Sunday, 6 June, is the first Sunday after Trinity Sunday. The readings are (to read them, go HERE):
1 Samuel 8: 4-11, 12-15, 16-20; 11: 14-15
Psalm 138
2 Corinthians 4:13 – 5:1
Mark 3:20-35
Expectations can get us into trouble. When I meet with couples to help them prepare to get married, the main topic of conversation is expectations. The reason is, people come to a marriage with a set of expectations about how marriage is supposed to work. Often the expectations are unspoken, sometimes they are even unconscious, but they are there nonetheless, and they can rear their ugly heads at the most unfortunate times.
For example, if one person expects that the husband and wife will have a joint bank account, and all their money will be held together, and the other person thinks that they will have my money and your money, then there will be trouble. Or if the couple differs in expectations of how many children to have, who disciplines the children, where and how they will spend their holidays, and who does household chores, again, the couple will have to negotiate or there will be trouble. You get the picture. That is why I talk beforehand with couples about their expectations, to get these out in the open, and to encourage the couple to talk about them between themselves.
Our expectations coming out of Covid-19 lockdown could also get us into trouble. I suppose this is why the City and County Council asked the Bishop that all churches hear the message I read earlier. Be careful of expectations as to how it is supposed to go. We do not know how it will go. We need to be ready to adapt and adjust. Be careful of expectations. Do not let your own spirit be deflated if it does not go as you want and expect.
In two of our readings today, we hear expectations that are going to get people in trouble. Our first reading tells us how Israel ended up with their very first king. They have the prophet Samuel — he is a leader of the people, but not royalty — nothing so prominent or grand. But as he is getting on in years, the people wonder who will lead them next. And they clamor for a king. Samuel tries to warn them: a king will take your sons and daughters, your livestock and your crops, for his own use. Once you have a king, you will not like it.
But they refuse to listen. They want to be like other nations. They want a king to fight their battles. They want a king, it seems, to focus on — someone they think is a superior being. Saul, their first king, is a large man, handsome, a great warrior. But once he is king, he ends up making some horrible decisions and basically falling apart. That’s another story. Over the years and centuries that follow, Samuel’s warning to the people comes true — their expectations of all the glory a king will bring them generally do not bear out in reality, for most of the kings of Israel “do what is evil in the sight of the Lord,” as the Bible repeatedly says.
In the Gospel readings, there is another whole set of expectations going on, about Jesus. This is early in his ministry: we’re only in the third chapter of Mark’s Gospel and only a short time before this Jesus has called the twelve disciples. But already Jesus has caused a scene wherever he goes, healing people of various ailments and casting out evil spirits. And so a crowd is following him.
This does not sit well with some people: namely, the authorities from Jerusalem, for one, and for the other, Jesus’ own family. Well, isn’t that an uncomfortable turn of events. His mother and brothers and sisters are there, and they are trying to keep him from speaking and take him home, because people are saying he’s gone out of his mind. In short, they’re embarrassed by him. He is not behaving as they expect. Perhaps you understand this, in dealings with your own siblings or your own family.
Jesus is not behaving as anyone would expect, for how could anyone expect that a man would come along who could do the things he does and say the things he says, speaking and acting with the authority of God, with people being healed by his touch and evil recoiling in fear and calling him the Holy One of God? No one had expected such a thing. Even those waiting and hoping for the Messiah — such as those scribes, the authorities, theoretically — they were not expecting that the Messiah would behave this way.
And so their expectations are getting them into trouble. Their expectations are making them blind to what is actually happening. They cannot see clearly. Jesus’ family is too embarrassed, and the scribes — religious authorities — are too resentful and suspicious and power-mad to open their eyes to see that Jesus really does have the power of God in him.
And this leads them to commit what Jesus says is the ultimate sin. You heard it: to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus says: “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.”
I often wondered what that meant: to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Here’s what it is: the scribes are accusing Jesus of being possessed by a demon, and that is how he is able to do what he does. But Jesus points out that this cannot be: it would be a house divided against itself, if someone possessed by evil is casting out evil. But the fact that they see what he is doing as coming from Satan means that they are seeing the work of the Holy Spirit — God’s Spirit working in Jesus — as instead the work of the devil. That is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.
Here’s how one author, N. T. Wright, explains it:
“[Jesus’] critics had painted themselves into a corner. Once you label what is in fact the work of the Holy Spirit as the work of the devil, there’s no way back. It’s like holding a conspiracy theory: all the evidence you see will simply confirm your belief. You will be blind to the truth. It isn’t that God gets specially angry with one sin in particular. It’s rather that if you decide firmly that the doctor who is offering to perform a life-saving operation on you is in fact a sadistic murderer, you will never give your consent to the operation.”[1]
Expectations can close our minds to what is really going on. Expectations can prevent us from getting along with other people, from being satisfied with a situation, and from seeing God’s hand at work in our lives.
Instead, keep your hearts and minds on something higher. Remember that God has offered us a life-saving operation through the physician of our souls, Jesus Christ. Be careful of expecting that Jesus cannot do this, be careful of stripping him of God’s power and authority. He offers each of us abundant life.
There’s a paradox in this: We cannot know what will happen in this life, so we can have no material expectations. But we can expect and know that God’s power is in Jesus; we can expect and trust that God cares for us no matter what happens; we can expect and trust that God desires the health and the salvation of our souls.
And so we pray with the psalmist:
“The Lord shall make good his purpose for me;
your loving-kindness, O Lord, endures for ever;
forsake not the work of your hands” [meaning ourselves].
Amen.
[1] N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone, p. 38.