Mark 3:20-35
[Jesus went home;] and the crowd came together again, so that [Jesus and the disciples] 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.”
----
We’ve spent the last two weeks in worship trying to wrap our heads and hearts around the mysterious, multi-faceted, invisible but ever-present thing that we call the Holy Spirit.
We have received the Holy Spirit in images: tongues of fire, doves descending from heaven, wind that blows wherever it chooses. We’ve learned about the Spirit in proper nouns: the Comforter, the Advocate, the Paraclete.
But I suspect that most of us, in our day-to-day lives, struggle to articulate what the Holy Spirit actually is and what the Holy Spirit actually does and what the Holy Spirit actually feels like.
Today, our readings invite us to consider one place where the Spirit meets us head on, and that is in the work of discernment.
Discernment is a big, fancy word for those times when we need God’s intervention to help figure something out. And usually, it’s when we’re trying to figure out something deep, big, or important.
We don’t usually use the word “discernment” and invoke the Spirit to decide what to eat for dinner. But when it comes to dealing with big medical decisions, changes to our career paths, or major shifts in our worldview—anytime we seek to make a choice according to a deeper sense of call, purpose, and spiritual affirmation—this is the work of discernment. Discernment is word for when we recognize that need something beyond ourselves to show us the way forward.
The role of the Spirit in discernment is both to unsettle us and then to resettle us.
In our gospel reading today, Jesus says, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” He says this to describe the cosmic spiritual battle between good and evil. But he also says this to describe the awkward, divided situation in which he finds himself here in his hometown.
He is stuck between the rock, the river, and the hard place of family expectations, socio-religious expectations, and the work that God has put it on his heart to do in the world.
His family of origin has begun to feel uncomfortable with reputation he’s starting to get because of the exorcisms he’s been performing and the apocalyptic things he’s been teaching. His family wants to tone him down and rein him in.
Meanwhile, the religious authorities are just as unsettled by the work Jesus is doing, and they try to maintain some control over things by attempting to delegitimize his ministry and shut down his work and regain some sense of order.
Jesus is, himself, a house divided. His heart is calling him into risky and perhaps eccentric endeavors - healings and exorcisms and new teachings and throwing around forgiveness left and right. But this puts him at odds with the family and the faith that formed him.
Jesus is at a place of division and decision. Does he fall back into societal norms? Does he go back home? Or does he continue the walk the path of the kingdom?
Whenever we, too, are in a place of division and decision, this is our place of discernment. When we feel like a house divided within ourselves, when we feel out of sync with ourselves or our world, and when our brains and hearts start butting heads, we need the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to move us forward, out of division and into new wholeness.
Abraham Lincoln quoted this “house divided” scripture in a speech given in June 1858, against white politicians who would compromise on slavery rather than work to abolish it. He said, “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free…It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it…or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new-North as well as South.”
His words ring true still today as we remain yet divided over issues of race and racial justice; there is discernment and reckoning ahead for us. Not just race. Immigration. Wealth disparity. Capital punishment. Healthcare. Equal rights and protections for all gender expressions and sexual identities. Erasing the stigma of talking about mental health. Matters of faith and theology. Figuring out who you should be in the world and for the world.
Pick your friction. All of these make us houses divided, in our hearts, and in our world. All of them push us to the work of continued discernment, both individual and communal. All of them require us to do deep, Spirit-led work, because these things might drive us beyond our former loyalties, ask us to give up our old ways of being, or have a serious impact on our relationships and reputations.
I have my own stories of how my heart and my brain and the lessons of my church upbringing battled fiercely over women’s ordination and affirmation of LGBTQ persons; the way my family loyalties and political loyalties and faith all struggled to make sense of race protests in Ferguson while also being the daughter of a police chief; the divided self that applied to PhD programs during her internship year because she couldn’t fully understand her calling to parish ministry; the divided self nine years ago that deeply loved the first congregation I served but also felt called to ministry here to Decorah.
I say this not to pretend that I am a master at discernment; not hardly! I say this simply to put myself out there in solidarity with everyone who has battled within themselves and been forced to rely on the Spirit’s leading to make any sort of way in the wilderness. I am able to recognize, in retrospect, that the times I’ve feel most divided and disquieted within myself are also the times when deepest discernment has happened and deepest personal and spiritual growth has taken place.
The first step in discernment is to recognize the struggle. To notice that you feel divided. To name the friction within your heart. And to begin viewing that friction as the prodding of the Spirit.
The next steps in discernment vary.
There will be times of intense listening, both listening to God in the silence of prayer, and listening to trusted voices around you; listening to the voices that often go unheard, listening to the witness of nature, listening to coincidences and patterns emerging around you.
There may be times of anger or weeping, and times of feeling helpless, and times of wanting simply to disappear into a hole in the ground. Maybe there will be moments of joy. More often, it will feel like hard work.
Sometimes discernment results in skies opening up, the voice of God speaking to your heart, and a feeling of absolute confidence and peace about the next step in your journey washing over you in a warm glow of light.
This rarely happens.
More often, you will come to a point in your discernment where you feel resolve or resignation, a place where you’ve noticed some patterns, a place where you’ve weighed all the evidence, a place where you don’t have a full picture of what’s next, but you know that you can stand still no longer…and then you take a leap of faith. And you trust that the Spirit who stirred up all this stuff in you heart in the first place is the Spirit is going to catch you mid-air.
Often, everything does become clear...but only in time, looking backwards.
This is the work of Holy Spirit. The Spirit stirs us all up inside, divides us up and puts us back together, nudges us, and whispers the way forward.
I want to share with you an extended passage from John O’Donohue’s book, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. He writes:
“Somewhere in every heart there is a discerning voice. This voice distrusts the status quo. It sounds out the falsity in things and encourages dissent from the images things tend to assume. It underlines the secret crevices where the surface has become strained. It advises distance and opens up a new perspective through which the concealed meaning of a situation might emerge…Its intention is to keep the heart clean and clear. This voice is an inner whisper not obvious or known to others outside..Yet much depends on that small voice. The truth of its whisper marks the line between honor and egoism, kindness and chaos. In extreme situations, which have been emptied of all shelter and tenderness, that small voice whispers from somewhere beyond and encourages the heart to hold out for dignity, respect, beauty and love. That whisper brings forgotten nobility into an arena where violence has traduced everything. This faithful voice can illuminate the dark lands of despair. It becomes both the sign and presence of a transcendence that no force or horror can extinguish. Each day in the world, in the prisons, hospitals and killing fields, against all the odds, this still, small voice continues to echo the beauty of the human being. In haunted places this voice carries the light of beauty like a magical lantern to transform desolation, to remind us that regardless of what may be wrenched from us, there is a dignity and hope that we do not have to lose. This voice brings us directly into contact with the inalienable presence of beauty in the soul.”
Let this be your encouragement today.
Where are you feeling divided amongst your self?
Where are you feeling at odds with the world?
Where are you feeling friction between your brain and heart?
Where are you feeling disconcerted, because there’s something “next” out there, but it hasn’t taken shape just yet?
In the struggle, there is the Spirit. And in the struggle, there is a way forward. In the struggle, there is beauty in the soul. And in the struggle, there is whisper of a voice calling to you, giving you what you need to take the step, move the mountain, and draw deeper into God’s future.
St. Ignatius Loyola said, ”Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to God's deepening life in me.”
May you not remain divided forever, dear ones. May you feel God’s deepening life in you as the Spirit continues to challenge you, shape you, deconstruct you, and build you up again. May this process cause you to ever more faithfully reflect the image of God in you. May you carry your belovedness into this world for the sake of beauty, hope, and all that is true.