Crazy Is As Crazy Does

Mark 3:20-35

 Then [Jesus] went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’

And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.  But 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.

‘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.’

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ And 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.’

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My working title for this sermon all week has been, “Crazy is as crazy does,” partly because there’s enough to unpack in all of these verses to make a preacher nuts, but mostly because of the actions of Jesus and the accusations against him for having lost his mind.

The nutshell of it all for me is that this is another moment in the life and times of Jesus when he’s under the microscope and under attack, even, for the ministry he’s begun. He’s being accused by the scribes – some of the leaders of the synagogues – which is a thing we hear often in Scripture. He’s being worried over by his family, which isn’t such popular Biblical theme. He’s being followed by overwhelming, overbearing crowds of people. And he’s trying to convince everyone that he hasn’t “gone out of his mind;” that he’s not crazy; that he isn’t possessed – at least not by the powers of Satan or Beelzebul, as some of them assume.

But Jesus is possessed, it seems – overcome with and inspired by the Holy Spirit, I mean. And that Holy Spirit – bestowed upon him through baptism – was moving Jesus to do some pretty surprising, shocking, out-of-the-ordinary, hard-to-swallow sorts of things. And people were taking notice. And people were suspicious. And they were afraid, some of them, and angry, some of them, and out of sorts about it all. So they assumed and accused and questioned and condemned all the things about Jesus that they couldn’t see or understand or wrap their heads or their hearts around. And they chalked it all up to “crazy.”

Because that’s how people are, too much of the time, isn’t it? We are suspicious of the odd-balls. We assume and accuse and question and condemn. Sometimes we simply dismiss those we don’t understand or who push us out of our “normal” or who move us away from what’s comfortable or familiar or safe. Sometimes, we even kill them. Which, of course, is where all of this got Jesus.

And it’s been that way ever since, really, for the oddballs… the movers and shakers… the envelope pushers. It happened to Stephen and to Paul and to Peter, too.

More recently, of course, I think about Mahatma Gandhi and Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr.

And since June is PRIDE month, I think about Harvey Milk and Marsha P. Johnson and Matthew Shepard, too.

Oddballs and eccentrics, each in their own right. Jesus freaks, some of them. Outsiders, others of them. Non-conformists, all. Rebels. Misfits. Trouble-makers, even. Their families and friends and neighbors might even have thought them to be their own kind of crazy, perhaps.

And when we take Jesus out of the stained-glass windows of our collective mind’s eye, he is all of those things, too – a trouble-making, non-conforming, rebellious kind of outsider. And today’s gospel reminds us that all of his preaching and teaching and healing was so revolutionary that it made people believe Jesus was crazy, that he had gone out of his mind. Even his family tried to stop him – either because they agreed maybe he really was losing his marbles, or because they were genuinely afraid for his safety, or their own. Others, like the scribes, thought he just might be the devil himself – or at least possessed by Beelzebul.

And it’s hard to blame them, really. Jesus was doing and saying some pretty amazing things which didn’t bode well for a lot of people – especially the ones in power – but good news that promised nothing but blessing and redemption and fullness of life for those who had, up until then, been persecuted, left out, sidelined, and worse. (The other oddballs, misfits, outcasts, and whatnot.) This Good News was crazy.

Last week, we heard Jesus promise that God loved the world – the whole world and nothing but the whole world – and that God sent Jesus into the midst of it all to save and redeem it. These disciples he’d gathered to follow him and to help with this ministry were nothing to write home about – Jesus loved oddballs and misfits, too, of course. Fishermen. Tax collectors. Women. All of them charged with helping the Kingdom of God come to pass. And people were being cured. Demons were being cast out. Sins were being forgiven. More misfits were being welcomed into the mix and lives were being changed by it all. It was crazy.

Because what makes “crazy” “crazy,” is that it doesn’t line up with what people expect, with what people are used to, with what people think they want or need in their lives. So Jesus meets all of the criteria on the report card for crazy. He is just exactly what the scribes and other religious leaders weren’t looking for in a Messiah – this peacemaker; this forgiver of sins; this living, moving, breathing force of mercy, love, and grace in their midst.

