So, first of all, this unforgiveable sin, this sin against the Holy Spirit.  Those criticizing Jesus, wanting to defame him, were saying Jesus certainly had a spirit: an evil spirit not a holy spirit.  The critics were saying that Jesus was possessed by the devil; they were saying Jesus was evil.  No one, who is sane, can honestly say that Jesus is evil—just doesn’t happen.  Oh, they will say he was crazy, delusional, that he thought way too highly of himself, that he was a fraud.  No one will say that what Jesus taught, that what Jesus did, was evil, not even those who still despise him, or at least despise us for making him the center of our religion.  If you have ever, personally, been concerned about this unforgivable sin, then, let me assure you that, today, you can put that fear to rest.  You may and will commit many sins before God calls you into glory, but you will not commit the unforgiveable sin.

Remember what Jesus does say: “people can be forgiven all their sins and all the evil things they may say” (3:28).  There is hope for me.  There is hope for you.  There is hope for everyone you love.  There is hope for so many neighbors who are far from God this very day, enjoying so many things that God has made and given them, yet not enjoying God, not knowing God.  Be patient.  Be praying.  Have faith.  Have hope.

Jesus tells his critics that they are talking nonsense, as indeed they are, as indeed they always do.  Remember that the world’s wisdom is foolishness in God’s sight, just as God’s wisdom is regarded as nonsense in the world’s sight.  But true philosophers—those who love wisdom—seek Him, and those who seek shall find.

In what we heard today, some things are being said about family.  Ah, family.  There’s nothing like family to bless us.  There’s nothing like family to mess us up.  Some of you may have no idea what I meant by that.  You are very blessed.  Jesus, responding to his critics, reminds them, and us, that “If a family divides itself into groups which fight each other, that family will fall apart” (3:25).  Have you ever experienced division in your family?  In the work that some of you do, you have a lot of experience with divided families.  It’s not a happy thing.

Would you agree that our times seem to be characterized by division?  There have always been divisions.  Perhaps a lot of energy was expended in past decades in covering over those divisions.  It does seem, though, with my admittedly limited perspective, that our times are much more characterized by division than they were before, and this is very strange, because supposedly the law has for many years been opposed to division.  Division, we can confidently say, is illegal.  Division produces tension.  There is always great energy around a tension.  This energy produces the heat of anger.  Anger, energy, and tension—this is the seedbed of action, doing things.  There are those who are more than happy to tell us what we need to be doing right now, laws to be made, things to be forbidden and punished.  How does that benefit them?  How does power benefit anyone?  All these fault lines of race, class, sex, gender being promoted rather than bridged.  Do you know who benefits most from division?  Neither Democrat nor Republican, Progressive nor Orthodox, but Satan!  Who?  Surely you don’t believe that stuff!  But brothers and sisters, I do, and I believe our enemy has aims and purposes too.

Remember that the world’s wisdom is foolishness in God’s sight, just as God’s wisdom is regarded as nonsense in the world’s sight.  But those who desire God seek Him.  To seek Him is to seek His will.  Those who seek shall find.

There is the family we have and there is also the family we find.  They aren’t always the same.  May God so arrange things that the family you have becomes for you the family you find.  May you find true family in your blood relations.  Jesus is telling us that his family, at heart, has very little to do with genetics and everything to do with love: God-seeking, God-praising, God-honoring, God-loving love.

Don’t get me wrong: I love my blood relations.  There is nothing like family to bless us.  Don’t get me wrong—there is tension and division, and cut-off, and distance, and not talking even among my blood relations.  There is nothing like family to mess us up.  May it please God to bring reconciliation, even as Christ came to reconcile us to our heavenly Father.

Perhaps reconciliation comes when we recognize that something matters more.  There is something that matters more than me, more than you, more than our very real and painful wounds, the wounds we gave each other and still give by our silence and our distance.  But what could matter more than me, my hurt, and my anger?  Peace, maybe.  God, maybe.  Love, maybe.  No, neither you nor I can make our family member or members reconcile with us, but we can always hold out, openly, willingly, our own offer of reconciliation.  We do this, not for our sake, or even for the sake of the family member—no, we offer reconciliation for the sake of God who desires to be reconciled with us, who desires it so earnestly that He was willing to sacrifice His only-begotten Son to have reconciliation.  Do we desire God?  Consider how God must desire us, to do that!  We matter that much, to Him.  All those who don’t know God in the least, matter to Him, that much.  He wants all of us in His family.

