In the name of God ☩ Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
What difference does Jesus make in your life? It’s a seemingly simple question, but the answer makes, literally, all the difference in our lives. Sure, we all say that religion is at the core of our principles and priorities, but judging by the society that we live in, that’s little more than lip service. We might notice that people of faith seem to fare no better than staunch atheists when it comes to income, health, or just sheer luck; and then the question is whether or not the demands of faith are worth it. And so instead of giving 10% to charity, we settle on 2%. Instead of keeping the Sabbath with rest each week, we only take a break on vacation. Because, at the end of the day, do the disciplines and ideals of a 2,000 year old religion that was established in the Middle East really have anything relevant to say to our time and culture beyond “be nice” or giving us some comfort in difficult times? In other words, does faith in Jesus actually have anything to do with our world and lives today?
That is the question at the heart of today’s Gospel text from Mark – what authority does Jesus have over our lives? This exorcism story is the first public act of Jesus in Mark, and so it sets the tone for the rest of the Gospel. Remember that Mark writes with an apocalyptic tone as he sees the coming of Jesus as the invasion of God’s grace into our world to conquer, once and for all, the forces of sin, evil, and death. This began when God tore apart the heavens at Jesus’ baptism to declare him as God’s beloved. We saw this last Sunday as well when Jesus announced that following him is about repenting of our old priorities and allegiances and turning towards God’s reign of justice and peace. And this conflict between God’s grace and the sin of the world comes to a head in Jesus’ first public appearance in Mark.
Jesus is in Capernaum, a city near the Sea of Galilee, and as you do on the Sabbath, everyone was gathering for worship. But then a man enters and Mark says that he had an “unclean spirit.” There are many ways for us to understand what this means. Mark uses the phrase “unclean spirit” interchangeably with “possessed by a demon,” so the point is that not only is this man unclean and therefore not fit for public worship, but he’s also been overtaken with evil.
So, as Jesus has come in a divine D-Day operation, this scene is the opening battle. Though, because Jesus is God’s Son, the fate of the battle has never been in question. It’s more that Jesus is mopping up the remaining vestiges of sin and evil. But either way, Mark has Jesus arrive in an invasion to bring grace to all corners of our life and world, and the very first public story that Mark shares is a conflict between grace and evil that crosses the boundaries of who is in and who is out.
Before going any further into this passage, we have to acknowledge that the way it is presented in Mark is a stumbling block for us. Maybe we still get creeped out by watching horror movies, but few of us really believe in demon possession. Today, many people would say that this man was not possessed by supernatural forces, but rather suffered from some form of mental illness, perhaps a dissociative identity disorder since he refers to himself in the plural “us.” Then the problem comes when Jesus seemingly does what no modern doctor or medicine can even imagine doing – curing a mental illness by simply saying “Be silent, come out of him!” Many people who suffer from mental illness have certainly been prayed for, some have even tried exorcisms, but to no avail. So what’s going on here?
What if, instead of interrupting Mark to analyze this 1st century story through a 21st century lens, we just let Mark tell the story and realize that the idea of demon possession is our problem, not Mark’s? Last summer when I was at Sewanee working on my doctorate, one of the classes that I took was on the Desert Fathers and Mothers of 5th century Egypt. We read the writings of people like St. Anthony, and hardly a page went by without a mention of demons. While most of the students were priests in the US, a few were from Africa and some had a more Pentecostal upbringing and the way they interpreted these writings was far different than the clinical reading that many of us go to. We heard stories of exorcisms happening in villages and it challenged many of my assumptions about demon possession.
In my line of work, I do often speak with people at all places of life experience and I’ve heard many stories of people speaking of mental illness in a way that isn’t all that different from demon possession. There was a point in my naïveté where I dismissed that, but now I’m much more open to realizing that some things are simply bigger than our ability to understand. I remember in Greensboro speaking to woman whose husband had committed suicide and she spoke about how something came over him before his death – something darker than the depression that he struggled with for years.
The danger in reducing Jesus’ miraculous healings to medical treatments is that they become individual stories of salvation. But Mark is writing this Gospel not to give us a list of things that Jesus did for other people, rather Mark is describing this Kingdom of God that has come near in Jesus, showing us what we are able to participate in through faith. And so if Jesus healed this man of some psychological disorder, that’s great for that man who lived 2,000 years ago. But what if Jesus really did cast out a demon? That would mean that he has power over evil and that still has implications for today, as evil still exists. It gives us hope that today, Jesus gives liberation as much as he did in this story. So my advice as we read this story is to lessen any suspicion that you might have about demon possession so that the power of Jesus might remain as Mark sets the tone with this exorcism for the rest of the Gospel.
