Mark 1:21-28
January 31, 2021
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
Karen was angry. She had young children and a husband who travelled for long periods of time. Her father-in-law was living with them, and his physical ailments along with his emotional and verbal abusiveness was creating stress for the entire family. Karen was angry.
She was so angry that one day after a particularly difficult exchange with her father-in-law, she ran downstairs to the laundry room and kicked a full laundry basket across the floor. Hard.
So hard in fact that she broke her toe. She was embarrassed to be that angry, embarrassed that she had lost control like that. Humiliated that she had actually caused harm to herself because she couldn’t deal with her anger. And Karen was never able to forget what happened because from that point on whenever the weather changed, her toe ached. She was reminded over and over again of how powerful her anger was. In her words, it felt as though she was possessed by her anger.
I heard this story many years ago, and although I did not want to admit it then – or now -- I resonate with Karen’s description of feeling possessed by anger. I have been that angry; so angry that I felt controlled by it. So angry that it felt like the anger had taken over my entire being. Karen’s story about breaking her toe put into words what I felt. To be that angry was not only to feel it, but to be possessed by it. Possessed by an emotion that seems out of my control. Possessed in a way that I do or say things I don’t mean and immediately wish that I could take back.
According to some of the commentators I’ve read in preparation for this sermon, I’m missing the point by starting with the possession in the story. Some of the scholars I’ve consulted believe that the greater point in this passage from Mark is not that Jesus healed a man besieged by a demon, but that Jesus has a previously unseen, unheard of authority. That is what the people respond to. That is what their exclamation, “What is this?” is referring to. Jesus possesses an authority that goes beyond even the scribes and Pharisees. He teaches and interprets Scripture with authority, and through that authority he casts out a demon. His authority amazed and astonished them.
“What is this?!”
I have always found a fascinating aspect of the gospels is that the demonic recognized Jesus first. The religious folks are unable to recognize Jesus, certainly not the ones in authority. Even the disciples cannot quite grasp Jesus’ full identity. But the demons he encounters? They know right away. This is certainly true in our passage. The demon not only recognized Jesus, but it also called Jesus by the identifying title of Holy One of God. The only other ones who know this so far are the readers. Mark has made it clear to us who Jesus is, but for the people who were actually with Jesus, who encountered him and followed him, their grasping the knowledge of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah, will take the entire gospel and beyond.
This is Jesus’s first act of ministry in Mark’s gospel. In each of the gospels, Jesus has a different first. In the gospel of John, Jesus turns water into wine. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus climbs up on a mountain and preaches a sermon. And in Luke, he heals a man of leprosy. The first thing that Jesus does in each gospel sets the tone for that gospel. In Mark, it is an exorcism. Like the man with leprosy in Luke, it is a healing, true. But to cast out a demon is a different kind of healing altogether.
It is the kind of healing that we are least comfortable with in our Western, children of the enlightenment kind of thinking. Demonic possession is not something many of us like to think about or consider. I mean, it is one thing for Jesus to heal someone who is physically ill, to bring that person into health and wholeness. But talk of demon possession makes us uncomfortable doesn’t it? Well, it makes me uncomfortable. In that culture and time, many things were blamed on demons. People were irreparably harmed because it was believed they were possessed by demons. And that didn’t end in Jesus’ time. For centuries there was no understanding of emotional or mental illness or a-neurotypical behavior; it was all just pinned on demons. But what comes to our minds when we hear the phrase demonic possession? Anyone? Anyone?
I know what I think of. I think of The Exorcist. I have never, ever seen this movie, nor do I plan to, because I just don’t need to be that scared. But I know enough about it, and I have seen enough of the pertinent clips from the movie to get its gist. So, the words demonic possession brings up a mental image of Linda Blair and, you know, things spinning. And while The Exorcist may be the definitive demon possession movie, there are still plenty more being made. Our culture seems to be fascinated by them as equally as we are repelled.
But I think it’s far more helpful for our purposes and for our understanding to see demons in a different way. Dr. David Lose of Workingpreacher.org writes about the demonic as that which opposes God, works against God, breaks down, rips apart, and destroys. A demon is what keeps us separated from God and from one another. If I am so possessed with anger that I say or do something that causes great harm, then that’s not working for God, is it? Even if what I say or do harms myself.
