Sunday, January 28, 2018

Sermon - 4th Sunday After Epiphany

Mark 1:21-28

                                                          “Have you come to destroy us?”


Today’s reading from Mark has been carefully selected in order to lift up how different is the teaching of Jesus.  We are in the Liturgical season of Epiphany.  Today is week 4.  There is one more Epiphany Sunday and then we observe Transfiguration before launching into the Lenten Season.

In this season of Epiphany, we are to be encouraged (or allowed) to clearly see Jesus as the one who has been sent by God.  Today’s reading from Mark is intended to lift up the “authority” with which Jesus teaches.  His fame begins to “spread through the surrounding region of Galilee” as folks come to understand that while he may be a highly insightful orator, he is also something more. 

What he is is apparent to one of those in the midst of the people.  Who he is is well known to one particular man, at the synagogue in Capernaum.  This man proclaims: you are “the Holy One of God.”

I am getting a bit ahead of myself, in the story which will unfold as we read through the rest of Mark’s Gospel.  But one thing which will happen in the weeks, months, and years to come is the struggle for folks to recognize Jesus.  It is in John’s account, in the 14th chapter, where Jesus responds to Philip by asking, “Have I been with you all this time…. And you still do not know me?”  In each of the accounts, the disciples seem dulled to the truth about Jesus and his relationship with the father.  They seem unprepared or not ready to hear and accept the message Jesus proclaims.

Remember that the end of Mark’s Gospel tells us that the disciples who came to the tomb on Easter morning fled in terror, and told no one what they had seen (or I guess what they had NOT seen – since they were looking into an empty tomb.)

They don’t seem to know – they fail to understand.  But this man in the synagogue in Capernaum does – he encounters Jesus early in the story – right at the very beginning – and announces loudly and clearly – You are the Holy One of God.

Was he heard?  Probably.  Jesus tells him to be silent.  This demand surely implied that what the man said we heard by those around him.

Was he believed?  Well, that may be a different matter.

This man seems to have something different about him which may have allowed folks to dismiss him.  In speaking of what is different about him, I am intentionally avoiding saying that something was wrong with him.  The story doesn’t say that something was wrong with him, scripture simply says he was “a man with an unclean spirit.”  The story also does not say whether this “unclean spirit” would have been apparent to anyone else, before its exit from the man caused him to convulse and cry.

I want you to think about that description.  Think about what you have been told in the past, or encouraged to believe this description means – and then we will try to think for ourselves what this might mean.

Let’s start with those well-engrained assumptions.  What have you heard in the past, or been taught to think about persons with “unclean spirits”?  What diagnosis code is likely to be attached to a person with an “unclean spirit”?  Was is the medical condition which could have resulted in such a description?

Epilepsy?  Schizophrenia?  Depression?  Chemical addition?  Multiple sclerosis?  Parkinson’s Disease?

I asked my search engine for help.  Most of what I found on the internet was talk of “demon” possession.  The Good News Bible translates this man’s condition as an “evil spirit.”  But the King James Bible uses the same English words printed in our bulletin.  The King James Bible says the man has an “unclean spirit.”

Whatever this spirit is, it isn’t something Jesus will tolerate.  He orders the unclean spirit to come out of the man.  The man with the unclean spirit has spoken his fear that this Holy One of God, Jesus of Nazareth, has perhaps come “to destroy us.”  And, destroy Jesus does.  And Jesus’ ability to order the unclean spirit to exit the man does cause the folks in the synagogue to sit up and take notice.

I want to return to those on-line resources.  One of them had this to say:

An unclean spirit or demon is “unclean” in that it is wicked. Evil spirits are not only wicked themselves, but they delight in wickedness and promote wickedness in humans. They are spiritually polluted and impure, and they seek to contaminate all of God’s creation with their filth. Their foul, putrid nature is in direct contrast to the purity and incorruption of the Holy Spirit’s nature. When a person is defiled by an unclean spirit, he takes pleasure in corrupt thoughts and actions; when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, his thoughts and actions are heavenly.

What if what ails this man is none of the medical conditions we listed earlier.  What if the unclean spirit with afflicted him was “spiritual impurity and pollution”?

Wouldn’t Jesus be as eager to remove such a ‘spirit” as he would be to cure someone with one of the medical conditions we named earlier?

Wouldn’t Jesus be even more eager to take away such things?

Yes – this sermon is a bit off the cuff.  Members of the Congregational Council can affirm that I told them at yesterday’s Council Retreat that I was likely to need to go home and re-write what I had thought I say this morning.  As a result, I haven’t had as much time for this to sink in as I would like.  And, I might not be able to pull you along through this chain of thought. 

But, let’s try.

The person with the unclean spirit is worried that Jesus may have come to destroy.  What might he worry that Jesus would destroy?  Well, any number of ailments which would work against the hope Jesus has for us, for our lives and for the world.

What if the unclean spirit possessed by this man was worried that Jesus would destroy any one of the many thoughts/beliefs which possibly permeated the gathering in the synagogue that day?  Convictions such as:
1.     Devotion to and dependence upon a system of sacrifice as the way to obtain God’s favor,
2.     The notion that some are more acceptable to God than others,
3.     A fear that God will punish us for breaking any one of the hundreds of quotes selectively lifted from the sacred writings,
4.     A fear and often times rejection of the alien and sojourner living among us,
5.     The mere suggestion that I can obtain God’s acceptance while harboring in my heart hatred toward one of God’s children.

When you think about it, Jesus did come to do a lot of destroying.  And much of what Jesus came to destroy was present right there in that synagogue in Capernaum. 

When you allow yourself to think about it, Jesus still comes to do a lot of destroying.  It is difficult to enter the Kingdom of God – because entering the Kingdom of God means the removal of so many unclean spirits – spirits which allow us to remain self-centered and self-absorbed and (possibly above all) self-justifying.

The liturgical season of Epiphany is designed to help us see and perceive the truth about who Jesus is.  Maybe we have ceased to look with fresh eyes in order to see him and to perceive who he truly is.  At least part of who he is, is the One who forbids unclean spirits to remain.  Few – if any – unclean spirits will welcome this intrusion and expulsion.

So, let me ask you again.  What name or diagnostic code might you assign to the unclean spirit which Jesus is casting out?

Few of them will go easily.  And as the attempt is made to strip them there will be a lot of convulsing and crying and loud voices. 


Amen.

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