3rd Sunday after Pentecost
1 Samuel 8.4-20; 11.14-15
Psalm 138
2 Corinthians 4.13-5.1
Mark 3:20-35
Sunday 9 June 2024
©Suzanne Grimmett
What is unforgivable?
I spent some of my leave attending some training in Restorative Practices entitled, “Setting Relations Right”. These practices are more a principle for living than a program, drawing a practitioner to recognise the essential relationality of truth and our need of one another’s perspectives, gifts and insights if there is to be justice and peace. They do involve bringing together those who have done harm with those who have been harmed, but the circles also extend to families and systems. It is a process which vests power not in laws and leaders but in humanity itself, and humanity’s capacity to own the truth, recognise our interdependence and bring healing.
The process does open up big questions about forgiveness; when and how it should be extended, what part it plays in healing, and what, if anything, cannot be forgiven. Today’s Gospel reading includes the very troubling idea of an unforgivable sin. As a young woman I remember being troubled by this and asking a friend whom I thought knowledgeable about it. His response was that if you are worried about whether you have committed the sin against the Holy Spirit, you won’t have committed it. I found that response somewhat comforting, but also a bit unsatisfying. What actually was this sin, anyway?
I think we are right to find this text troubling. The scribes in the gathering suggest Jesus performs miracles by the power of the ruler of demons…that what is good and true and evidence of the close and intimate presence of the Spirit is in fact, evil. The coming of God amongst them they have declared to be demonic and this sets them on the path that ends with the Christ of God crucified. The text makes clear that the ones who really were blaspheming were those who could not see the presence of the Divine in Jesus.
Jesus was a prophet in the history and tradition of those great disturbers of the status quo and provokers of the comfortable -the Hebrew prophets. We should not be surprised then that there are echoes of his meaning about blasphemy being the renaming of God’s goodness as evil, in the prophet Isaiah;
Ah, (woe to) you who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)
Woe indeed, when we can trace down human history times when ordinary people did terribly evil things because those in power or influence made it sound as if such deeds of violence were necessary, right or even good. We do not even need to look to history but can point to terrible events across the globe today, and to the way popular media promotes extreme ideological positions that lead to hatred and violence. When we make that which is true and good appear evil, and evil seem right and desirable, we also set in train events for which there will be consequences. In the text from 1 Samuel today we hear the prophet explaining the consequences of the people of God demanding a king of dominating power to rule over them.
These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots.. and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.’
The desire for a ruler of dominant power led the people of God to the natural consequences of such politics. Centuries later Jesus predicted the terrible destruction of Jerusalem, the temple and its peoples that would follow the violent revolution against Rome, calling instead to his disciples to follow him in the way of truth and nonviolence. Mark’s Gospel was likely written at around the time of this terrible cataclysm. Brian McLaren argues that today, the Spirit is present in calls to “turn from racism, ecological destruction, greed, carelessness toward our poor and vulnerable neighbours, dependence on weapons for peace, and abdication of personal responsibility.”[1] Woe indeed to humanity if we cannot recognise the Spirit’s presence in these calls to turn and change direction.
But there seems to be a tension here between personal responsibility and radical grace, or perhaps a question to be asked about the place of mercy as we endure the natural consequences of our actions. Can we find ourselves abandoned in a place where there is no forgiveness? As is so often true, the Spirit points us to a third way, and one which might be recognised the in theme of family which brackets the gospel text.
Who is our family? Jesus’ family appear to attempting to control his speech and behaviour, perhaps trying to restrain him for fear of where such teachings would take him- a fear that would turn out to be entirely justified! This does not seem to constitute an unforgivable sin, despite their blindness. Neither were authorities in Jesus’ time evil- any more than many in our time. The scribes and teachers of the law were no doubt dedicated to their religion and their people. How then, if these can fail to recognise that the kingdom of God had come amongst them, are we to be any more alert?
As the cries of blasphemy grow and the crowd turns hostile, we know this denial of God’s presence results in a crucified Messiah. Perhaps in sensing the power of grace it is understandable that the church has been tempted to see in the cross a simplistic answer to our predicament – we are let off the hook! Yet such a theology fails to acknowledge the serious nature of the violation that calls the goodness of God evil, and evil good. Something deeper is happening here that requires great love, courage….and our participation. Jesus does reject the authority of both family and religious leaders as they attempt to silence him, but he also points to the gathered crowd and where new life is to be found. All those gathered there, (so many of whom are the marginalised and outcast), are told they are now the family of God- “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Rather than vesting power in institutions, or the law or political or familial hierarchies, abundant life and new beginnings are found in the love of God who meets us in our brokenness and failure. In their desire for grace and hunger for healing, this gathered crowd knows what it is to be forgiven and drawn into the beloved community, a community which discovers that the truth will set them free.
Rowan Williams uses these words to explain how this works;
Forgiveness is the exchange of the bread of life and the bread of truth; it is the way in which those who have damaged each other’s humanity and denied its dignity are brought back into a relation where each feeds the other and nurtures their dignity.[2]
These words express perfectly what I found in the processes of Restorative Practice- truth telling, an honouring of human dignity, and a commitment to relationship and restoration.
So maybe in some ways my friend was right in saying that if you are worried you have committed the sin against the Holy Spirit, you haven’t. It is when we are proud and confident in our own self-righteousness that we cannot experience forgiveness. It is our self-sufficiency and self-assurance that resists the work of the Spirit, and our hunger and need which opens us to the mercy of God. And once you have received mercy, it is a natural impulse to hand it on to others, as an outflowing of grace received. Christ, in representing prideful, hurting humanity on the cross, makes a way where instead of being let off the hook, we are hooked into a new family of God, drawn into the divine relationship. In the love of the triune God and in the gentle company of others open to such grace we gather the courage to tell the truth and find in the taking up of human responsibility the possibility of new beginnings. Ultimately, we can surrender our lives to rulers and kings or to the lure of self-sufficient wealth, influence or power…or we can open ourselves to the giving and receiving of mercy in the beloved community made possible in Christ. We cannot do both. But it is through allowing ourselves to be drawn by Christ into communion with God and one another that the impossible becomes possible, the unforgivable forgiven, and the power of love remakes the world.
+Amen.
[1] https://brianmclaren.net/q-r-unforgivable/
[2] https://eerdword.com/rowan-williams-the-bread-of-forgiveness/