Why God's Authority Is Good News

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Mark 1:21-28

Mark’s gospel begins without much of an introduction.  It fires off at a fast clip and moves along at a brisk pace.  The beginning line is the title, “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah.”  Jesus is baptized, tempted in the wilderness,  and begins his public ministry with a simple, urgent message: “The time has come.  Repent, and believe the good news.”  Immediately he gathers disciples to share the work of announcing and demonstrating the arrival of God’s new kingdom.

Today’s reading is interesting partly because it’s a window into the regular rhythms of Jesus’ ministry.  He and his disciples travel to the town of Capernaum, on the North side of the Sea of Galilee.  On the Sabbath day – Saturday – Jesus “went into the synagogue and began to teach.”

 

This is what happened every Sabbath day in local synagogues.  These were places for the study of Scripture, prayer, and song.  It was the task of bible scholars – “scribes” they were called – to interpret the stories in the Jewish Bible during worship.  And there’s no need to criticize the Jewish scribes here.  They were doing their job.  They were handing on the wisdom of the past about how best to interpret Scripture.  But there was something strikingly different about Jesus’ way of teaching.   The people were “amazed” because his teaching was different from what they usually heard.

What’s odd about this scene is that it highlights the authority of Jesus’ teaching but tells us nothing about what he taught.  What passage from the Jewish bible was he reading?  What was he saying about it?  Why were those gathered so “amazed” at his teaching?  The gospel leaves all these questions open.

Instead, the scene shifts abruptly to the loud cry of a man in the synagogue who was possessed by an unclean spirit.  “What do you want with us Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are – the Holy One of God!” 

Jesus gives two succinct commands, “Be quiet,” said Jesus sternly, “Come out of him!”  The unclean spirit obeys the commanding authority of Jesus immediately and without question.  The spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.  That would have been quite a sight to behold.

No wonder those gathered were “amazed.” 

Before we go any further I think it’s a good idea to ask ourselves whether ancient stories about demon possession matter to people like us, living in the 21^st century.  What are we supposed to do with stories about evil spirits?  Should we just try really hard to believe them even though we’ve never had any experience with this sort of thing?  Or should we wave them off as rather unhelpful and antiquated?  There might be good reasons for us to dismiss stories like this as primitive and naïve. Our horror movies frequently depict evil spirits possessing a person – but we know that these films are designed to scare us.  And we don’t put much stock in them as attempts to tell the truth about how the world works.

And perhaps some of us are already thinking, “Yeah, people in ancient cultures believed that gods and angels and demons were involved in human affairs.  They believed that spiritual powers were just part of the mix, causing things to happen.  But we’ve outgrown that way of thinking.  We believe in electricity, engineering, medicine, and lasers.  We don’t refer spiritual powers like ‘unclean spirits’ to explain anything.”

And maybe you’re right.  Maybe Jesus has little to offer sophisticated folks like us.  Maybe our lives have little to do with the man in the synagogue whose life was a dwelling place for harmful and destructive powers.

In our reading today, the man’s condition is described using language that pictures his life as troubled by an “unclean,” “imputre,” or “evil” spirit.  Elsewhere the gospel refers to “demons” that take up residence in a person’s life.  Whatever you call them, Jesus’ authority over the demonic spirits is a theme in the early part of the gospel.   

“Jesus healed many who had various diseases.  He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was” (1:34).

“So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons” (1:39).

“Jesus healed so many people that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him.  Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, ‘You are the Son of God.’  But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him” (3:10-12).

And this is part of his ministry that he shared with the twelve apostles.  “Jesus appointed twelve (apostles) that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons” (3:14-15).

All in all, Jesus performs eighteen miracles in Mark’s gospel.  Thirteen of those miracles are healing stories.  Four of those healing stories are exorcisms.  So according to this gospel, the healing power of Jesus manifest in his authority over the demonic forces that distort human lives is central to his identity and his ministry.  So IF we decide that these stories are too primitive for us, we’ll need to dismiss Mark’s gospel as a whole.

But for now let’s turn our attention back to the man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue at Capernaum.  He doesn’t even get a name.  And that makes it easy to overlook him.  Clearly Mark’s gospel invites us to focus on Jesus and his powerful, authoritative teaching.  But still, aren’t you curious about this man?