So, if Jesus was crazy by the world’s standards, it makes a wannabe follower of his wonder what all of that might have to do with you and me?

Well, I think the answer is in that bit at the end of today’s Gospel, when Jesus says, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And then, looking at the knuckleheads surrounding him, he answers his own question: “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

So, I think what makes us brothers and sisters to Jesus is when we’re just as inspired by, just as overwhelmed with, just as possessed by the Holy Spirit – just as “crazy” as Jesus, if you will, because of the grace we’ve received and by our willingness to share it at all costs. And crazy is as crazy does.

So, what if we spent more time – as children of God, as followers of Jesus – trying to be crazy by the world’s standards, instead of conforming to what the world or the Church, even, thinks we should do or be or look like? For the record, I don’t think it always has to be big, off-the-charts, headline or history-making levels of crazy.

I think crazy might look like bending over backwards to be as safe as possible over the course of the last year of this pandemic, in order to love our neighbor and to protect the vulnerable – at times when others would not, and in ways that may not have always made sense. 

I think crazy would mean giving more money and resources away for the sake of others and our ministry – to the point that people would think we were nuts.

I think crazy would mean we’d let more people in – so that the line for communion on Sunday morning would make guests wonder if they were in church, or at the bar; in prison or at the hospital; in the middle of a pride parade, a homeless shelter, or the United Nations.

I think it would mean we’d forgive more readily – so that enemies and grudges wouldn’t steal one more moment of our energy, one more ounce of our soul, one more second of our precious time.

I think it would mean we’d stop fighting about things the politicians and cable news networks inspire us to fight about. And I think, instead, we would start fighting against and worrying about extreme poverty, violence against women and children, systemic racism, consumerism, and the rate at which people die every day, all over the world, of preventable, treatable diseases or from lack of clean water.

I think crazy would look like the Kingdom of God happening among us, the Kingdom of God happening through us, the Kingdom of God happening for us, and for the sake of the world.

And I think that would just be crazy – in every holy, wonderful, faithful, gracious way we can’t always imagine; but crazy in ways that only God can accomplish – through the likes of oddballs and misfits like you and me – when we muster the kind of humility, courage, and faith to let it happen.

Amen

No Words for Holy Trinity

John 3:1-17

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, who came to Jesus, by night, and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God because no one can do the signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said, “How can one be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

Jesus said to him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh. What is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with anyone who is born of the spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”

Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? We speak about what we know and we testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but might have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” 

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I had some remarkably strange and difficult conversations last week with three very different people I’d never met before. One was with a man who had seen me around town and who knows what I do here at Cross of Grace. He wanted to know if I’d be willing to talk with a friend of his who was struggling with a son, of his, who was struggling, too, with suicidal thoughts – attempts, even – and a very serious experience of abuse, to boot.

I had another series of conversations with a different young man altogether – a high school kid –who’s been struggling with some drug use, problems at home and school, some severe anxiety and, to top it off, harbors some serious fear about whether or not God could love or forgive him for some of the things he’d said and done – when he was in the third grade!

And I had a short, sweet little chat with the woman who cut my hair – about how she wouldn’t be doing much for the holiday weekend – partly because her sister’s birthday is today, but her sister died last year. So my barber and her family would be trying to find a way to do both things – the holiday and the grieving – at the same time.

Of course, I wanted for these people I didn’t know to know about God’s love and grace and mercy in their lives. I wanted to describe for them something about how deep and wide that love is meant to be felt by them. I wanted to find words that would overwhelm them with hope and the power of that divine kind of love so that they could feel it in a way that was as life-affirming, as life-giving, as life-changing – as the love of God is intended to be.

So, I outlined for them the intricacies and particulars – the theological trappings – of the doctrine of the Trinity, which we are invited to worship around and to celebrate this morning.

No, I didn’t do anything of the kind, because that would be ridiculous.

See, the irony of this Sunday is as funny to me as it is frustrating. Holy Trinity Sunday I mean, where we are charged with celebrating church doctrine, is always a strange proposition … this notion that God can be described and defined and defended and dumbed-down, if you ask me, into three things … three persons … three images … three identities – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the context of worship.

