Unclean spirits, get out of here!
Sermon on Mark 1:21-28
Possessed by the Holy Spirit, fresh from successfully confronting Satan in the wilderness, preaching the reign of God, and now in the company of at least four followers, it’s time for Jesus’ public ministry to gather momentum.
It’s time for a fight scene. With some real action!
The scene in a Capernaum synagogue — a setting of prayer, teaching, worship, and community gathering — centers around questions of Jesus’ authority. Why does he do what he does? For whom does he speak and act? Who has authorized his ministry?
The answers to those questions emerge through fights — contests and controversies, really. Mark wants us to know, here at the outset of Jesus’ public ministry — that Jesus’ authority will be a contested authority. Jesus’ presence, words, and deeds threaten other forces that claim authority over people’s lives. These other authorities have something to lose. Because they were successful for so long and have made lots of profit from keeping everyone else down and little. And so many people even bought into it and thought it was right and good that a few were super rich and held all the power and most people didn’t have a say in anything, not even their own lives. They try to hold on to their power by any means possible. Even if it’s just a relative power given to them by the people in actual power. Dependent power still feels like power.
The man with the unclean spirit finds Jesus. He initiates the whole exchange. His opening question conveys a sense of “Why are you picking this fight?” or “Couldn’t you have just left things as they were between us?” Jesus, by his sheer presence in this synagogue, has upset the order. He has crossed an established boundary. Which is the greatest crime one can commit in the eyes of most.
The contest does not last long, for this is not the fairest of fights in terms of the strength of the combatants. We can’t be sure whether the spirit’s next question (“Have you come to destroy us [unclean spirits]?”) is a fearful acknowledgement that his doom is sealed or an arrogant but miscalculated boast. “Have you come to destroy us?” is spoken by the demons, but in Mark’s narrative, it represents the scribes’ opinion.
Later on in the Gospel according to Mark the scribes will accuse Jesus of performing miracles by the power of the prince of demons. Because miracles that upset power structures can’t be done in the name of God, in the scribes’ opinion. Which in Mark’s view makes the scribes’ teaching “demonic. Because it does not liberate, but oppresses and enslaves people. A liberating act is needed and Jesus does it!
The spirit is soon gone, expelled from the man with a few words from Jesus. No prayers. No formulas. No props. Just commands. “Get out of here!”
Mark gives no information about what happens to the spirit. It appears to become disembodied, not destroyed. When Jesus strips the spirits of the ability to inhabit their human hosts, Jesus denies the unclean spirits’ capability to have a settled place or entrenched influence in the world. Losing opportunities to win over people’s bodies and minds, unclean spirits lose the authority they were thought to have. This exorcism does not eliminate evil and oppression; it denies those kinds of forces the authority and power to hold ultimate sway over people’s lives. Yes, there is evil in this world. And no, it does not have the last say! It doesn’t have a say at all if Jesus is there.
Demons are real. They possess us and they are intent on destroying us.
They will be disguised as things we actually value. Like self-esteem, overprotection, love, work ethic, perfectionism. We might say that we want to help and empower the poor and mean that we can’t see any value in the way those people live and that we need to save them because our way is the only way to humanly live. We might say that we want to evangelize and mean that we don’t care about other religions and faith traditions and that our way is the only way to be close to God. As if God had to rely on our strength and our power of persuasion to be close to every human being on earth.
We might hope that the people we feed or give backpacks to or help will feel obliged to worship with us while forgetting that we fed our own kids with both food and the Word of God and yet most of them don’t worship with us anymore.
The demons are many out there. And we have great expertise in denying them.
And we need to cast those demons out. Because Jesus did. And because they keep us from loving others like God loves them and us. How? First, we have to name them. Second, we have to command them to leave. And then stick with it. That’s the hardest.
Naming the demons is a way to recognize that they exist. Let’s start with the biggest one and the one I as a pastor fear the most. Because it would not just cost me my life with God, but also my job. The demon called unbelief: losing one’s faith in God, in life as a sacred force, and in our fellow human beings. It is the feeling that nothing can be done to solve our problems.
And I have to be honest, this demon that our problems are here to stay has been quite present during the last year. When it seems as if it never gets any better. When people keep dying and getting sick. When every time one person gets off the streets, there are more becoming unhoused. When I walk around and see the misery people find themselves in. This incredible loneliness.
The other day I brought food to an elderly woman. She lives in a studio and had just joined our neighborhood group on Facebook. I asked her how long she has been living there. “Over 12 years, she said. Out of those I have been sick for 10 years. I just started getting better.” She doesn’t know anybody and even though she gets help from the city, they only deliver her 10 meals out of 14 she would need for a week. She is homebound, lives on disability. And she is lovely, wonderful to talk to, witty and great. When I left her, I wanted to scream! It seems like every time I turn around there is another human being suffering and all I can do is help a tiny bit to make it better. But it never seems to get good. The demons of social isolation seem to stick. It’s hard not to lose hope. It’s hard to trust God when the world seems to fall apart. It’s hard to have faith when there is suffering all around us. And yet, it’s all we can do. Or else we would be doomed to disparity.
And we can pray. Praying is not a pious resignation to God’s will, or an exercise that puts our minds at ease. It’s an intensely personal struggle to resist the despair and distractions that cause us to practice unbelief, to abandon or avoid the way of Jesus. Praying is the struggle to believe that change can really happen. A better world is possible. And so we pray. With our hearts and minds, with our feet and hands, with our wallets and our attention. We pray.
Unless we name the demons, they will name us. They will control and destroy us. Unless we distance ourselves from them, we will serve them. That takes courage and endurance. Because demons are powerful. That’s why they are demons, not failures.
When talking about demons, Mark implies that this is a cosmic conflict over ownership. What God called very good demons try to destroy. What God made as one world and one people, demons divide and conquer. What God sees in us, demons hide. And so we find ourselves in a country that’s polarized over basically everything. We could probably have people start a serious fight over Dunkin Donuts vs Starbucks on Facebook and not even notice how ridiculous it is. Sure, Dunkin Donuts is better, but you get the idea. Somehow, we have come to the conclusion that we cannot talk to each other anymore and that it’s not even worth trying anymore. Which is the end of any democracy. And the end of the kin-dom of God. Because it’s the end of relationships and God’s world is a world of relationships.
In this episode the unclean spirit makes a demonic “confession”/recognition and calls him “the holy one of God.” Jesus’ responds by commanding him to “be silent” and to “come out of him.” That the unclean spirit is the first to name Jesus and acknowledge his power is an early instance of Mark’s ironic reversals and surprises. Evil forces have the most to lose in the coming of Jesus and the “good news.” Apprehending the threat Jesus poses, the spirit exits the man with one last spasmodic movement and one final cry.
In this first skirmish, Jesus prevails, but not without the unclean spirit protesting and acting out. Evil forces have the most to lose in the coming of Jesus and the “good news.” That’s how we know they are evil forces. When they act out when there is any notion about fighting for the oppressed or getting people healthcare or food and housing security.
Somehow, God is drawn close to unclean spirits. God shows up where we still least expect God. Which is funny because God has always been showing up there. In the outcasts and the beggars and the sick and the prostitutes and the unhoused. These are God’s people. Yet, somehow, we need to be reminded of that because we often feel more entitled to God’s love and blessing than those poor fellas. God is a God of the broken, the lost, the tired, the possessed. God is a God that liberates. You and me from our fears and worries to deal with the demons we witness. You and me from our hopelessness that anything will ever change. Because as long as God is by our side, things will change. We just have to keep calling the demons out and command them to get out of here. Because Jesus is in charge. Because love and compassion are in charge.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
