Published on 30 Jan 2012

Sermon by Dean Peter Elliott – January 29th, 2012

January 29nd, 2012 – The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

Dean Peter Elliott

Christ Church Cathedral

To listen to an audio Mp3 version of this sermon,  click here 

Jesus the Exorcist

For those of you here today old enough let me take you back to 1973:
• Pierre Trudeau was Prime Minister of Canada,
• Average Cost of new house $32,500.00 and Average Income/year $12,900.00
• Average Monthly Rent $175.00
• Cost of a gallon of Gas 40 cents
• Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), announce they will restrict flow of crude oil to countries supporting Israel on October 17th causing price of oil to increase by 200%
• Watergate Hearings begin in the United States Senate and President Richard Nixon tells addresses his nation saying, “I am not a crook.”
• The top 2 songs on the pop chart were Tie a Yellow Ribbon round the Old Oak Tree and Bad Bad Leroy Brown.
And…a movie was released that caused a huge stir wherever it played. Called The Exorcist it shaped a view of demonic possession that has held sway ever since it was made. Images a young girl with her head rotating 360 degrees while she shouted obscenities gripped audiences; stories were told of people running out of the theatre because they were so traumatized. A friend of mine saw a preview—he had nightmares for weeks, but then again, he was somewhat prone to over reaction. Propelled by a great yet creepy soundtrack by Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells The Exorcist has pretty much defined the way people think about exorcism and possession even to this very day. It’s been imitated endlessly by films and TV programs ever since and the images seem burned on people’s imaginations.
So, when we get a text like the gospel from Mark this morning (Mark 1: 21-28), it’s a challenge to help a congregation hear and understand what’s going on when Jesus, while teaching in a synagogue exorcises a man described as having an unclean spirit. I want to focus with you for a few minutes this morning on this short passage from Mark’s gospel in order to help us see that this story, far from connecting with bad religious horror films, actually speaks pretty directly to the anxieties of our present time which each of us feel deeply in our spirits.
Let’s start out by admitting another inconvenient truth for followers of Jesus in our time: just like Chris reminded us in his sermon last week that Jesus was, as he put it, an apocalyptic dude [1], it’s also true that Jesus was an exorcist. Particularly in Mark’s gospel there is story after story about how Jesus cast out demons and unclean spirits. Interestingly the same kind of language that’s used to describe his exorcisms is also used when Jesus calms the storm at sea.
What we need to understand is that in the ancient world, there were lots of exorcists because disease of mind or body was understood as a spiritual matter. Conditions that, in today’s world, we’d quickly assume as medical or psychological they understood as spiritual. In our time, with the scientific world-view, we have a whole vocabulary to describe and therefore treat many conditions, and the high priests in our time are physicians.
But in the ancient world disease of mind or body was often thought of as being possessed by an evil spirit and Jesus, being of his time, ministered in a way that made sense then. And while we may find this quaint or primitive, it’s worth heeding the words of theologian Walter Wink who observes that “Our society is possessed, Christians as much as anyone. We are possessed by violence, possessed by sex, possessed by money, possessed by drugs…” [2]
And not only that, but who amongst us doesn’t know the feeling of being in the grip of an emotional state that changes everything from your physiology to your mental functioning? Anyone who has ever experienced grief knows about this: when you grieve it’s like you’re possessed by a force beyond you—the sheer physicality of feeling a loss whether through death or separation can be just unbearable. Just this past week, on matters not of this congregation, I got caught in an emotional system that was pretty debilitating for a couple of days. While in the grip of this I remembered the wise words attributed to psychologist Carl Jung who observed that we don’t so much have emotions as emotions have us.
This notion of unclean spirits that Mark gospel tells about seems to be an ancient way of recognizing that sometimes we are caught up in forces that are not genuinely us, but are so powerful and compelling that they seem to possess us [3].
Let me push just one step deeper here: not only can we caught in anger as I did this past week, or grief or depression in a personal way, but as a society we can become possessed by attitudes or assumptions that can be destructive. You only need to look at the history of racism or sexism or homophobia to remember that a dominant culture can easily become convinced of things that actually rob people of their dignity and rightful place in the world.