The question that comes next in the text is “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” It’s a question that could be translated in other ways – “What authority do you have over me?” or “What do we have in common?” Notice that Jesus doesn’t give an answer, he simply rebukes the man saying “Be quiet.” Jesus is God Incarnate, the Creator and Redeemer of all that is and ever shall be. So he doesn’t need to get into a turf war with this man. God has ultimate jurisdiction and authority over all parts of our lives. But so often, like this man, we ask of God “What right do you have to be here?”
Maybe we don’t ask that question of God so boldly or bluntly, but we ask it all the same. Take a look at your finances, is there a place for God there? How about your calendar? How about the kind of things that you say to other people? How about your political views, does God have anything to do with them? How about in our church, is there room for people who are in need of Jesus’ healing, or are only people who are already good and decent, by our standards, allowed? And just as this man asked Jesus, “Have you come to destroy us?”, it may well seem that allowing Jesus to have authority in these places of our lives will destroy the perfectly curated life that we’ve been pursuing. Following Jesus is not often convenient because Jesus came to put an end to our death-wielding and grace-denying ways. Even if we agree that things like political division, materialism, and selfishness are bad, we’ve grown accustomed to them being normal. Even healthy change is still change, and change is hard. So it may well seem that Jesus is out to destroy you.
There’s a fascinating bit of grammar in this passage that I had never noticed before preparing for this sermon. Notice how this man speaks “What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are.” And Jesus response is “Come out of him.” Jesus is able to distinguish between the unclean spirit in this man and man himself. And we can even detect this in the man’s speak. In his two questions to Jesus, he uses the plural “us.” But then in a statement, he uses the singular “I.” It’s a subtle shift in language, but when it comes to Scripture, nothing is inconsequential.
The implicit answer to the question “Have you come to destroy us?” is “No.” Jesus has not come to destroy us; he has come to rid the evil that infects us. I’m sure you’ve heard people who speak of God or Jesus in a wrathful way, turning God into a fearful sort of interrogator. But in healing this man, Jesus doesn’t seem to be interested in condemning this man for his uncleanliness or failings. Instead, Jesus is interested in removing the barriers that this man has to being a part of the community of faith. More than being a story of healing, this is a story of restoration.
Jesus can tell the difference between who we are and the mistakes that we’ve made. Though we are still responsible for our actions, Jesus sees beyond our actions. Though we may be guilty of much sin, though we may be possessed by evil thoughts or thoughts of self-doubt, though we may live in an unclean culture, Jesus does not confuse us for those things. We are always, always, always the beloved child of God, and nothing changes that. No sin can remove God’s love for us. Nothing that overwhelms us, whether it be stress, depression, or addiction can ever infect us so deeply that God cannot restore us. You are not your worst mistake, your biggest regret, your deepest doubt, or your diagnosis. You are God’s beloved, and God never loses sight of the “I” that is at the center of all the other distractions of our lives.
In the Gospels, miracle stories are symbols that tell us something about God. And this miracle is a symbol that shows us that there is no realm of our lives to which God will not bring salvation and healing. This is especially the case for those unclean places of our lives, those places where we feel that we’ve lost control to something bigger than ourselves. Jesus has called us to follow him, and there is no realm of our lives, whether it’s how we vote, what we buy, what we schedule, what we permit, or what we say that is not an opportunity to follow Jesus. The answer to the question “What do you have to do with us, Jesus?” is “Everything, Jesus has everything to do with us.” Even 2,000 years later, Jesus makes all the difference in his way of mercy, peace, and love.
The question for today is “do you believe this?” Just as Jesus cast out the unclean spirit from this man, do you expect God to do the same for you? Are you anticipating being renewed by the Spirit in God’s all-surpassing love for you? How is God transforming you? If you have specific things that you hope are cast out of your life, tell that to God in prayer. And if you want to talk about it in the setting of spiritual counsel, please speak to Bonnie or I about it. Jesus is God’s invasion of grace to restore us and save us, and just as Jesus redeemed this man who was suffering from the effects of sin and evil, Jesus will save you too.
In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul puts into words the hope that is symbolized by this story, and so I will leave you with these words of hope and promise – “Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” Amen.
