Preached at St Peter’s, Poulshot; St Mary’s, Potterne; and Holy Cross, Seend
Readings – 2 Corinthians 4.13 – 5.1; Mark 3. 20-35
“When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’
Have you ever heard a passage of Scripture and thought to yourself, ‘Jesus could be a bit bonkers, couldn’t he?’ Have you ever formed that thought but immediately suppressed it as un-Christian and maybe a bit blasphemous? It would be understandable to suppress a thought like that.
But, in this morning’s Gospel reading, we find Jesus’ own family – His brothers, His mother who would remain with Him right to the Cross, thinking either that He was nuts, or at least that a mob might do Him harm because they thought He was nuts.
Indeed, in crazy times, it’s the sane people who can seem to be nuts. Jesus lived in crazy times for the Jewish people of the Holy Land. We, too, live in frankly crazy times, as you’ll have noticed if you’ve watched the news recently.
Sensible people want to do the right thing; sensible people want to be good. Doing good is, of course, a very good thing. We all know, however, that none of us is good all of the time.
People who aren’t Christians think the Church is all about doing good; they think it’s an organisation for good people to celebrate and promote goodness in the name of a good holy man called Jesus Christ who lived a long time ago. It’s therefore easily dismissed as irrelevant to people who want to live in the present, and who know they aren’t always good all the time.
The Church too often colludes with this, by constantly trying to justify its existence with good works, as if it were a charity or an NGO. The Church, however, isn’t about goodness, but something far more wonderful – grace. Goodness is something we try to achieve through our own efforts; grace is a gift from God.
Continue reading