A way to live a mission in your leisure time:
Loving and fair activities in leisure time empower you to return to your regular responsibilities refreshed and eager to make life better for yourself and all others and free of selfish or exploitative actions.
Based on Mark 3:20-35(see retelling below); a reading that comes from the Revised Common Lectionary for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, 6/10/18.
[This section seems to have been central for Mark. It tells of Jesus’ rejection by his own people.] Jesus draws a crowd so large, the people cannot eat. The crowd is saying Jesus is losing his mind. His family rushes out to restrain him.
Scribes [religious leaders] arrive from Jerusalem saying Jesus is using the power of the devil, Beelzebul, [a name for Satan] in his healings. Jesus calls the scribes to him. In a parable he asks, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” That would be a civil war. A divided kingdom cannot last. Neither can a divided home stand. If Satan is at war with himself Satan’s end has come. The stronger man, Jesus, ties up a strong man, Beelzebul, and the he plunders Beelzebul’s house [casts out the demons that Beelzebul is keeping there in the house].
Jesus goes on to teach about blasphemy, defiant hostility to God. It is defiant hostility to suggest that Jesus’ healings by power of the Holy Spirit are really done by the power of Satan, by the power of “an unclean spirit.” To be defiant is to be guilty of “eternal sin” [to be liable to external judgment].
Jesus’ mother and brothers call for him to leave his healing work and to come outside with them. Jesus questions the call. He says that his real mother and brothers are those who hear the will of God and do it.
A theme: When you meet love and justice in any form, embrace it, do not misjudge it as really selfish or exploiting others.