If I am possessed by greed or jealousy or despair or despondency then I am not about building up God’s children, am I? I am not seeking to create or mend, but to rip apart and destroy.
Thinking of this in light of our passage from I Corinthians, if I am so possessed by my own belief in what I know, or at least what I think I know, that I can actually cause harm to come to someone else, then I am not just puffed up, I am possessed.
Possession grips us in other ways. Think about those who are addicted – whether it’s to drugs or alcohol, food or something else. There is a line in a Tim McGraw song that says,
“This is for the lost junkie who spends all his hard-earned money on something that he hates.”
That is a description of possession.
And none of us are immune from possession, from being gripped by something that feels much larger than us, more powerful than us. Let’s remember where Jesus encounters this demon possessed man. In the synagogue. The man was in church, listening to the preaching and the teaching. When Jesus speaks with his authority, the authority as the Holy One of God, the demon recognizes him. The demon sees Jesus for who he truly is. The demon calls out to him. And Jesus, with authority, with the power of his word alone – not a ritual, not a rite, the power of his word alone – casts out the demon.
The people who attended that synagogue were not expecting this. They were not expecting to be amazed or astonished. And amazement in that time and place was not necessarily a good thing. They just went to synagogue as they were supposed to do, as they were obligated to do, thinking perhaps that they would hear the same prayers, the same lessons, see the same rituals as they did on every other Sabbath. Yet this Jesus person showed up and encountered a person possessed. And in that encounter, he healed the person. He did not heal through trickery or magic. He healed with authority. He healed as God would heal. And the people were not expecting that. They were not expecting to be amazed. They were not expecting to be astonished.
Of course they exclaimed, “What is this?!” Jesus’ healing was the furthest thing from their minds, but still it happened.
And that makes me wonder if we have lost our ability to be amazed during this time of worship. Have we lost our sense of wonder of what God can do in our midst? Have we become too skeptical or even cynical for our own good? We worship, whether it is in person or virtually, and we expect to see the same old thing week after week. I wonder if we have forgotten to take seriously the words of scripture that says God is doing a new thing. Because God is doing a new thing right here. Right now.
What would worship be like if we approached it expecting to be amazed? What would our worship feel like if we expected to be astonished? I’m not trying to set us up for anything. I am not promising exorcisms or healings. I’m just reminding us, you and me, that God in Jesus did the extraordinary, the beyond-belief. Jesus started his ministry in Mark’s gospel by exorcising a person possessed. Can’t we also be exorcised of our demons? Isn’t church, isn’t worship where it just might happen?
Can’t we also be exorcised of the demons of fear, of jealousy and envy, of anger here in this time, this sacred space? Surely, there is no better time than in this sacred time for our demons to be exorcised? Because although we do not have the authority to heal as Jesus did, we do have the authority, the command to love. I mean, really, really love. We have the command to love as Jesus loved, to give our whole selves to one another, and to the world beyond these doors. We have the command to love, and by love I mean work, work for justice, work for equity, work for the wholeness and wellness of all people.
Jesus healed and exorcised and preached and made miracles happen with authority not through magic but through the power of Love, love from God, of God, with God. Are we not called to strive to love in the same way? Wouldn’t it be incredible if we expected that kind of authoritative love to astonish and amaze us every time we worshipped? Wouldn’t it be amazing if others looked at us, recognized our love for each other and for them, and exclaimed,
“What is this?”
I know that to just proclaim we need to love more does not make loving any easier. We are possessed by demons that cannot always be cured by love alone. But love is our starting point. Love is the authority and the power that we have been given. Jesus commanded the unclean spirit, the demon, to leave the man possessed. And it did because Jesus spoke with the authority of the Holy One of God. What do we know of God through Jesus? We know love. It seems to me that if we’re going to be possessed by anything, let us be possessed by love. Let us love one another so powerfully, so graciously, that we astonish ourselves and others. Let us love one another so deeply that the whole world sees us and exclaims,
“What is this?!”
Let us love as God loves us and let us be astonished and amazed by that love.
Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”
Amen.
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