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Sunday, June 10, 2012

Crazy Love


A sermon based upon Mark 3: 20-35
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, Pastor
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Pentecost 2,  June 10, 2012

Have you ever been called crazy?  Jesus was.  In today’s text Jesus’ own family said he was “out of his mind?”. 

Many great people have been called “crazy”.   If you do something that is out of the ordinary, that challenges the status quo, or if you have the courage and conviction to step out and challenge the majority’s opinion, you are at risk of being called “crazy”.

But not everyone who is called “crazy” is really crazy.  In history we know of several great people with great minds who were not understood, at least at first, and appeared to be “out of their own minds”.   Think of Galileo, when he first suggested that the earth went around the sun, rather than the sun going around the earth.  When you look at the sky, everyone knows that the sun rises and sets, so it’s the sun moving, right?  Wrong!  Galileo said it was the other way around and people called him crazy.

Another great mind who was called crazy was Einstein.  When he was a child, Einstein’s parents thought he was retarded.   Albert Einstein was a methodical mathematical genius who discovered the theory of relativity.   Einstein came to understand that time and space in the physical world are not absolutes, but relative--- they can change in their relationship to each other.   Think of it like this:  if you are traveling on a train at a fast rate of speed you can still put your hand in your mouth and eat a doughnut slowly.   The train is going sixty, your hand is also doing sixty, but due to relativity of time and space you can put the doughnut in your mouth slowly rather than on your face.   Because of “relativity” the speed of the train doesn’t matter to your mouth, only the speed of your hand which is “relative” to your mouth.   

Of course, this is an over simplification of Einstein’s theory.  What Einstein so brilliantly concluded is that contrary to what we see and think, time and space can change and are relative to each other.  The only absolute in physics is the speed of light, which does not change.   As an object goes into space and speeds up, time slows down.  Doesn’t that sound crazy?  But it’s true and it’s also true that speed of light never slows down.  The speed of light remains constant and absolute.  What does this mean in practicality?   Well, when you are calibrating a clock from a satellite for a GPS system, you must take “relativity” into account because clocks tick slower in space than on earth.   Here, you can also think of a theological implication.  Think of the old gospel songs which says: “In heaven, time does not matter anymore.”   Since time is not eternal, it makes sense that God did not say, “Let time begin,” when he created the world, but God said “Let there be light.”  When God speaks, God speaks is absolutes.  But of course, we can’t always see such things that Einstein saw, and often what we can’t see we call “crazy”.

PEOPLE CALLED JESUS CRAZY
All kinds of brilliant people have challenged our thinking, our ideas, and our ways of doing things, and have been called crazy.  We don’t call them “mad scientists” for nothing.   Jesus joined the brilliant genius minds of the world as he was light years ahead of the religious practice of his own day.  Jesus saw what others could not see.  He was so far ahead the people and the leaders they said he was “possessed with a demon” or had “an unclean, evil spirit” in him.   We even read that Jesus’ own family were so troubled about him that “they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”  (vs. 21).

I learned many years ago, that legally, it’s a very hard thing to prove somebody incompetent.    We had a lady in the community who was about to sell her land at too low a price to someone who was trying to take advantage of her.  It was brought to my attention, and in visiting her, I agreed that she had great difficulty in learning and logic.  So, I decided to invite her to see a social worker so that there could be an evaluation.  Interestingly, when I spoke to the woman alone at home, she could hardly make any sense at all.  But when we visited the Social worker, she answered every question perfectly.  “I’m sorry preacher, but we can’t see any reason at all to suggest that she is incapable of handling her own affairs.”   That was that.   I was the one who looked crazy.

