How Wide is God’s Circle?

Sunday, June 9, 2024 – Gospel, John 3:1-17. Also Gen 3:8-15, Psalm 130, 2 Corinthians 4:13—5:1, Mark 3:20-35

One of my first jobs when I moved to Marietta, GA after college was in sales. Our product was halon fire extinguishers, and we learned a very impressive way to demonstrate their effectiveness. We used to pour lighter fluid on the top of our hard-shell briefcases, light it up, and then easily zap out the flames with just one spray of the halon. It was as impressive as when the waiters bring the flaming cheese to your table in Greek restaurants, and everyone says “oooh” and then yells “Opa!”

To be successful in sales, you’ve got to be good at cold calling, and that was something I never mastered. But I did finally get a hearing with a priest at a local Catholic church. I made my case for the halon extinguishers, complete with the fiery demo, and he was very impressed and seemed interested in making a purchase. I agreed that he should speak with his fire inspector, and I’d see him again in a week.

When I returned a week later, he accused me of lying to him, as if I had suggested he replace his entire system with what I was selling when I’d just presented it as a supplemental option. He treated me as if I was on a mission to deceive him.

I left that meeting and cried in my car. When I turned on the engine, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was playing on the radio, like a balm for my soul. At that point I knew my career in halon was over, because though I could bear a lot, I couldn’t bear being questioned at the level of my integrity, of my spirit.

Take that feeling and multiply it by 10, and we may have a glimpse into how Jesus felt when he went home after his sold-out preaching and healing tour in the greater Galilee area.

In these early chapters in Mark, we basically see Jesus healing, healing, healing, teaching, healing, healing, healing, calling disciples, healing, healing, healing, teaching, and then going home.

He must have been causing quite a stir because the crowds were so thick around him that he and his disciples couldn’t even sit down and enjoy a meal. And the scribes came all the way from Jerusalem to put a stop to this Jesus business. Jesus was even making his family nervous, because their friends were starting to wag their tongues about him. “What’s gotten into your boy, Mary? I don’t know if you should have let him leave the family business, because it seems he’s getting a little big for his britches out there and saying and doing some crazy things.”

Here he is, making a real difference in people’s lives, healing them from all manner of sufferings, teaching them about the love of God, and what do the scribes say? “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” By the way, Beelzebul or Beelzebub was also referred to as the “Lord of the Flies” and the “Lord of Dung.”

No wonder Jesus got pretty inflamed. They were calling his integrity, his very spirit, into question.

When the scribes accuse Jesus of being a demon, he says, “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.”

In other words, if the fruits of the work are healing and wholeness, then the power that is death and division itself cannot be involved.

As Gabrie’l Atchison writes,

Jesus explains that he is not evil, because evil would not be able to cast out evil without destroying itself.”

Why is it that we humans so often find it hard to celebrate the uniting and inclusive love of the Spirit, but instead would rather accuse and divide?

We certainly see that in both Adam and Eve after their eyes have been opened by the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here comes God, walking in the evening breezes in the Garden, looking for the people he created, and where are they? Hiding because they are naked. God asks them how they even knew they were naked.

In this amazing story, which is not about literal trees and talking snakes, we see beautifully symbolized the tragic tale of what it is to be human. In our beautiful world, every other creature that God created is embedded within the natural world, and their lives are mostly limited to following instinctual behavior. They don’t think about time, or death, or suffer over decision-making.

But humans developed an awareness of separation between self and other and are inherently torn between animal instinct and spirit. We’re always in constant tension within ourselves. In a sense, we are always a house divided against ourselves, and against others. We have this inborn tendency to see blood as thicker than water, and to be suspicious of those who aren’t like us.

That’s what arises after the symbolic eating of the fruit. Our eyes are opened to our naked vulnerability in the world, and we feel we have to hide who we really are to keep ourselves safe, even from God. God sees the situation and asks the humans if they ate of that forbidden fruit. What do they do? They accuse and divide, just like the scribes.

The man says, “that woman, that YOU gave me fed me the fruit,” distancing himself from blame and dividing himself from God and from Eve. God turns to her, and she says, “the serpent tricked me, and I ate,” distancing herself from blame and dividing herself from God and creation. The scribes accuse Jesus of being a demon, and divide themselves from him, from the people, and from God.

And then Jesus’ family – seeking to keep him safe – want to divide him from his people and from his calling.

But Jesus says enough of this accusing and dividing! He shows us that while the spirit of Satan, the Adversary, the Accuser, is all about death and division, the Spirit of God is about whole-making and unification within God’s circle.

As Bruce Epperly writes,

In words that must have hurt his parents, Jesus asserts that his true family is made up of those who follow his pathway. He is claiming that a new kind of community is on the horizon, one that lives in accordance with God’s vision.”

In God’s vision, our focus isn’t only on ourselves and our immediate family. No longer do we pledge our loyalties only to our blood relations. Now our definition of family is expanded to include those to whom we are not related.

God’s circle is always wider than our human minds want it to be.

We keep wanting to make that circle smaller, as Jonah did when God forgave the Ninevites and Jonah got mad. We keep wanting to kick others out of the circle that God keeps drawing wider and wider.

Today, we must recognize God’s circle as wide enough to include even people of other faiths. To include other creatures here on earth. And one day soon, we will be invited to see it expanding even beyond the boundaries of the earth itself to include those who we will one day meet from other galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

The boundary of the grace that we are called to extend is always beyond the horizon we can see, and the more we extend that grace, as Paul writes, the more we increase thanksgiving and the glory of God.

Let’s not be accusers and dividers. Let us be embracers, forgivers, and includers.