Madness, Faustian Bargain, or Will of God?

2 Pentecost  Cycle B  proper 5 June 10, 2012  

Psalm 130     Genesis 3:8-15
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1   Mark 3:20-35

Lectionary Link

  The Bible is a collection of writings that spans many hundreds of years and these writings record the inspired attempts of people to find meaning in life.  And there are all sorts of attempts at finding meaning in the Bible and the writings comprise a variety of discourses and modes of presentation to arrive at meanings.

  One of the questions of meaning that we ask endlessly and often in futility, is “Why?”  We ask this question about the motivation for human behavior.  The Garden of Eden story tries to give an answer.  Why do we misbehave?  Well the devil made me do it, or more specific to the Genesis story of origins, “The serpent made me do it.”

  The Bible represents in writing the attempt to give sweeping cosmic and theological explanations for the cause of human behavior.  On the other side of the continuum is science that wants to provide a scientific law to explain, not cosmic behavior but very specific cause and effect patterns in specific chains of events. Scientists want to chart a reliability and a consistency in behavior of all things in the natural world and we depend upon that consistency.

  In the human realm we cannot always depend upon reliability and consistency in human behavior unless we can say that the fickleness of human desire is consistent in throwing a wrench into the works to wreak havoc on human success.

  One of the causal mysteries of humanity involves speculation about human genius.  The world’s most incredible people are often the reformers who initiate a new order, a new paradigm and a new way to see and interpret life.

  Most often these reformers are controversial in their own time, even rejected or killed.  How many starving artists’ paintings are now sold for millions of dollars?  Aquinas, Luther and many other religious reformers were rejected or persecuted in their own time.  What happened to the Archbishop who wrote the First Book of Common Prayer?  He was burnt at the stake.  Our liturgy was written by one who was regarded to be a severe threat to the order of religious life in England by people who had the power to remove him from life.

  Killing geniuses and reformers out of this life is what the powers of the old order do when they feel threatened.  Along with killing reformers out of this life, they also kill them, not so softly with their words, their horrible words.

  And what were the killing words that were uttered by the opponents of Jesus of Nazareth and even by his family?

  Some of the family of Jesus said that Jesus was behaving the way he did because he was mad.  The “mad genius” motif was not meant to be flattering.  When his family were confronted to explain the behavior of Jesus, they perhaps were a bit flustered and at loss for words.  How come Joe and Mary’s boy is so different from others?  How did you raise him?  Does he reflect your family values?  What’s wrong with him?  How come he’s not like you or the rest of us?   Well, he must be “mad.”  His mind has left the accepted modes of the thinking patterns of our community and so he has “lost his mind,” and this answer seemed to be an easier one than saying, “he has left the clichés and standard ways of thinking of his community of birth.”  Jesus challenged the thinking of his days and so either he was in a new “soundness of mind” or he was mad.   Jesus did not get much respect from the family and associates who used the “madness” explanation to explain why he was different.

  Another causal answer for genius might be called the “Faustian” bargain.  This bargain has definition from the Germanic legend which was reworked in the famous writing of Goethe.  Faust makes a pact with the devil’s representative for unlimited knowledge and pleasure and gives his soul to the devil in exchange.  Often genius is explained as a Faustian bargain; some claimed that the famous violinist Paganini attained his virtuosity through a pact with the devil.

  How did Jesus whisper people whose minds had been wrecked by the diabolic forces of unclean spirits?  Some said that Jesus could only do that by making a pact with the chief of diabolic forces, even Beelzebul himself.  Why would the “Lord of the Flies” want to get rid of all of those interior pestering flies torturing the interior wounds of people to afflict them?

  The early Christian community believed it to be quite unforgivable to blaspheme the Spirit of such a healing work by calling it demonic.  Jesus whispered people through a Holy and Clean Spirit and he presented tortured souls a free choice to become rid of forces that had come to determine the inner lives of people.

  The breath of the whispering physician Jesus was a clean and Holy Spirit that brought interior health to his needy patients.  To attribute such good health to the work of evil forces was so distorted it only deserved the designation of being, “eternally unforgivable.”  And of course, something is only eternally unforgivable until it becomes eternally forgivable through repentance and amendment of life and restoration to being able to call good, what is truly good.  And what is truly good is a healthy untortured and peaceful mind.

  The Gospel for today ends with one of those enigmatic family value statements of Jesus: 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."

  The natural order and one’s natural family can sometimes be in competition with the “will of God.”  The early followers of Jesus believed that a new order had arrived with the life of Jesus and what was family and familiar could prevent people from entering into this new order, this new understanding of God and life and the decision and actions that would come from understanding God and life in a new way.

  Today, we still pray to God, “Thy will be done on earth as it is done in a more perfect order than what we’ve yet achieved here.”  By asking for God’s will we hope that we are still in the family of Christ and we hope that we are truly free to choose even if we have to bear the shame of being called mad or Faustian.  Let us again commit ourselves to the excellent will of God today.  Amen.