4th Sunday after the
Epiphany (Year B) – Sunday, January 29, 2012
Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church,
Lancaster, PA
Text: Mark 1:21-28
I
see evil spirits.
I do.
All around. I believe in unclean spirits. I see them all the time.
Think I'm crazy?
Well,
like the wind, spirits can only be seen by what they do. The wind
can toss a leaf around and power a ship across the sea and it can
also swirl into a tornado and burst apart people's houses. Evil
spirits can course through people like a virus and bind them up like
prisoners chained in a dungeon. They are the bars of the jail cell,
the stones of the prison that dominate people, that keep them
captive, that possess their souls.
When I
say “unclean spirit,” perhaps you imagine the head-spinning,
foul-mouthed little girl of the movie, The Exorcist.
I can't really picture something like that in real life. I don't
know if there really are little demons running around. I've never
seen evil spirits control a person like in the movies, and I don't
expect that I will. But I have seen, and heard, people who are
possessed, and dominated, by unclean spirits, by all the forces that
oppose God. Maybe you have too.
I'm
talking about someone on the street whose body is literally wasting
away, chained up by the spirits of hunger and poverty. I mean the
spirits of greed and fear that lead to foreclosure signs and boarded
up houses a few blocks away from private dinner clubs and million
dollar condos. I mean the spirits of mistrust and anger that show up
in headlines like “Suicide bomb blast kills 47 in Jerusalem,” and
then convulse others into a retaliation with tanks and bombs leveling
houses the next day.
But
I'm sure you've seen these spirits at work much closer to home. I
imagine you're familiar with the unclean spirit of addiction that we
don't talk about, but probably dominates the life of someone you
know. It's very real for the crowds of people who rush through the
doors of this church and pack the hall in the Parish Ed. Building
three mornings a week at the Narcotics Anonymous, or “NA,”
meeting. This very unclean spirit every day drives people to lie to
their spouses, and others to rob liquor stores or even to rob another
child of God of his life, just for the next fix. Addiction is just
another word for possession, or domination, by something other than
God. If not drugs or alcohol, I imagine you know someone whose life
has been taken over by an insatiable desire for something – power,
prestige, sex, gambling, money. Perhaps that someone is you.
What
possesses you, what holds you captive? From what do you long for
freedom? Maybe it's something I've mentioned, or something no one
else could possibly imagine. Interestingly enough, this exorcism we
hear about today takes place in the synagogue, during worship, on the
Sabbath. In the middle of Jesus' torah
teaching, which is like a sermon, the possessed man cries out “what
have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy
us?” I'm no Jesus, but I'm waiting for an interruption here this
morning as we encounter Christ in our worship.
It's
the unclean spirits who recognize Jesus in the synagogue, because
they immediately see him as a threat to their dominance. And they're
right. They know right away that Jesus has come with the authority
of God, challenging the status quo. They see that it's all over for
them.
The
first thing Jesus does after calling the disciples at the shore is to
walk into town, directly into the synagogue, and challenge the
unclean spirits which were keeping his people captive. This is
important. From the very beginning, Jesus shows the unclean spirits
and all the forces that defy God that he is boss, not them. Jesus'
new and authoritative teaching is himself – that the reign of God
is here because he is here.
The evil spirits don't have any final power over us – not now, not
ever.
If
you think exorcisms are only for the Bible or the movies, think
again. You've had one, actually. It's called the Sacrament of Holy
Baptism. Christ once and for all joined your life to his. Just like
he did in that synagogue in Capernaum, in this house of worship or
wherever you were washed in God's grace, he cast out all the unclean
spirits, the devil and all his empty promises. The unclean spirits
try to trick you. They tell you that you can find fulfillment in a
luxury car or the bottom of a bottle. Christ promises that you will
be fulfilled in God's endless love. The spirits try to convince you
that you have to be thinner, or wear more expensive clothes, or make
upper management, in order to be whole. Christ promises that you are
God's beloved child, free to be at peace as the person God made you
to be. Those devils try to make you afraid, to convince you that you
will only be safe if some other people are deported, or if we build
fences and walls, or if our country drops enough bombs. Christ
reveals that our safety is finally only with the God whose mercy is
wide and deep and embraces all cultures, all languages, all
backgrounds.
When
Jesus shows up, more or less, a cosmic conflict breaks out. Mark
tells us that the unclean spirit came out of the man kicking and
screaming. A spiritual guide of mine, Sara Miles, puts it like this,
“healing...basically hurts like hell...and takes a long time...and
is hard for everyone around you” (from Jesus Freak,
p. 86). It creates conflict, like Jesus staring down an unclean
spirit in the middle of church. The truth that individually each of
us is convulsed by one unclean spirit or another hurts deeply. Our
pride is cut to pieces when we see that our society is fundamentally
corrupt, possessed by a quest for fulfillment through anything and
everything other than God. Our road to recovery is long, and in this
life it will never be complete, and yet it already was completed for
us on a cross outside Jerusalem. But like any 12 step program, our
recovery begins with recognizing our helplessness, and our dependence
upon God.
Friends,
our God, the only real authority, is here in Jesus Christ, and his
word is, “be silent, and come out of him,” and her, and all of
you. We live in this in-between world in which we cannot free
ourselves from these unclean spirits, but in Christ, the reign of God
is here and every day, as we remember our baptism, tracing the cross
on our foreheads, those spirits are being cast out and replaced with
the Holy Spirit. Like the wind, we can see the Holy Spirit through
what it does - in
families sitting down for that long overdue confrontation with a
loved one who needs help. The Spirit moves as Christian peace-maker
teams form circles of protection around synagogues, and churches and
mosques in the Holy Land. As former addicts bring others to
recovery, as parents learn how to be responsible and put their
children first, the Holy Spirit is moving. God's Spirit breathes
into our hearts as brown and white and black, Anglos and Latinos and
Arabs and Africans, Republicans and Democrats, gather together at
this table refusing to be set against each other, waiting to be
filled by the same body and blood of our Lord.
They might be kicking
and screaming, but those unclean spirits are on their way out – of
you. You are free, in Christ, and the Holy Spirit is moving you.
Amen.
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