As if we could do that. As if that were enough. As if there’s a way to say it all, here, now.

Because if we were to pretend to say it all, it wouldn’t be enough. Because not everyone speaks the same language – literally or figuratively or spiritually, either. Not everyone holds the same regard for “Father,” or for “Son,” or understands what in the world a “Holy Spirit” is, or a “Holy Ghost” for that matter. Right?

It’s funny to me because it seems strange to wrap worship up with such academic musings.

It’s frustrating to me because there are people out there in the world – and some listening to me now, I imagine – who have had enough with words. Enough with doctrine and theological trappings. Enough defending and dumbing-down what is too big and more beautiful and embarrassingly limited by our simplest terms and most convenient definitions.

There’s a time and a place for everything, don’t get me wrong. But Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time with plying definitions or playing defense. Maybe he’s doing some of that this morning with Nicodemus, but we also heard him say that he simply spoke about what he knew. That he testified to what he had seen. And it seems to me, Jesus was at his best – most fully, most faithfully, and most loving – when he was doing the work of God – not just defining or describing or defending it.

Jesus created experiences. He told stories. He touched and loved, he held hands and welcomed. He fed and watered, he wined and dined. He walked with people, he worked alongside them, he washed their feet and let them wash his. He prayed and sang and laughed and wept, too.

Which is why this conversation with Nicodemus, under cover of darkness, never seems like enough for me either. I don’t know exactly what Jesus is getting at, of course. I’m just as confused as Nicodemus was about “being born again,” about being “born of the flesh or born of the spirit,” about where the wind comes from or where the heck it goes to next. How can these things be? And what the heaven are you talking about, Jesus?

But Jesus is just getting started, really. He goes on to do some more talking and teaching and theologizing for Nicodemus, and it all ends up with the Son of Man … on the cross … giving it all up for the sake of the world. And that’s that. We don’t really know what happens with Nicodemus. We don’t hear about how they parted ways. Did they hug it out? Did they shake hands? Did they say a prayer? Did they agree to disagree? Whatever the case, I imagine Nicodemus left with his head spinning a bit – still wondering, “How can these things be?”

And we don’t hear much about Nicodemus after this, except in Chapter 7 when he actually stands up for Jesus, in the face of some of his fellow Pharisees. And then Nicodemus shows up one more time, at the end of John’s gospel.

After the crucifixion, which it’s safe to assume he witnessed, it’s Nicodemus who helps anoint Jesus’ body and prepare it for burial. So I suspect his time with Jesus that night in the dark got his wheels spinning enough so that he was willing to get his hands dirty too.

Like all of that talk about being born again, about the wind blowing where it chooses, about the Son of Man ascending and descending, about God so loving the world that he gave his only son … all of that came together for Nicodemus when he saw it come to life – and come to death, as it were – in the flesh of Jesus, himself.

 The words weren’t enough all on their own. The definitions weren’t enough all by themselves. The doctrines of what we believe only go so far and so deep and are rarely enough to speak to everyone in a way that matters.

So for the guy who approached me this week, looking for help for his friend, I gave him my name and number so we might get together and meet. I hope that happens.

For the high school kid wondering if God could ever forgive him or still love him, I reminded him that his mom and dad still did – that they still do – and that they’ve shown him that love over and over and over again – and that God’s love was even bigger and better than that.

And for the woman who cut my hair, I gave her a bigger tip than usual and told her to have a meaningful time remembering and celebrating her sister this weekend.

All that to say, again, I’m convinced we don’t find or understand or experience or share the fullness of God – Father, Son, or Spirit – solely or supremely by wrapping our brains around doctrines and definitions. The Word of God in Christ Jesus comes alive for us when we DO – like Jesus did – the work of loving one another, forgiving one another, creating experiences where grace and generosity and good news live and breathe and move through us in undeniable, abundant, life-giving ways that surprise us and others with God’s presence in all of its forms, and always crucified and risen for the sake of the world.

Amen