He is a sick man.  A disturbed and troubled man.  He is not well mentally and psychologically.  The fact that he himself does not speak to Jesus – but only the unclean spirit within him – may suggest that he was mute (as were others possessed by unclean spirits).

We might not know the precise nature of his dilemma, but we do know that he was a regular attender at synagogue.  He wasn’t a deranged lunatic living naked in a cemetery like the guy we meet in chapter 5.  He’s part of the regular synagogue crowd.  He’s a churchgoer, a regular.

We don’t know how long the man’s life had been troubled by the unclean spirit.  But we do know that religious services weren’t helping.  And the bible scholars weren’t helping.  He was sick with something that required superior power.  And that’s what happened when Jesus visited the synagogue at Capernaum.

I wonder if the man is not named so that we can better imagine his plight.  I wonder if his anonymity might encourage us to find parts of who we are in his experience.  Maybe a story like this is the only way that many of us will entertain the possibility that we too live with a variety of afflictions and troubles too deep to recognize or name.

Much of our lives are lived in the grip of some kind of power.  Consider the experience of grief.  When we experience traumatic and irreversible loss, we grieve.  And that is a powerful thing.  You don’t just wish it away.  You can’t just decide some morning that you’re done with it.  It has you until it’s done.  It clutches you with a power that’s hard to even articulate.

Or consider the experience of shame.  Many of us live with a powerful sense that we’re inherently unlovable or don’t deserve respect.  This might manifest in a feeling that we’re not very physically attractive, or not smart enough, or in an embarrassment about our family.  It can live in us by rooting itself in some hurtful voice – a parent, a spouse, or a friend said something that hurt us deeply.  And that wound becomes one of the dominant shaping powers of our lives. 

Not all the powers that shape our lives are negative, of course.  Consider the experience of “falling in love.”  The metaphor is apt – when it happens it feels like falling, like giving in to something.  People who fall in love are in the grip of a powerful, life-altering passion.  People do all kinds of nutty things when they fall in love.  Their brains are awash in chemicals that make them do goofy things, like staring into each other’s eyes, spending every minute together, writing poetry, and spooning while sleeping.

My point isn’t that living in the grip of powerful forces is a bad thing.  Just that our lives are the kinds of things that get pulled in different directions.  They’re bent along life-giving paths or twisted into destructive paths.  And when it happens that you get in the grip of something so overpowering and overwhelming that you can’t handle it, you will need the help of something more powerful than what has you in its grip.

We might think most immediately of the power of various addictions that rob us of life – addictions to alcohol, or drugs, or food, or sex.  But it can be even more subtle than that.   It’s possible to be in the grip of a life-distorting ideology – to be so blindly devoted to a particular cause or political party that you can’t think straight.  It’s possible to be in the grip of a particular life goal that twists you off center - career advancement, money, or status, say.  Others find themselves in the grip of passions like anger and revenge that knot themselves together in ways we can’t untie.

I read this week the story of a writer in his late thirties who has successfully published dozens of articles and several books.  He had always wanted to be a writer and dreamed of getting published.  He assumed that his success would bring along with it a deep feeling of satisfaction.  But it didn’t.  It just made him feel like he needed to publish more and more.  With every book, he found he needed just a little more success.

Growing up, he lived with a mother who was not well.  For reasons he could not fathom, she made a habit of telling him she loved his little brother more than she loved him.  She would gather the little brother in an embrace, telling her older son that no one would ever love him, and that he would never amount to anything.  That early emotional trauma disguised itself later in life as an insatiable quest to prove that he was successful and worth loving.  So every time he published a book, he needed to publish another one.  And another.  I suppose I wouldn’t call it demon possession, but it’s close.  We need some way to talk about lives that are twisted by powerful forces beyond their control.

Sometimes we forget the ferocious, urgent demands of faith.  We get sloppy, and lazy, and tired – and so we imagine that not much is at stake.  Bible stories are quaint but harmless stories written long ago.  We imagine that faith is about believing a list of things.  Or about getting some kind of ticket to an afterlife. 

But if the unnamed man in the synagogue is me.  And you.  Then today we have encountered the good news that Jesus the Messiah has authority over all the powers that harm us and bind us.  We don’t have to live in the grip of powers that block us from life and joy and connections with others.  We can look in amazement that we have found one who heals us.  The risen Christ stands among us with authority to remove the unclean spirits from our lives.  It is done.  They’re gone.  Now go in peace.