A House Divided

I Samuel 8:4-20/Mark 3:20-35

June 9, 2024

 

            Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

            That’s a phrase I didn’t understand as a child. Why would I ever want to be careful what I wish for? Why would I ever not want to get what I wish for? But then I read books like Freaky Friday, do you remember that one? It’s where a mother and a daughter switch bodies but stay themselves on the inside. The daughter wishes she had her mom’s life, because her mom is an adult and has no problems and everything is so much easier when you’re grown up, while her life as a young teenager is completely untenable.

On one fateful and freaky Friday, the daughter wakes up as herself but in her mother’s body, and the mother does the same. The whole premise of the book is the daughter trying to navigate the world as her mom and realizing that being an adult with responsibilities is not as easy as it looks. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. 

Like I said, as a child I didn’t understand this phrase … until I did. Until some of the things I wished for happened, and while getting what I wished for wasn’t bad per se, getting what I wished for also didn’t make my life perfect or easier or magically change the way things were.

It seems to me that the underlying theme in our passages today is “be careful what you wish for”. The elders of Israel go to Samuel and ask him, demand him really, to appoint a king. As one commentator wrote, Samuel was a wise and good prophet, a wise and good leader … until he wasn’t. And the wasn’t is described in the first sentences of chapter 8. Sentences that the lectionary left out. These first three sentences set the scene by telling the reader that when Samuel was old, he appointed his two sons as judges over Israel. But Samuel’s sons are not like Samuel. They are not wise. They are not good leaders. They are not good judges for or of the people.

If you remember the beginnings of Samuel’s story, he was called by God as a young boy when he was serving the priest, Eli. Eli also had two sons, who did not follow in their father’s footsteps when it came to leading and serving God and God’s people. They were corrupt and inept. The first word from the Lord that Samuel received was to tell Eli that he would bear the consequences of his sons’ bad judgment. Now it seems that Samuel is experiencing the same dilemma. Samuel is a human being after all, and appointing his sons to be judges reveals that as a human he can make mistakes just like all humans do. And the Israelites, humans as well are about to make a big mistake.

They want a king. They don’t want Samuel’s sons to lead. Instead they want a king. They want a monarch, forgetting, it would seem, that the monarchy passes on from father to son as well. But the people have spoken. Samuel prays to God about it, and God responds by telling Samuel that the people are not rejecting Samuel. They are rejecting God. They don’t trust God, not really. They did this when God led them through the wilderness. Life got hard and they wanted to go back to Egypt. Why did God lead them away from the devastation of slavery only to let them starve in the wilderness? They didn’t trust God then. They don’t trust God now. They were not rejecting Samuel by asking for a king, they were rejecting God.

God instructs Samuel to warn the people about what life under the rule of a king will really be like. And Samuel tries.

“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 he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers.”

            He will take, and he will take, and he will take. The list Samel gives them goes on and on. It sounds horrible, doesn’t it? The consequences of having a king sound much worse than not having one, but the people don’t care. They want to be like other nations. They’re like children who want what the other kids have. All the other nations have kings, why can’t we?! They want a king to fight their battles for them. They want a king to solve their problems for them. And in the end, God gives them what they wish for. God gives them a king. Saul becomes their first king, and it does not end well. Some might say that it’s an unmitigated disaster. But that’s a story for another sermon.

            Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

            The monarchy eventually leads to exile. And when exile ends, occupation by Rome begins. The people turned their hope toward one greater than a king – a Messiah. But just like their desire for a king, they don’t know what they wish for. And many do not recognize the messiah when he stands right in front of them.

            Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus has gone home. Just before he returns home, he has called all twelve of his disciples. Not only has he called them to proclaim the good news of God, the message that the kingdom of God is now in their midst, he has also given them authority to cast out demons. Exorcising demons is a big deal in Mark’s gospel, so the disciples being given this authority is also a big deal. And now he returns to his hometown. If Jesus expected his homecoming to be warm and welcoming, he was wrong.

            The growing crowd of people following Jesus does not dissipate when he goes home. They show up there too. That must have been unsettling for the people who knew Jesus when. It’s one thing to have this carpenter’s son come back home with twelve of his friends. But to have hordes of people following him? That’s too much. And this crowd of folks seems to think that Jesus can actually heal people! They think he can cast out demons! What?!

            Obviously this hometown boy has gone off the rails. His family heard about this, and they go to Jesus and try to stop him. The text says they try to restrain him. I don’t know if Mark means they used a literal restraint or a verbal one, but either way, his family wants him to stop doing and saying what he’s doing and saying.

            The scribes from Jerusalem have also followed Jesus, but not because they’re fans. They stir up the opposition to this hometown boy even more, saying that he has Beelzebul, and that he casts out demons through the power of the ruler of the demons.

            But Jesus turns this claim completely on its head and shows it to be ridiculous.

            “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.”

            I must admit to you all that I was an adult before I realized that Abraham Lincoln was quoting scripture when he spoke these words. But he was and this is the scripture. A house divided against itself cannot stand. If I am Satan, why would I cast out Satan? If the ruler of the demons had power over me, then I wouldn’t be casting out demons. You refuse to see what is right in front of you. You cannot recognize what is holy in your midst. And blaspheming against what is holy is going to land you in an eternal world of hurt.

            It is at this moment that Jesus’ family comes back into the narrative. Jesus is surrounded by the crowd, the crowd of believers, the crowd of those who are hungry for the Word of God, the crowd of people who may be outsiders in every other context, in every other part of their lives. And as Jesus is surrounded by these people, someone tells him that his mother and brothers and sisters are outside. They want to talk to him. I suspect that they want to stop him from getting into any more trouble, from bringing anymore attention to himself – and to them. I suspect they don’t want to be known as the family of this man that the scribes believe to be ruled by the ruler of demons.

            But Jesus does not bow to their desires. Instead he says words that sound harsh, that are harsh.

            “Who are my mother and my brothers?” “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.”

            Yes, these words are harsh, and there is a part of me that wants Jesus to soften them, to at least go out and hug his mother, acknowledge his family. But maybe this is also a matter of being careful what you wish for. You wished and prayed and hoped for the messiah. You wished and prayed and hoped for God to hear you, to come to you. But when God comes, everything gets turned upside down. What is outside becomes inside, what is inside becomes out. Boundaries are redrawn. Even familial boundaries are changed. And none of it is easy. But it comes back to trust, doesn’t it? The people trusted their inclinations for a king far more than they trusted God. They thought a worldly leader would save them, but no leader of this world can. And the people who thought they knew best, who believed they understood God and the Law and their place in the world did not trust that God was bigger than the box they put him in, that the messiah would be not the one they constructed. They could not trust what their eyes saw, and their hearts knew; this Jesus was more than they could know or comprehend.

            What exactly are we wishing for, praying for, hoping for in our church, in our community, in our country? Even more than that, who is that we trust? Do we trust God? Do we really trust God? Or is our trust misplaced and misdirected?

            I think the good news of these stories probably doesn’t feel like good news at first. I think that the good news is that sometimes God gives us exactly what we wish for, not so that we can fail or fall, but so that we can understand a little better that being faithful requires that we trust in God more. Being faithful requires that we trust in God more. Trust. In. God. More. Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.