Epiphany
A sermon for Epiphany 4 : Mark 1.28 Jesus casting out unclean spirits by the Revd. Andrew Tawn, St. Peter’s Addingham.
If you were to tell the story of Jesus what would you choose as Jesus’ first miracle? You know that first impressions set the tone for the rest of the story, so you would want to pick something impressive, something striking and memorable, something that would encapsulate who Jesus was and what he was going to do.
The author of John’s gospel chose the story of Jesus turning water into wine. As Barbara showed us last week, this was not just a miracle but a significant act – a kind of acted out parable which tells us something important about Jesus’ nature and his mission. Just as water was changed into wine, so Jesus came to bring transformation to individuals, to our faith, to our world.
So what would you choose? Maybe the stilling of the storm, to show that Jesus can rescue us when we are in trouble? Maybe the feeding of the five thousand, to show he can satisfy our deepest hungers? I suspect that one of your last choices might be an exorcism – Jesus casting out an unclean spirit.
I think we are uncomfortable about the idea of exorcism for a variety of reasons. The word has become associated with lurid and fantastic horror films. And if someone were to behave in a mentally disturbed way nowadays we would seek medical explanations and treatment for them rather than exorcism. In the past people have been demonised because of conditions and illnesses like epilepsy which were not properly understood.
But that is exactly what Mark chooses here. In the space of the first 20 verses of Mark’s gospel we have been introduced to John the Baptist, Jesus has been baptised and the Holy Spirit has descended upon him, he has been tempted in the wilderness for forty days, John has been arrested, Jesus has begun to preach the gospel of God, calling people to repent, and he has called Simon, Andrew, James and John to follow him. When I did my English O level we were given passages to summarise into a reduced number of words. It would be very hard to summarise all that in fewer words than Mark himself used, he is so economical in his style. And so he rushes us straight into Jesus’ first miracle: Jesus’ casting out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue.
The first thing to note is that the word for a miracle in Mark is different from the one John uses in his gospel. John’s word is a ‘sign’ – so Barbara suggested John’s gospel may be read as ‘a book of signs’. Mark’s word is, in Greek, dunam is – which means an act of power. We get our English words dynamo and dynamic from the same word. This first miracle reveals Jesus as a person of spiritual power and authority.
The first half of Mark’s gospel constantly raises and addresses the question, ‘Who is Jesus?’ The author tells us in the very first verse: ‘The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’. But the characters in the story do not yet know who Jesus is and we watch them puzzling over this extraordinary person, astounded at the things he said and did and asking ‘Who is this who teaches a new teaching, who teaches with authority, who even has the authority to command unclean spirits and they obey him?’ Even the disciples who are following Jesus are asking this question. If you look at this gospel you’ll find that the pronoun ‘they’ is ambiguous here. In the previous verses Jesus has just called his disciples. So in the opening verse of this gospel, ‘they went to Capernaum’ must refer to Jesus and those four disciples. In the next verse it says, ‘They were astounded at his teaching’. In verse 27 ‘They were all amazed and kept on asking each other, ‘What is this new teaching?’ Is that the congregation of the synagogue or the disciples? Certainly, three chapters on, when Jesus stilled the storm, it is the disciples who ask, ‘Who is this, that even the wind and waves obey him?’ (Mk. 4:41).
But if the disciples and the bystanders are still trying to work out who Jesus is, the unclean spirit is in no doubt, calling out, ‘I know who you are, the holy one of God.’ It is one of the ironies of Mark’s gospel that demons and unclean spirits recognise Jesus’ true nature before his own followers do. So in this, his first miracle, Jesus is revealed as a dynamic teacher and healer of authority – an authority which comes directly from God.
I think Mark may have chosen this first miracle also as a contrast to Jesus baptism, which has come only 10 verses before this. When we read the gospel in chunks on a Sunday we can miss these connections. If you sit down and read it as a continuous story, as Julie encouraged us to in her sermon a couple of weeks ago, you notice links and parallels between adjacent stories.
At his baptism, Jesus received the Holy Spirit. Here a man is possessed by an unclean spirit. At Jesus’ baptism, the voice from heaven expresses love and approval, ‘You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased’. Here the voice of the unclean spirit brings internal torment and expresses fear: ‘What have you to do with us? … Have you come to destroy us?’
It is as though Mark is saying the world we live in is not neutral territory. There is a spiritual conflict going on and the primary arena for that conflict is human nature – our own souls.
The danger of this passage is that we will read it and think it has nothing to do with us. No-one here is demon possessed in the way we picture the man in the synagogue to be – and exorcism is probably something beyond our experience.
We are all subject to influences outside us which shape our nature and our behaviour. When we are loved and know that those who love us are well pleased with us, we will learn to love. When are blessed we learn to bless others. God’s spirit brings out the best in us – so that the more we seek to worship God the truer we are to our selves.
On the other hand, there are many other influences – unclean spirits – which work upon us in unhealthy ways. These spirits curse rather than bless; tear down rather than build up; disparage rather than encourage; sow suspicion rather than trust; promote anger rather than love.
I know that when I feel jealousy, envy, pride, anger, greed, selfishness I can do and say things I regret later – in fact I regret them even as I say them, but it is as though at that moment I have lost control of myself. I don’t mean we should not take responsibility for our actions – I just mean that we all know that experience of being not ourselves, of being possessed by something unhealthy. Sadly, sometimes that goes further and moments become habits and habits become the driving forces in our life – we surely all know people who have been possessed by addictions to alcohol (we even refer to it as ‘the demon drink’) or other drugs, or gambling, or less obviously but perhaps just as perniciously an unhealthy obsession with work (workaholism) or status or power or money or material things.
So if the question in this part of Mark’s gospel is ‘Who is Jesus?’ Mark is saying here that he is the one who comes to liberate us from all this. This is his first act. His primary concern is that we should be freed from whatever unhealthy influence has power over us so that we become more truly our own selves, our best selves – the people we can only become when we know ourselves to be loved and blessed by God.
If we are not ready to confront the unhealthy influences in our lives (and it is part of human nature to be in denial about our own failings) then we will want to distance ourselves from this gospel. We will echo the cry of the unclean spirit, ‘What have you do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?’ Exorcism, unclean spirits – that’s all a bit disturbing, maybe a little fascinating, but it has nothing to do with us.
But if we truly want to be transformed and grow into God’s likeness then we know we need God’s help. For there are things which have a hold over us that we cannot shrug off by our own strength. If we want to be blessed and to bless, to be loved and to love, to be our best selves and our happiest selves, the answer to the question, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?’ is nothing less than ‘Everything’.
Andrew Tawn
29th January 2012
(Note: this sermon owes a debt to notes I found on the internet by David J. Lose who holds The Marbury E. Anderson Chair in Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary)
