Reflection - Letting go of our desire to hold on

The Artists Hand V, Henry Moore, 1979 - Tate/Henry Moore Foundation

A reflection for the Church of England's National Online Service on Sunday 9th June 2024 - the Second Sunday after Trinity, recorded at St Giles in the Fields, based on the text of Mark 3.20-end

Jesus has just come down from the mountain after appointing the twelve apostles. Huge crowds had been gathering around him for some time. People who had travelled from every part of the land, desperate to get hold of him. To reach out and touch this man with an amazing ability to heal and to drive out demons. At one point Jesus had to get in a boat to avoid being crushed on the shore. 

 

Back at home, there is no such protection. Outside, the crowd was so dense that the disciples couldn’t get out to get food.

 

Jesus’ friends seem worried. They want to get hold of him. They think he has gone mad. “He is beside himself” - they say.

 

Then the scribes arrive from Jerusalem. They also want to get hold of Jesus. To bring him down a peg or two. You aren’t doing God’s work, they say. Only someone in league with the Devil - with Beelzebub - can drive out demons like that. 

 

Finally, Jesus’ mother and brothers arrive on the scene, calling out and sending messengers through the gathered crowd, trying to get hold of him. 

 

 

Everyone wants to get hold of Jesus. And each of them, in their own different way, thinks they are acting with the best of intentions. 

 

But, using a parable Jesus shows that they are in fact doing the opposite. 

 

First, he explains how God’s kingdom - what St Paul calls our eternal home - is a place of unity and not division, and that our earthly house - everything around us now - was once the same. But it became occupied by a Strong Man. A man who must be bound in order for his power to be subdued.  

 

Jesus came and did just that. He released us from the captivity of that power. A power so strong we often fail to see it at work in our lives. That desire to get hold of things. To get hold of other people. The desire to invade. To divide and conquer. That desire for control. 

 

Jesus has freed us from that power.  

 

Then, he calls us to embrace that freedom - that liberating gift of love - that Spirit - which forgives our sins for whatever blasphemies we utter.  But Jesus warns us never to challenge - to blaspheme - against that Spirit. Never to seek to control or second-guess its work - in ourselves or others. 

 

The stories filling the pages of our history books and newspapers show that accepting each other’s God-given freedom is perhaps the most difficult lesson for us to learn. 

 

But through the death and resurrection of Jesus we have become part of another story.

 

By freeing us from the desire to hold on to everything else, our hands are open. Open to Christ and, through him, open to receive each other as we truly are – people made in his image. 

 

Finally, Jesus teaches us to see that when we approach each other through him, we will discover a new form of unity. A unity that transcends friendship that transcends family ties. 

 

“For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.”

 

 

Just as in our scriptures, the world today seems full of people wanting to get hold of something or someone.  To hold on to power. To hold on to status. To hold onto control. 

Jesus’ parable teaches us that to find the lasting love and peace we are all seeking, we need to have the courage to let go and open our lives to him

Image  - The Artists Hand by Henry Moore, 1979 (Tate Gallery/Henry Moore Foundation).