“Binding the Strong Man”

Mark 3:7-35

A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley

September 29, 2002

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

            Do you ever wonder what it might be like to be the smallest one in the class?  Kids can be pretty cruel.  They like to pick on the one easiest to beat.  Imagine being the smallest one at the schoolyard, the weakest, the one always picked last for kickball, always the scorn of everyone’s jokes, the punching bag for the bullies of the school.  Let me tell you, it is not very fun.  I have been there, been that. 

            I was the one who was the punching bag.  I cried easily and the big boys and even some of the girls loved to provoke my tears.  I hated it, yet at some weird, sick level there was a part of me that liked the attention, as if negative attention is better than no attention at all.  I recall this now as I watch upon both of our daughter’s attempts to get our attention.  Whenever Kim and I want to talk, they will act up and act out, often screaming or even being rough with each other.  It will work.  They will get our attention.  It pains us when we get reports from school that from time to time they have trouble getting along, sometimes using violent words and actions.  I don’t want them to be bullied, and I don’t want them to bully others.

            There are always bullies, stronger ones who pick on the weaker.  It is the way they feel superior.  It is the way they have control over their world.  I know this because after a day of being beat up at school, I would go home and pick on my brother.  He warned me that one day he would be bigger than me and then I had better watch out.  Now that we live close by again, I’m more on my guard.

            The truth is that the physically strong ones ruled the schoolyard.  The only way for the weak one to survive is by binding the strong one—by neutralizing his or her power.  That and recognizing your own power.  We’re trying to teach our kids to avoid fights, to not play by the might makes right rules, to choose a better way, but it’s an uphill battle.  The power of the bullies are both terrifying and seductive.

            Mark’s Gospel is clear that the future for the people of God can only happen when the strong man is bound up.  Until that happens, evil runs rampant.  But who is the strong man?  What is Jesus talking about in this seemingly confusing scripture?

            Let’s look again at today’s scripture reading.  Ched Myers calls this a call to insurrection.  He entitled his entire commentary on Mark, Binding the Strong Man.  He thought this was so central to the work of the church that it must be given more emphasis now than ever. 

            We need to remember that in the context of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus has all but called the scribes, the Pharisees and even the priests demonic.  All of them are out trying to get Jesus trapped and silenced.  Why?  Because Jesus has healed all of the wrong people, broken every religious law in the book and insulted the religious and societal muckety mucks in the process.  And it’s only the third chapter of the Gospel.  Jesus did not waste time to get to his point. 

 

Remember that Jesus cast out demons who knew who he was.  In chapter one, the demons said, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” (1:24) After he calls the demons to come out, the people realize he has authority over the demons, not like the scribes.  When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, John declared Jesus as the stronger, more powerful one whose sandals John did not feel worthy to untie.(1:7)  Jesus had real authority.  He was stronger than the scribes.

When he cleansed the leper later on in the same chapter, he told the former leper to show his cleanliness to the priest “as a testimony to them” (1:44).  He usurped the role of the priests demonstrating that he was stronger than them. 

When Jesus broke the Sabbath laws by dining with tax collectors, healing on the Sabbath and dismissing the importance of fasting, the Pharisees immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.”(3:6) Jesus was the strong one and the leaders knew it. 

The people who followed Jesus were tired of being pushed around by the bullies: the scribes, the Priests and the Pharisees.  Oh how they wished they would just go away.  How they longed for someone to lead them out of their status as victims of abuse.  Jesus did just that and conspired to tell the truth, the whole awful truth about the abuse of power running rampant and using God’s name in the process.

Today’s scripture has the scribes coming down from Jerusalem, that place of power and control and domination.  And what do they do?  They trump up charges against Jesus.  They say, “By Beelzebub, the Prince of demons he casts out demons.”  It is a sound byte meant to elicit fear of the masses.  It’s like saying, “well, he is doing good, but he’s a communist, so his good has evil intent.” 

When the scribes said this, Jesus began to speak in parables, all but saying, “I can use confusing words as good if not better than you can.”  

He then says four things:

How can Satan cast out Satan?

If a Kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand”

If a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand.

No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first binding the strong man, then indeed the house can be plundered.

Jesus uses their logic, but exposes them for what they are—the world’s strong men, tools of Satan that are standing in the way of the reign of God.

In this scripture, Jesus declares ideological war on the scribal establishment.

If a kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand.

The kingdom is the centralized politics of Davidic state.  This is the kings established after King David which makes them just like any other nation.  But it never worked.  There was always infighting.  When Jesus called the 12 disciples (an allusion to the original 12 tribes), he sought to get rid of the Davidic rule.  It is in part what messed the Hebrew people up in the first place.  It is divided against itself and it cannot stand.  The only thing that can stand is the kingdom, or should we say the commonwealth, of God.

