The Rev. Dr. Deborah Silver, assisting priest> Scripture for the day
Been to any good exorcisms lately? That’s a question that’s sure to stop conversation at most proper dinner parties. But as you listened to the Gospel reading this morning, what may have caught your attention more than anything, and hopefully you were listening, was the man with the unclean spirit crying out to Jesus, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”
Now the safest, and perhaps we might think the sanest, way to deal with this story of the unclean, or some translations say demonic spirit, is to remind ourselves that we are sophisticated, 21st century people who no longer believe in this primitive way of seeing the world. However, well known preacher Fred Craddock puts it this way, “No service is rendered simply by announcing that we no longer believe in demons. Although that is true, for most, not believing in demons has hardly eradicated evil in our world.” Good point. If you are in any doubt that evil still flourishes in our world I wonder on what remote desert island you have been living lately. In fact, I would even venture to say that what the world is in desperate need of right now is a Jesus untamed by our image of the gentle Shepherd holding the lost lamb. No, we need a demon-tossing, Spirit-possessed Son of God, who acts with divine authority and proclaims that the boundary between heaven and earth has been pierced and the reign of God is at hand.
This is the Jesus we encounter in Mark’s Gospel. It is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He takes his newly appointed disciples with him to the synagogue at Capernaum. The people in the synagogue are amazed at what they see and hear. The people do not focus on demons or on what they have to say, or how Jesus effectively exorcizes them. The people are amazed by this new teacher whose words carry with them authority and power to make the unclean, clean.
The sudden and unexpected arrival of this tortured man offers a profound teaching moment for Jesus. The exorcism story drips with irony as Jesus, a man possessed by the Spirit of God, faces off with a man possessed by the demonic. This battle proves to be no contest for the demonic contingent that resides in this man. They recognize who Jesus is, “I know who you are, the Holy One of God,” while everyone else in the synagogue stays strangely silent.
A child of God is delivered from his bondage, and there are no shouts for joy or spontaneous prayers of thanksgiving. The words of the Prophet Isaiah echo in the background – “Is not this the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” – and yet no one notices that what the Gospel of Mark signaled in Jesus’ baptism when the heavens are “torn apart” is happening now before their eyes. [1]
As the people in the synagogue maintain a safe distance from Jesus, speculating among themselves about this new powerful teacher, we hearers of Mark are invited to follow Jesus into a whole new world. New Testament scholar Brian Blount says that we are invited into “Mark’s world of Jesus walking around possessed by the power of the Spirit of God. In such a world you either go with the man and help him create the holy chaos he’s creating or you find a way to stop him so you can get your people back in line.” [2]
The Gospel of Mark puts us on notice from the first chapter that the boundary-breaking, demon-dashing, law transcending Son of God has arrived in the person of Jesus, and he expects of his followers far more than “amazement”.
What does Jesus expect of his followers? What does this Jesus of Nazareth have to do with us?
There is a story attributed to Cherokee wisdom:
One evening a grandfather was teaching his young grandson about the internal battle that each person faces.
“There are two wolves struggling inside each of us,” the old man said. “One wolf is vengefulness, anger, resentment, self-pity, fear…
“The other wolf is compassion, faithfulness, hope, truth, love …”
The grandson sat, thinking, then asked: “Which wolf wins, Grandfather?”
His grandfather replied, “The one you feed.”
Which one do you feed? It’s a question well worth asking ourselves, as individuals, as the church, as a community, as a nation.
In times of personal or national crisis, it may be more tempting to hunker down and feed the wolf of fear and resentment than to feed the wolf of compassion and hope.
There is plenty out there to feed our cynicism, fear and self-absorption. There are lots of voices claiming authority, seeking our attention and vying for our allegiance. Which wolf do we choose to feed? How can we even tell the difference?
And that, my friend, is why you and I are here this morning. We cannot identify and feed the wolf of love and compassion on our own. We need each other. We need the Body of Christ. We need the food of hope and grace whose singular nutritional authority comes from God. We need to be fed with the Spiritual food that nourishes our souls when we gather at God’s table.
We cannot do it on our own and we know that. It is why we say the Confession of Sin before the Eucharist. We know all too well our own capacity for choosing evil and our own need for forgiveness. And that’s why we come here.
It’s here that we pray for God to deliver us from evil, to vanquish the demons, that is, whatever binds us and prevents us from loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.
It is why in the Prayers of the People we pray for all those in power and ask God to
“Guide the people of this land, and of all the nations, in the ways of justice and peace; that we may honor one another and serve the common good.”
It is here that we are fed on the Scriptures and nourished by the sacraments that make us one and transform us at the same time.
It is here that we find encouragement to commit ourselves to the grand work of loving God and the hard work of loving our neighbor.
It is here that we meet the Holy One of God who has the authority to call evil out of us, to forgive us, to transform us and to empower us by the Holy Spirit to proclaim in our own words and deeds the coming of God’s Kingdom.
And it’s as we leave this place
and follow the light of Christ into the world that we,
we of all people, have been given the authority to speak,
and live, and heal in ways that feed a hungry world.
And that is truly amazing.
[1] Gary W. Charles in Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 1, p. 313, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.
[2] Ibid.
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