I’m also reminded of that savant named Raymond in the movie Rain man, played by Dustin Hoffman who was thought to be a complete idiot, but he proved to have a mind superior to most everyone else because he remembered everything.  To many people Jesus seemed a crazy man,  but to those who came to understand who he was and what he was doing, Jesus was nothing less than a spiritual and religious genius; and so much more.   Was Jesus “out of his mind”, as his family saw it?  It depends on which way you look at him, doesn’t it?   Remember what the gospel of John says: “He came to his own and his own received him not, but as many as received him, he gave them the power to become children of God” (John 1: 11-12).   Things are not always as they appear.  Appearances can be deceiving.

While on vacation last week, during our devotional time together as a family, my brother-in-law told a moving story of spiritual growth in his own life.  He said he was on a plan with his wife traveling when on the plan he saw a man with dreadlocks and tattoos.  In his mind, he immediately “judged” the man as being less than what a person should be, even though the man was traveling with his wife and beautiful children.   But as my brother-in-law observed the man’s loving nature toward his family, he started to feel convicted of judging him.  While picking up their luggage, he went to the man in dreadlocks to apologize for his prejudice.  That was a “crazy” thing to do for my brother-in-law to do, because the man didn’t even know he was being judged.  But what happened next is really amazing.  The man in dreadlocks said, “Hey, you must be a Christian!”, he told my brother-in-law.  “Well, I’m a Christian too.  Hello, brother!”  Then he continued,  “I’m a Christian who used to be one of the biggest drug lords in the USA, and I’m going to speak at a conference to help others stay away from drugs.”  With this my brother-in-law said, that his whole perception of people and the world was transformed.  Never again, would he judge a person by their looks.  He realized just how “crazy” his attitude had been and how wonderfully and differently “crazy” love can be.

PEOPLE STILL CALL GOD CRAZY
What made Jesus look crazy was not just what he said, and did, but what he was telling us about God.   Jesus told us that God cared more about sinners than saved people.  Jesus told us that God cared more about life Everyday than being Holy on the Sabbath Day.   Jesus also told us that when you really understand the true nature of God and his rule, your whole world will be turned upside down.   Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel described just how “crazy” or differently God thinks about life than we do:  Those who are poor are the most blessed.  Those who are sad will be glad.  Those at their lowest will come out on top.  Those who hunger for God instead of food will be the most satisfied.   And finally, those who are peacemakers will be the most powerful, not those who make and win wars.  All this sounded then, just like it still sounds now, pure-T crazy.    

I would guess that God and his kingdom seems “crazy” to any of us who only look at life as we want to see it.  But let something happen and it all changes.  Bob Buford was a wealthy business man.  He spent the first half of his life aiming for success and he made it.  He thought.  He had money.  He had power.  He had a great family.  By mid-life he had accomplished everything that he had set out to accomplish.  But then a tragic thing happened.  In a tragic accident, his son, the apple of his eye, drowned while swimming in the Rio Grande River.  It should not have happened that way, but it did.  And when it did, Bob’s view of everything changed.  He would give everything away to have his son back.  He was not “hungry” for wealth, power, or prestige, because none of it would bring his son back.  Everything seemed empty, until through a spiritual experience, he found hope in God, and he committed the second half of his life to living and working to make life significant instead of being successful.  Now, he wanted to do things that before he considered “crazy”: reaching out to others instead of thinking about himself; caring about other people’s children, and taking a whole new look at the calling of God and the meaning of life.   Sounds crazy doesn’t it.  But to a man who loses everything it’s the only way to get your sanity back.  When you see life as it really is, Jesus now seems exactly right: in order to keep or save your life, now you have to give your life away.

We read all kinds of crazy things in this Bible of ours.  We read about “Taking up a cross,” “bearing the burdens of others,”, “selling everything and giving it to the poor” or losing your life to save it.   All these very radical ways of saving your life sound “crazy ” to a person who thinks they have, or can have everything; mistakenly thinking that in life, they have taken the proverbial “bull of life by the horns”.  But let that “bull” throw you off.   Let your life take an unexpected turn, and you may find that the very crazy ways of God are the only true ways you can find or regain your sanity in this world that can be so insane.   Jesus and Paul were both right when they suggested that ‘only the “craziness” and “foolishness” of God” can counter the craziness and foolishness of this world.   

