And Then God Speaks: Come Out!
4th Sunday after the Epiphany
Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8.1-13; Mark 1.21-28
Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Pastor & Soul-Tender
In the mornings, after devotions, before I dig into my news feed, I open an email note from an organization called ‘Gratefulness.org’. The daily dose of thanks is called Word For The Day. I find it a necessary discipline and anecdote to the many other words I read and hear. This past Wednesday, the Word came from a writer named Jack Kornfield.
Quote “While the news often features the worst of humanity, there are a billion acts of human kindness every hour of every day! Take another breath and sense this truth.” Unquote
A billion acts of human kindness. What if we had a News Feed called that? Reporters could fan out all over the world to discover the many now-hidden gestures and postures people offer being kind to one another. As St. Paul says, “Knowledge puffs up, love builds up.” Because of God’s great love for us, He knows us. He knows us, because of His great love. His knowledge does not puff up, but builds up the Body of Christ. We are His creation, the work of His Hands, the kingdom within reach. His truth and justice are the scaffolding of our life together. This fear we maintain is grounded in our recognition of God’s awesome works and our humble attempts to honor His Majesty. It is the vaccine to our feeble attempts to be our own small ‘g’ god. His judgment and mercy last forever.
It is from this angle of love, of kindness, of mercy, of justice that we enter into our gospel story today. The way Mark captures Jesus’ life is to spotlight the unbreakable connection between who Jesus is and what Jesus does. Word & Action are congruent within the through line of this gospel. Told in spare words with a drumbeat of urgency, Mark expects us, his listeners and readers, to be energized toward the next moment, where another dramatic healing or encounter will take place. ‘Immediately, at once, right away’ echoes over and over as Jesus and the beginning of his entourage, the 4 Fishermen, stand in the public prayer space - the synagogue.
More than any other gospel writer, Mark emphasizes healing stories and exorcisms - of 18 miracles, 13 healings with 4 of those casting the demons out. It is Jesus exercising His exousia, His power, which is defined as ‘to muzzle’ when He encounters these shouting demons.
Interlude: I must admit, there are days when I want Jesus’ authority to cast out demons. We live on the ground floor of an apartment building on Stoneway, up and down our street are shouters. I so want to set them free from their demons. I’ve been told by a faithful colleague about someone, a faithful Christian, who describes her battles this way: At times, before my eyes, is a ticker tape of brutal, horrific accusations hurled against me. They blind me, I am unable to read, to see or to hear any other voice. They remind me I’d be better off dead and the world would be better too.
No wonder they shout. (Pause)
What is this? The crowd asks. He teaches with authority. Even the unclean spirits, the anti-sacred, the not-human, the anti-Christs, recognize Him. Spirit-filled, up against the noisy gong of demons, Jesus wins out. He has the power to make the unclean clean, the immoral moral, freedom for the oppressed, an act of healing justice. The heavens are torn apart, again, just like at Jesus’ baptism, and as they will be at His death. This mute man, overtaken, is now set free. Like Isaiah says: “Is this not the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free?” It is not magic, a curse broken, rather it is miracle, powerful and performative. And then God speaks: Come out!
So what do we do with this: we are rationalists, post-Enlightenment, we live in the material world. We measure by sight, touch, taste, sound, smell; placed in mathematical equations to build data to be analyzed. Demons and demonic forces are not usual topics of dinner party conversations, let me tell you. Although, Cosmologists and Particle Physicists might be helpful in parsing out powerful forces in our universe beyond our control.
Immediately, Mark’s favorite word, we are at risk to place this story at arm’s length. That was then, this is now. They were superstitious, even ignorant, we know better through biology, chemistry and physics how the world works and how our bodies operate within this physical plane. The only problem is, this framework disallows for the supernatural intervention of forces beyond our control that we don't understand , or maybe even God for that matter. Yet in Jesus’ day, people made sense of their experience by assigning misfortune, mental illness, physical ailments, to evil spirits. For them, the cosmic battle was engaged on a daily basis, on the ground. This is still true if you do not have the luxury of income and agency in a capitalist economy, whereby you believe you can buy whatever it is you need, including peace of mind. And we do know this from the record, where Jesus goes, the demons show up. They don't need to bother when he's not around. As Jesus sets up His free health clinics with nary a co-pay all over Galilee, they keep sneaking in, As Rev. William Barber, co-leader of the Renewed Poor Peoples’ Campaign, likes to say.
Long before humanity recognizes Jesus as the Son of God, the demons exclaim: what do you have to do with us, we know who you are. The Holy One of God!” The forces of evil know the power of Jesus’ word. For healing, for liberation, for freedom. This Word disrupts the undisturbed presence of evil.
(say twice)
After-all, right before this, Jesus has been out in the wilderness for 40 days,. tempted by every imaginable evil there is .comes back rooted in his call to be Savior of the world.
“Silence!”
Jesus shouts.
Teaching & healing are one act, in the Jesus way. Authority, Divine Power, is understood. It’s a given. In fact, in chapter 3, the disciples themselves will go out with this power and cast out demons and do healings.
God accommodates divine revelation to meet the needs of the people in whatever age. His purpose is love. communication to build relationship and to bring salvation. What we have to admit, is our own inadequacy to understand all of reality. We are limited, as we are not the creators of the universe.
Therefore, God accommodates for us just like He did for these demon believers. You know, when you think about it, it probably doesn’t matter to God whether we believe in demonic powers or not. Whatever we call the anti-human forces of our day, God is at work to rid them within his kingdom that is within reach.
Think about this. It’s not only in individuals that we see this anti-human power enacted. It is in any social, political, economic or religious structure that oppresses, that takes away the sacredness of human life, that denies some people from being allowed to bear the image of God because of the color of their skin, whom they love, their gender, their age, their station in the social world. Just in this last year we have witnessed the murders of Black men and women by police; White Christian Nationalists storming our capital in the name of their god and their new savior, a true heresy. We wonder sometimes if its accurate to say the universe bends toward justice, or not. But then we are reminded the world is under God’ purview.
The authority of Jesus’ Word did not stop with His death. As Christians, we claim His resurrection, which establishes the kingdom within reach. Through the Divine power of the Holy Spirit, we believe that wholeness is possible, freedom is given, healing of individuals and nations is here and is to come. I mean, come on, we pray it every week: thy kingdom come, thy will be done: where? right here, when? right now, on earth, as it is already in heaven.
We are being called today, to come out, to stand in the light of Jesus Christ and proclaim with our very own lives that His Love wins.
And Then God Speaks: Come Out!