Sermon June 10 - - נָחָשׁ
Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on Sunday, June 10, 2018. Readings 1 Samuel 8:14:4-20, 11:14-15. Psalm 138. 2 Corinthians 4:13 - - 5:1. Mark 3:20-35. The Rev. Tom Weller.
I shall speak in the Name of the One God. You may be seated.
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The scriptures are so full today, Samuel and the Lord angry that Israel wants a king to keep up with gentile neighbors,
Saint Paul exhorting Corinthians to have faith and not lose heart in the face of life’s horrors, quite personal for me recently,
Several things going on in Mark’s gospel:
- Jesus’ family worried he’s gone off the deep end,
- His puzzling declaration about unforgivable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit - - which, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, put 17th century author and preacher John Bunyan in fits of agony trying to figure out what the unforgivable sin was, Bunyan so frustrated that he committed every sin he could think of so as to be sure of committing the unforgivable sin and be done with it and go to hell once and for all,
- Jesus declaring family is not blood kin but everyone who does the will of God.
So what should I preach on? Whatever I dee well please, I’ve been preaching longer than almost anyone I know, so long that every time I go to another church I’ve served in the past they tell me, don’t bother writing a new sermon, just get out one of those old ones you preached for us years ago and let us hear it again.
But I’ll suit myself and talk about life and love - - and family.
Linda and I were married here sixty-one years ago, the first wedding at Holy Nativity. We have three children, Malinda, Joe and Tass (her real name is Cathlyn), and because Malinda and her husband divorced six months before Kristen was born, I got to adopt our granddaughter Kristen. So, four children, the light of my life. Son Joe long ago escaped my parental helicopter, but it has been impossible for me to bear having my girls out of my sight.
I remember thirty years ago, Linda needed to go to Birmingham to look after her mother and step-father for a couple weeks - - Tass took her mother aside to say “Mom! you can’t leave me alone with Dad two weeks, Dad won’t let me do anything.” I have, to my shame, grossly overdone “protective father” because I am deathly afraid of something happening to one of them.
We have had many scares over the years, with all three daughters: car wrecks, ambulances, fears and worries, divorce, trips to hospital. Why do you think my hair is gone and white, it’s not my age - - worrying about my girls has done this to me. Looking at me you probably will not believe I’m 28 years old.
Most recently, the horror of finding Malinda unconscious, stretched out on a couch in her living room, comatose from a ruptured brain aneurysm. God moves in mysterious ways, put her in the hands of a neurosurgeon skilled and competent beyond imagining. Two surgical procedures into the brain, and Malinda is recovering; and so am I, though she’s ahead of me! Your loving prayers have been incredible. This sermon is about life and love, and my daughter is alive, and I love you, my church family!
The church family’s lovingkindness to Mike Harding also says what Jesus means that family is not just blood relatives, but everyone who does the will of God. And here you are.
In my life, I have known nothing so powerful as the church, Jesus, and the Jesus People of the Christian communities in which we have lived and loved and served. The power of love holds us together in joy and in crisis. The power of prayer holds our God in ongoingness with us: each of us a beloved one, and our Jesus Community, and the Communion of us, praise, prayer, Bread and Wine. I am so thankful for you and your lovingkingkess - - the Old Testment Hebrew word is chesed. I am grateful for the love and prayers that flowed out from you as my daughter lay in deadly peril. And I in unbelievable fear. I am grateful. I thank you. And I love you, my church family.
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So, we are left with Jesus saying blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin. What’s that all about? We cannot leave worship today with you thinking, “Well, Tom did not have the guts to talk about it,” so briefly here goes. Three or four points.
For the past 2,000 years, every pastor, priest, preacher and Bible student has had his/her own “take” on blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and the Unforgivable Sin. Here’s mine.
First, Jesus is not a trinitarian Christian, Jesus is a monotheistic Jew: by the “Holy Spirit” Jesus means God: Elohim, Abba, Father, Adonai, YahVEH, the Lord. Jesus does not mean a Third Person of Trinity, Jesus means the one true God of Israel, Creator of all that is, the Holy One. So do not visualize Three Persons of the Godhead standing there, and one of them having his/her feelings hurt because you said mean things.*
Second, anyone who in the Name of God makes an enemy for God commits blasphemy against God. The authoritative church and we clergy are in great danger of blasphemy: If I refuse you Holy Communion because of an evil church rule that you have to be baptized and a member first in order to have supper with us, sending you away a hungry, hurt and offended “outsider,” I blaspheme the Holy Spirit. The Altar here is not ours, but God's. Without exception, every human being under the sun is invited and welcome to the Altar to receive Holy Communion in this church.
Or if, forgetting St. Luke’s story of Philip the Evangelist baptizing the Ethiopian Eunuch on the spot as they pass a pond of water, I refuse to baptize your child because you do not attend church regularly, I blaspheme the Holy Spirit. For the church to make a rule, any rule, that stands between God and a human being is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Fourth, God is not under church control: nothing, no sin, no sinner is beyond chesed, the lovingkindness of God in Jesus. Your sins are forgiven.
And finally, perhaps theologically shaky, but most important, forgiveness is not a One Way street, forgiveness involves two parties: God and You. Sometimes, in God’s creation, life hits hard, cruel, vicious and mean, and even the most pious of us must see that sometimes it is God who wants our forgiveness. Sometimes it is God who wants our forgiveness. Sometimes it is God who needs our forgiveness. Genesis 3: Now נָחָשׁ Nachash, the Serpent of Eden, was more crafty than any creature that God had made; Nachash, the serpent: when the serpent strikes, hurting you or someone you love, can you, will you, forgive God for evil in the nature of creation?
Can you, will you, forgive God?
I speak to you, I ask you, in the Name of the One God.
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* Some, many reputable scholars, including scholars of the Jesus Seminar, assess that the words attributed to Jesus, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as an unforgivable sin, are not from Jesus’ lips at all, but an editorial addition by the later Early Church moving against those who denied that the Holy Spirit was God - - an issue of the General Councils TW+
Other stuff considered in writing the sermon
Matthew 12:31-32 King James Version (KJV)
31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
Mark 3:29 King James Version (KJV)
29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.
Mark 3 gospel reading for this morning (NRSV) “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
Luke 12: 8-10 “I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God. 9 But whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
Thomas 44 Jesus said, "Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either on earth or in heaven."