HOW CRAZY WILL YOU BECOME?
There is no doubt that the way of Jesus seemed crazy to people then just as the work and way of God still seems crazy to many today.  But what about us?  Are we “crazy” enough to follow Jesus today?  

Some years ago, C.S. Lewis wrote some arresting and now famous words when he said: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic---on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg---or he would be a liar---the very Devil of Hell.  With Jesus you must always make a choice.  Either this man was, and is the Son of God, or he is a madman or something worse.”   The point Lewis makes is crystal clear: You can’t say Jesus was good unless you also say he is God.  You can’t say Jesus is bad unless you also make him a devil.  With Jesus you have to dive in all the way; you just can’t say nothing, and you just can’t say something.  You have to make God everything or he means nothing.  You have to love God with your whole heart, or you will not love him at all.

This is exactly what is happening in our text.  The religious leaders who opposed Jesus are saying something, but it’s the wrong thing.  They are saying Jesus has the devil in him.  They cannot love Jesus.   They cannot love what Jesus is doing.   Jesus’ family does love Jesus, but can’t understand what he is doing, so they say he is beside himself.   They are probably trying to protect him, like making the plea of insanity in court.   But the critical point we come to face in this text is not about how they reacted to Jesus, but it’s about how we react and respond to Jesus today.  The seriousness of the matter surfaces in this text with Jesus’ mention of the “unpardonable” sin. 

This “unforgiveable sin” is also known as the “sin against the holy Spirit”.  Jesus says that “all sins can be forgiven, but whoever sins against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, they are guilty of an eternal sin.”   What is this “eternal, unforgiveable sin?”   In this story, it is obviously about making the wrong decision about what God is doing through Jesus.   When people miss the true Spirit of love in Jesus, they sin against God’s spirit.   That's very dangerous.  The great prophet Isaiah once explained the heart of Israel’s sin as the people calingl good evil, and evil good”.    This is the same point Jesus seems to be making about the unforgiveable sin.   It is unforgiveable to say that love is wrong.  When Jesus tried to lead people in the new ways of understanding God’s love--- loving sinners and loving the hurting and helpless---- the religious leaders declared Jesus “demonic”.  In this way, they were calling the “good” and loving deeds of Jesus, “evil”.  But worse than that; they were also calling the “evil” and the lack of love they had, as doing “good”.   This is the kind of spiritual “insanity” that becomes impossible to forgive.  

This is a dangerous place to be, to be in danger, as the old preachers used to say, of sinning away our day of God’s love and grace?   But the good news is that Jesus came to save people from this unpardonable, unforgivable sin---the sin of not being able to love.   This is exactly the kind of “craziness” God’s love is about. We can see God’s salvation of teaching us a new way to learn love in how Jesus reacts to his own family.   To his own family and also to us, Jesus offers a new family who learn God’s love by doing God’s will.  “Who is my family? Jesus asks.  Then he answers his own question:  My mother and brothers and sisters are those who do the will of God.”   Only by seeking God’s will do we come to know God’s love so we be saved both “from” and “through” our families.   This is how we get to be called the “children of God.”  When we learn to love as God’s loves, everything changes.

Have you ever seen what happens to people when they are around a little baby?   Last week we spent a week with the “new baby” in our family.  All of us went up to that baby making funny, crazy sounds and faces.  It all looked so ridiculous, so crazy, unless you understood the language and meaning of love.   Love can change us so much we might even appear to be “out of our minds” when we practice the kind of love that is out of this world.  It is this “crazy” kind of love that we must not reject and not neglect, but must learn to practice as well as preach, if we want to be saved from this maddening, insane world of hate, guilt, blame and shame.  Only God’s crazy love can keep us from the unforgiveable--- the sin of being unable to love.  Amen.   

 © 2012 All rights reserved Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Min.

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