Well, I don’t want entirely to discount the role of blood in making family; God doesn’t.  No, in Christ, God shows us that blood does make family.  That blood is life.  That blood is love.  That blood connects us.

Jesus tells those gathered around him that “Whoever does what God wants him to do is my brother, my sister, my mother” (3:35).  Other translations render this as “whoever does the will of God.”  Anyone might do the will of God, do what God wants him or her to do, once, or twice.  To do as a habit what God wants us to do, though, requires something.  To do as a habit what God wants us to do requires love.  It requires discipline and commitment, too; it requires practice and reflection, but we would do none of that, and we would have no interest in any of it, if we did not love God.  So, if you are loving God, desiring God, to know God and to be with God, then you need never fear the unforgivable sin.

Love makes a family.  There are many families, too may, I’m grieved to my heart to say, where love seems to be in short supply.  What do we call them, then: household units?  Something cold, technical, and bureaucratic?  It doesn’t seem as if love should be so hard to do, but love, also, is a habit, and if it is not practiced, it is lost.  And if it is not modeled, demonstrated, it isn’t learned.  The practice of love is not easy; it encounters many obstacles, such as me, and you, and you, and you, and so on.  We hear a great deal about love, these days, in our society, but we don’t really know what we’re talking about.  God’s wisdom is regarded as nonsense in the world’s sight, and the world’s wisdom is foolishness in God’s sight.  The world doesn’t want a God who teaches, though.  To the extent the world wants God at all, it wants God to bless: to bless whatever the world wants, whatever the human heart wants: oh, the human heart wants many things!

How strong the desires of the human heart!  What could be stronger?  Who could be stronger?  Hasn’t Jesus told us?  Hasn’t he shown us?  The strong man’s house is being plundered, beloved.  How can this be?  It is because the strong man has been tied up (3:27)!  Who has done this?  Who is stronger, wiser, more crafty and subtle?  Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!  He bound us with the love of God in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now, I can talk like that here, but have you ever had a conversation with a religious person outside of church?  I mean a really religious person: you know, the kind that is always talking about God and Jesus, who listens to Christian music and prays a lot.  I mean, we like Jesus and all, but, being Presbyterian, we don’t like to let others know, for heaven’s sake!  We aren’t religious nuts!  We aren’t Jesus freaks!

When Mary and Jesus’ brothers and sisters (did you know he had brothers and sisters?  Well, some scholars say cousins.), when they come to collect him, they come because they are concerned about him: everyone is saying he is bonkers.  Jesus is out of his mind!  He must be—he is so very focused on God: talking about God, teaching about God, showing God, showing God’s love in deeds as well as words—serving, feeding, nurturing, bringing healing, bringing reconciliation.  Crazy!  He is one of those Jesus freaks.  And I will say this, I have been around a few, and I have felt just a bit uncomfortable—I did choose to be Presbyterian, after all!—yet, at the same time, I felt wonder, and a kind of deep gladness, that such people should be in the world.

You know, guys aren’t supposed to be into faith.  Yeah, we guys know that, which is why church is sort of hard for us, hard in a way that you ladies might not really understand.  We’re not really supposed to do much with faith: it’s just there, like the tool tower and the Mustang project—we’ll get around to it, someday.  Which is why you ladies don’t always see a lot of us too often in church.  Women have a little more leeway when it comes to making much of God and Jesus, but even they need to keep faith in bounds.  Jesus, God, faith, love—we know, we know.  Nobody should make a big deal of their faith.  This is worldly wisdom.  We are Presbyterians, so we aren’t big into ostentatious or dramatic displays, but we are Presbyterians, here, and part of what that means is that we love God in a profound way.  We love God’s Word and treasure it deep in our hearts, like a gold mine we discovered there, not quite by accident, from which we bring up heavenly treasure—brilliant, beautiful.

God isn’t too concerned with ostentatious, dramatic displays.  What God wants, why He gave us this treasure in our hearts, is for us to use it, to give it away.  That, too, is a habit, a habit of love, a holy habit, that we must learn, by practice, by discipline, by patience, by perseverance, by growing in love.  What is so beautiful for me in family is the rich history that lives on, the connections that come to us from the past, encourage us in the present, and give shape to the promise of the future.  What is so beautiful for me in family, family at its best, is growing in the habit of love, which happens where the Spirit of the Lord is.  May that Spirit always be with your families.  May that Spirit always be with us.  And don’t forget to share that Spirit, joyfully, openly, habitually, with the neighbors you have from God.

There are many things to be crazy about in this life.  With joyful abandon, devote yourselves to the one who is loving you into the life to come.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.