 

 

The House is the temple-state led by the priests.  It is also compromised and cannot stand.  This house is divided against itself because it leaves people out by its cleanliness laws.  The house had become an elitist institution which in the name of purity squelched opposition, kept the powerful powerful and the poor poor.  The house, the temple-state led by the priests is divided against itself and try as it might, it ultimately cannot stand.

All of them are in cahoots with Satan, says Jesus.  These systems are evil.  They need to be exorcised.  Jesus is not possessed, the Scribes, the Pharisees, the priests, they are the ones possessed by demons.  But even if they recognized their own plight, Satan cannot cast out Satan.  Satan, the establishment, the strong one, cannot clean out its own house.  It must be done from outside.  The strong man must be bound up first.  African- American Liberation theologian James Cone said, “never let your oppressors define the means or the parameters of your liberation.”

As it says in Isaiah 49:24-26:

“Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?  But thus says YHWH: Even the captives of the strong one shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant will be rescued; for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.  I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh…Then all shall know that I am YHWH your savior.”

There is a difference between reform and revolution.  Reform makes minor changes while keeping the larger system of injustice in tact.  For all of their talk about the Republican revolution a number of years ago, it was more of a reform than a revolution.  Those in power can only do reform.  Satan cannot cast out Satan. What Jesus was calling for was a revolution.  He was saying, the only way to make some real change is to bind up that strong man.  Restrain him.  Take away his power. 

Then you can come in and clean house.   By the way, the strong man is doomed anyway because he is divided against himself.  Jesus will later say of the Temple mount in Jerusalem, “Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”(13:2)

Those with ears to hear, listen.  As Tracy Chapman reminded us, “Don’t you know, we’re talking about a revolution and it sounds like a whisper.  Poor people gonna rise up, take their share.  Poor people gonna rise up, take what’s theirs.  Don’t you know you better run…”

This book is a revolutionary book.

Jesus has come to overthrow the reign of the strong man.  Like the thief coming in at night—breaking and entering in order to establish the reign of God.

Ched Myers writes: “Mark’s concern is not only liberation from the specific structures of oppression embedded in the dominant social order of Roman Palestine; it also includes the spirit and practice of domination ultimately embedded in the human personality and corporately in human history as a whole.  The struggle against the powers and the individual and collective will to dominate is articulated over and over again in different ways throughout the story.” (Binding the Strong Man,1997:103)

 

 

 

So who is today’s strong man? Today we can think of many strong ones out there.  They could be social structures which maintain oppressive systems of patriarchy, heterosexism, racism, ageism, materialism, terrorism or anything of the other isms that break down the goal of a beloved community.  Or more specifically for many of us, they could be parents, they could be government leaders, they could be military leaders or death-squads, or gangs, or candidates or other authority figures.  Many of them will use violence to keep their control over another.  The only way to be free of their control is if that strong one is bound up—stopped, neutralized, squelched, disempowered, overthrown.

As we move toward war, we have been using the rhetoric of binding the strong man.  If we can only get rid of Saddam, then we will be better.  A few months ago, it was, “If we can only get rid of Osama Bin Laden”.  That’s the evil strong man that needs to be restrained.  We need to bind up that strong man, that one personified by evil, that bully who makes us live in fear.  Sadly, there are others who see our president or vice president as the strong man who must be contained.  It’s easier to talk about a person than it is an adjective like “terrorism”.  But hear this:  the strong man is not simply a person.  It’s a system.  It’s a structure.  It’s a way of thinking that leads to destruction and that’s influenced by evil.

Ched Myers says the free market is today’s strong man. 

“The strong man acts incessantly in favor of the rich, while the poor are told they are worthless unless they own what is just out of reach in the ubiquitous shopping malls.  U.S. workers on farms and in factories, whose jobs were once secure, are pitted against cheap labor from every corner of the world.  The vulnerable are used to make the vulnerable more vulnerable.

Do we have eyes to see this strong man, or are we too much under his influence? Do we have the courage to join Jesus in “binding” him, or are we cowed by his legitimacy and power?  Do we desire to see the captives of our global house liberated, or are we too comfortable?” (Say To This Mountain, 1997:38)

I don’t have the answers to this.  But Mark’s gospel will not let me get away without asking the questions of myself or my beloved community.  What I have gained is a new sense of looking at the world through the eyes of Jesus and not through the eyes of those who continue to maintain control.

            A few years ago, I went to my high school reunion.  I logged on to the reunion web site recently and relived that great weekend.  Amidst all of the memories was a picture of me and the alumni of my elementary school.  My, how things change in a lifetime.  As I looked at those pictures, I remembered the fights and enemies I had.  But time had shed new light on it all.   I noticed that the bullies weren’t there anymore. Sure, the people were, but they no longer struck terror into my mind.  And do you know what, in the picture of my elementary school class taken at the reunion, I’m the biggest, at least the tallest.

            The Strong Man does not have the last say.  God has the last say.  If we follow God, Jesus seems to say, we cannot avoid binding up the strong man.  We start by not letting the strong man bind us.  So set yourself free, encounter, believe and live the good news.

            Amen.