Central to Jesus teaching is his proclamation of the kingdom of God: the good news that brings liberation and freedom to all people. The central message of the good news is that you have been created by divine love and you can be who you are, just as God made you to be [4]. Sadly the conditions of the world make that a difficult task: becoming the beloved child of God is the pilgrim journey of each one of us and we can’t do it alone. It’s not a matter of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and making things better, it’s about leaning into and knowing the love and mercy of God we see in Jesus Christ and being upheld and supported by the community of faith. It’s always interesting to me that many the most admired people of our time have been formed by faith in God and upheld by Christian community and values. Dr. Martin Luther King and Archbishop Desmond Tutu come quickly to mind as two leaders who addressed the evil powers of racism and helped to make a world of dignity and hope and changed the world. Both of them and so many others who have led in the work of liberation have been formed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and upheld by the prayers and witness of the Christian community.
What’s most fascinating about today’s short gospel passage from Mark is how much is going on in the text. It begins with Jesus in the synagogue in Capernaum and he is teaching. Mark does not tell us what he is teaching but we can presume that it is about the Kingdom of God because that’s what Mark tells us, just a few verses earlier that Jesus proclaimed. And what is God’s kingdom but the proclamation that at this very moment God is present inviting us into the fullness of life. To get into this kingdom involves repentance which is best understood as developing a larger mind [5] , a bigger picture, a wider perspective beyond all the little but to our egos urgent drives and needs for survival. There is more to life than our survival, there is more to life than my little existence: there is a power beyond that’s available to each of us in this very moment that helps to transform our perspectives and changes the way we live. The kingdom is amongst you, Jesus taught, some translators render it this way– that God’s kingdom is within you. Within you, growing and enabling you to be the person that God has created you to be so that your life can be an instrument of love and compassion in the world. So Jesus taught about the kingdom and Mark’s text tells us that those who heard it were amazed because he, unlike other religious leaders taught with authority. The authority he had was because he not only taught it, he lived it. And in the midst of this scene comes one described as having an unclean spirit who cries out the question that was on everyone’s mind: “What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” His words must have lingered in the space for a few moments: he gave voice to the fears and anxieties then and now and Jesus, as he does throughout Mark’s gospel, silences the ones who call him Holy because he understands how that will play out in the end. I find it interesting that this man with the unclean spirit who identifies Jesus as the Holy One has a parallel at the end of Mark’s gospel, when it is a Roman centurion, one who participated in the crucifixion, after beholding Jesus death says, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” (Mark 15:39)
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” This question resounds across the centuries to us today: the troubled words of a disturbed man but words all the same that invite us to look in our hearts and ask how we are responding to the one who proclaimed the Kingdom of God with its agenda of reconciliation, compassion, justice and love. In response to his question Jesus is not here to destroy us but to bring us life and life abundantly. In Christ we see the human face of God calling us away from all that possesses us and holds us in the grip of terror and invites us into fullness of life. Jesus calls out the unclean spirit, the man is released from his troubles, the congregation is amazed that Jesus can have authority over even the demons and his fame spreads. It the first of the stories in Mark’s gospel that tells us of Jesus ministry: we know that it leads him to a cross and then, quietly, one springtime morning, to a new life without revenge where he invites us all to join in the work of reconciliation and peace. To that work and in his name I invite you today. I want to close with a meditation by theologian and retreat leader Jan Richardson. She calls this Blessing in the Chaos
To all that is chaotic
in you, 
let there come silence.
Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
 on you,
that have made their
 home in you,
that go with you
 even to the 
holy places
but will not 
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
 with wholeness
or feel the grace
 that fashioned you.
Let what distracts you 
cease.
Let what divides you
 cease.
Let there come an end 
to what diminishes 
and demeans,
and let depart
 all that keeps you 
in its cage.
Let there be
an opening 
into the quiet
 that lies beneath
 the chaos,
where you find
 the peace
 you did not think
 possible
and see what shimmers
 within the storm. [6]

ENDNOTES:

[1] http://www.cathedral.vancouver.bc.ca/2012/01/23/sermon-by-the-rev-chris-dierkes-jan-22-2012/

[2] Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers as quoted at http://www.preachingpeace.org/lectionaries/yearb-epiphany4/

[3] see more here http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2012/01/demons-possessions-and-unclean-stuff.html

[4] see William Loader’s commentary here http://www.staff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkEpiphany4.htm

[5] see Cynthia Bourgeault’s work on this in The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heat and Mind—a New Perspective on Christ and His Message.  Boston: Shambhala, 2008.  p. 37ff.

[6] From Jan Richardson’s wonderful blog http://paintedprayerbook.com/2012/01/24/epiphany-4-blessing-in-the-chaos/