust in God and peace in our hearts. See when we’re fully freaked out, thinking, “We don’t like this food; we’re going to die,” and Lizard Brain is in control, our thoughts and beliefs aren’t usually enough to bring us back to trust and peace because the thinking parts of our brains are shut down when Lizard Brain is in control.

We need more than thoughts and belief when Lizard Brain takes over, we need actions, we need habits, we need a bronze serpent, so to speak, to kill the lizard. Thus we have habits and practices of prayer and meditation, of scripture reading, of silence and breathing, of daily turning our lives and wills over to God, and daily taking stock to see how we did and where we might need to seek correction or reconciliation.

So as we have this season of joy to seek further release from our various prisons, in what prison do you find yourself? Fear? Anger? Scarcity? Jealousy? Feelings of discontent and raging against aspect of society that you just can’t abide? All of these and more are the prisons we find ourselves in, and with Jesus’ help, we can be freed from all of them. Turning to Jesus every morning in prayer, specifically asking Jesus to free us from our particular prisons. Spending time each day in meditation to calm our minds and bodies and to give those things which imprison us over to God. Spending time talking with others, trusted friends or small groups within our church about our prisons and the release we need and the release we have experienced. Spending time each day with scripture, trusting and getting to know Jesus ever more fully as the one who frees us from our prisons, the one who proclaimed that the kingdom of God has come near.

Remember then also that Jesus’ message of freedom and release from prison is not only an individual message.

In what prisons do we find ourselves in our society? Prisons of injustice, the wealthy and seemingly important given passes for crimes while many of the poor and marginalized are given heavy sentences. Prisons of poverty which trap people who work full time for low wages in order to live in poverty. Prisons of political discourse so heated and polemical that people are losing their minds. People are becoming so enraged with political discourse that they will fight, with words, with fists, with guns, even to the death in order to stop those on the other side of the political discourse.

Our faith in God, our life with God was embodied in Jesus, and any faith or belief in Jesus that does not deeply and richly involve our bodies in this life is a heretical faith and belief in Jesus.

After healing people all night, Jesus got up early the next morning to go pray, and when his disciples found him, he said, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” The message he proclaimed in their synagogues included healing people and casting out demons.

If we want to evangelize, if we want to proclaim our faith, then our ministry will include and even be defined by a ministry of healing. Jesus’ ministry is a ministry of physical healing. Jesus’ ministry is societal healing. Jesus’ ministry is working for justice. Jesus’ ministry is “dealing with the issues that hurt the poor, the brokenhearted, the sick, the left out, the least of these, the stranger, and all of those who are made to feel unacceptable,” for if it is of healing, it is of Jesus.

Jesus’ words were a call to see the holy ground all around, to see every common bush afire with heaven. Jesus’ words were a call to see every person around as a beloved child of God. Sinners, saints, outcasts, and rulers, all beloved children of God. Those who were willing to see had their lives changed by Jesus’ invitation to live God’s kingdom, already present, into existence.

I caught the end of Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem, and I was struck by the invitation she gave. It was for me an invitation to live God’s kingdom. She said:

When day comes we step out of the shade,

aflame and unafraid

The new dawn blooms as we free it

For there is always light,

if only we're brave enough to see it

If only we're brave enough to be it

Powerful words of hope and good news. See the light. Be the light. It is near. Now make it so. Jesus’ words were powerful words that the kingdom of God has come near. Then he and his friends made it so. Jesus’ words of hope and good news are here for us too, to hear, believe, and to let that belief be real enough to change our lives.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;”

“if only we're brave enough to see it

If only we're brave enough to be it.”

A couple thousand years ago, Jesus was born to set us free. The Creator of the Universe became a human being in human flesh and walked among us. Even with that great coming of Jesus, the light of God living with us in the world, we still lose our way and get trapped by the darkness, and so into that darkness, God continues to give little epiphanies, to show us the light once again and to set us free.

Repentance means that with that hope and mercy, we then get to reckon with those worst parts of ourselves. We have to reckon with the worst of ourselves because we can’t be free of those things, free of the worst parts of ourselves, if we don’t bring them with us when we come seeking mercy and redemption. When we do bring those worst parts of ourselves with us on our journey of repentance, then we find God saying, those worst parts of you are grass. “The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it.”

As our king, Jesus wants us to see the importance of people all around us and seek to walk to the path of the righteous one, shepherding one another, caring for each other, and lifting each other up. That’s life in God’s kingdom. Not with God as an angry hitman, and not with God as a king who, quite apart from all of us, tells us we better be pure enough, or good enough, or religious enough for his liking. In Jesus’ kingdom, when we don’t treat each other as we want to be treated, that’s when we are blaspheming God.

Father Snort