MARK 3:20-35

[20] Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat.

[21] And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”

[22] And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.”

[23] And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan?

[24] If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

[25] And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

[26] And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end.

[27] But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.

[28] “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter,

[29] but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—

[30] for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

[31] And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him.

[32] And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.”

[33] And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

[34] And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!

[35] For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

The devil made me do it.   Do you remember who used to say that?  Here’s a hint. He was a comedian who for a while had his own variety show.  It was Flip Wilson.  Flip Wilson used to dress up as a woman named Geraldine and when Geraldine did something naughty or risqué Flip would chortle and say, “The devil made me do it.”

I thought about Flip as I pondered what happened when the scribes came down from Jerusalem to challenge Jesus.   They accused Jesus of being in cahoots with Satan.  Listen again to what they said.  They said, “He is possessed” and “by the prince of demons he casts out  the demons.”  Jesus defended himself and said that their accusation didn’t make any sense at all.  If what they were saying was true then it meant that he was healing people by using Satan to cast out Satan.   Jesus then uttered those famous words that Abraham Lincoln quoted many years later, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

When you look at what happened that day one thing is clear.  Jesus believed that Satan is real.  That shouldn’t come as a surprise.  That’s because Jesus talked about Satan on several occasions.  When he was being tempted out in the wilderness Jesus said, “Be gone Satan! For it is written ‘You shall worship the You’re your God and him only shall you serve.”  (Matthew 4:10) When Peter tried to keep him from going to the Cross Jesus said, “Get behind me Satan…for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”  (Matthew 16:23) On another occasion Jesus said that he saw, “Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”  (Luke 10:18)

So here’s a question for you.  If Jesus believed that Satan is real shouldn’t we also believe that he’s real?  Now that doesn’t mean you have to believe that there’s a guy in a red suit running around out there with a pointy tail and a pitch fork.  It just means that you believe that there is a force of evil at work in the world.  

If there isn’t a force of evil at work in the world, then how do you explain the Crucifixion?  How do you explain the Holocaust?  The execution of God’s only begotten Son was evil.  The death of 8 million Jews in the concentration camps was evil.  September 11^th was evil.  What’s happening today in Syria is evil.  It’s also important to note that thousands of people don’t have to die for something to be evil.   What happened to James Byrd back in 1998 was evil.   You may remember that he was the black man down in Texas who was tied up and dragged behind a pickup truck until his body literally fell apart.   What happened to Matthew Shepherd was also evil.   You may remember that he was the young gay man who was tied to a fence out in Wyoming and then after being beaten to a bloody pulp was left there to die.   

Evil is very real and it can suck you in if you’re not careful.   Just look at what happened to Mary.  Now Mary was a good person, right? She was, after all, the virgin who gave birth to God’s only begotten Son.  So, yes, Mary was a good person but she was a good person who listened to the evil voices around her. Mary listened to all of the evil voices around her and decided that Jesus really was possessed by an evil spirit. That’s why she and her other sons were there that day.  She was there to bring Jesus home whether he liked it or not.  She was there to keep Jesus from doing what God wanted him to do..

That’s what scares me.  When you look at Mary it makes you realize how easy it is to get tangled up in evil thoughts and deeds.   I see it happening today. You see it in the hate filled words on talk radio.  You see it in gang violence that is claiming the lives of more and more young people.  That shouldn’t come as a surprise though.  Just look at the popularity of Grand Theft Auto.  That’s a video game where you get points for shooting people, stealing cars, running down police officers and soliciting prostitutes.   I wish I could say that Grand Theft Auto was a flop, but it wasn’t.  When the video game first came out Take-Two, the company that makes the video game, saw cash registers quickly ring up $500 million dollars in sales.   Now I may be crazy but something is seriously wrong when a company can make millions of dollars on a game that promotes death and destruction.  What makes it even scarier is that the company calls it harmless entertainment.  Now that’s evil.  It sounds a lot like the tobacco companies that for decades insisted that cigarette smoking doesn’t cause cancer.  That’s the thing.  Evil is subtle and wears many disguises.

You can see the evil in the growing hatred toward immigrants and the prevalence of promiscuous programming on television.  You see it Terry Jones’ latest stunt at his church down in Florida.  You may remember that he’s the pastor who created all that controversy last year by threatening to burn a Koran. Well now he’s got an effigy of President Obama hanging on the lawn in front of his church.  Evil is when you take something bad and try to make it look like it’s really something godly and good.

We’re slipping deeper and deeper into the clutches of  evil but all is not lost.   There is hope. The answer to all this evil can be found in some words of wisdom that a Cherokee Indian shared one day with his grandson.  One day the boy said, “Grandfather I feel that there are two wolves in my head and they’re fighting.  One is evil.  He is anger, envy, greed, arrogance, ego and full of lies.   The other is good.  He is peace, love, hope, humility, generosity, truth and compassion.”  The old Indian nodded his head and said,  “I know those two wolves well.” “Yes,” the boy said “but grandfather, which wolf will win?”  The old Indian smiled and simply said, “The one you feed.”

As people of faith the only way we can defeat the evil that is seeping deeper and deeper into our society is by feeding the good in us and in others.   That’s what the Apostle Paul meant when he said, “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.”  (Romans 12:21)   That’s what Jesus was getting at when he said that his family included the people in that house. Jesus said,  “whoever does the will of God…is my brother and sister and mother.”

You can’t defeat evil by fighting fire with fire.  You can’t defeat evil by bombarding it with hateful words.  You can’t defeat evil by trying to kill it with vengeance and violence.   As soon as you do that evil wins.   “…whoever does the will of God…is my brother and sister and mother.”

Nelson Mandela learned that when he was released from prison.  He shared the insight years later in a conversation that he had with former President Clinton.  Clinton said that when Mandela was released from prison he woke his daughter up at 3 o’clock in the morning because he said, “I wanted her to see this historic event." He then asked Nelson Mandela a pointed question. "As you marched from the cellblock across the yard to the gate of the prison, the camera focused in on your face. I have never seen such anger, and even hatred, in any man as was expressed on your face at that time. That's not the Nelson Mandela I know today. What was that about?"  Mandela answered, "I'm surprised that you saw that, and I regret that the cameras caught my anger. As I walked across the courtyard that day I thought to myself, ‘They've taken everything from you that matters. Your cause is dead. Your family is gone. Your friends have been killed. Now they're releasing you, but there's nothing left for you out there.' And I hated them for what they had taken from me. Then, I sensed an inner voice saying to me, ‘Nelson! For twenty-seven years you were their prisoner, but you were always a free man! Don't allow them to make you into a free man, only to turn you into their prisoner!”

Because he listened to that inner voice Nelson Mandela was able to triumph over the evils of apartheid.  When he became president of South Africa he could have had his revenge. Instead of doing that though he continued to listen to that inner voice and his presidency brought about reconciliation and redemption. 

Evil is very real and I fear that we as a people are now standing on the edge of a cliff.  Evil is trying to push us over the edge of that cliff but it won’t succeed.  It won’t succeed if enough of us listen to the voice of God’s only begotten Son.   “…whoever does the will of God…is my brother and sister and mother.” Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes                                                                            June 10, 2012