Reading: Mark 1:21-28
Each of the four Gospels starts the story of Jesus’ ministry in their own way. In Matthew, Jesus’ first public act is the Sermon on the Mount, because for Matthew, Jesus is the teacher extraordinaire, the new Moses.
In Luke, Jesus starts with a sermon in his home town of Nazareth, where people are happy to hear what he has to say, until they realize he’s telling them God especially loves the poor and oppressed, and not just them – a theme close to Luke’s heart.
In John’s Gospel, the first noteworthy thing Jesus does is turn water into wine at a wedding. For John, Jesus is the giver of abundant life.
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus first gains attention as an exorcist – not an outlandish one like in the movie of that name, but more simply as a servant of God who brings out into the open the kinds of spirits that inhabit the lives of ordinary good people, and who helps set the people free from their influence.
[Jesus and the disciples he had gathered] went to Capernaum, and when the sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught then as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.
“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching – and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.
“The people were all amazed … and news about Jesus spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.” Not surprising!
I wonder what you say after a synagogue service like that, as you’re walking out the door and shaking the guest preacher’s hand?
Maybe ... Good message, Jesus.
Nice exorcism; is the man okay.
Maybe ... I hear we'll be looking for a second rabbi soon; I hope you'll consider applying for the job.
Or maybe, from some others ... Please don't came back. Don't get me wrong, it was all good. But please, don't ever come back and do that again.
Because sometimes instead of getting just what we want, we also get what we need. And sometimes what we need, turns out to be more than we bargained for.
In Capernaum, for
instance, the people went to synagogue every sabbath to get what they wanted
– good Scripture reading and teaching by the scribes. They wanted to hear the ancient stories and
teachings, and be reminded of God’s presence, God’s good purpose and the
promise of God’s kingdom coming to be in their land some day. And they got what they wanted, week after week.
The day Jesus showed up, they also got something they needed and probably didn’t even think of as possible until Jesus offered it to them – the presence of God not only in books and teaching, but gathered up and charismatically present in one person, shining in his face like the Presence shone in the face of Moses so long ago. They were living in a dark time in their nation’s history, and more than they knew they needed to know God was alive and at work with them in a close and personal way in the midst of their darkness. When Jesus spoke from his heart to theirs, they knew the close stirring and warming of the presence of God they really needed.
And then…something more than they bargained for: the invitation from Jesus not just to know the present power of God in him, but to find their part in it and start living it themselves Not only to pray for God’s kingdom to come some day, but to be among those who live it into the life of the world right now and where they are … without waiting for Herod to agree, without asking Caesar to allow it, without expecting the governor to make it legal or give them funding for it, without needing the priests to give their blessing to it. Just to do it in the power of the same spirit of God that was in Jesus. What a holy and wholly transforming moment!
And that’s about the time someone at the back began to raise some objections. He was possessed by “an impure spirit” and what Jesus was offering didn’t fit the spirit of his life.
How are we to understand this?
Apparently, the Gospels and New Testament are unique in Jewish literature in the way they talk about spirits not as attacking people from time to time, causing odd or evil things, but as possessing people – coming to dwell within them, to reside in the heart, and over time, to give a certain shape and direction to a person’s life, become part and parcel of who they are, how they act, and how they are known by others in the world. Become their persona – their image or reputation, you might say.
Does it make sense to say that in our lives we all accumulate a particular cluster of personal habits, practices, defences, priorities, values, assumptions and expectations of life and of others and even of God, that become our persona, our spirit? A spirit that at best is aligned with the way God desires we live. But that almost always, at some point also gets in the way and starts restricting, limiting, opposing and undermining our freedom to live in the way God intends, and in the way that God’s kingdom, if we are to be part of its coming, calls us to live.
And that’s when the struggle – the conflict – the really interesting part of our journey with God, begins.
* * *
Six or seven years ago I got something I wanted, when I was accepted into a two-year program of training and discernment to be certified as a spiritual director. The program included a residential component of several week-long gatherings of all the participants at Five Oaks, and a lot of distance work done individually from home, in conversation with a mentor.
From the start, I also got something I needed. At the first gathering, through the shared activities and private prayer times I found myself immersed in an awareness of God’s forgiving love like nothing I had experienced before – a gracious love that opened up and emptied out bucketsfull of guilt, remorse and shame I’d been carrying for years. Then as the at-home work began and we explored human wholeness, healthy development, and true spiritual openness I began to catch a glimpse of full and free human living that is truly glorious.
Then came the “more than I bargained for” part, when I began to realize how far I was from that fullness and freedom, how impure the spirit of my life was, and the dark pathways my spirit led me into. That’s when the struggle and the important choices really began.
I was shaken by it, and it brought on a major shake-up – a kind of convulsion you might say, as I withdrew from the directors’ program, and entered instead a program of treatment for some of my issues, and a support program for on-going spiritual transformation.
Sometimes when we get what we want, we also find what we need. And when it turns out to be more than we bargained for, the really interesting stuff begins.
* * *
In 1986 the United Church of Canada General Council knew what they wanted. For years the church had studied the issues and sorrows around the history of residential schools, and the larger question of the Christian church’s historical devaluation and destruction of First Nations’ spirituality and identity. The church wanted to do the right thing; at the 1986 General Council meeting in Sudbury they wanted to make an apology.
In the way it was done, they also got what they needed – not only a passing of the resolution and communication of the apology, but a chance to offer it face-to-face to a gathering of First Nations’ elders encamped just outside the grounds of the General Council meeting, for the sole purpose of receiving the apology. It was an historic occasion – exactly the kind of deep-down, acted-out, public cathartic experience the church needed.
And then the something more than they bargained for – the response that the First Nations elders came to, and that they sent back to the floor of General Council: they were grateful for the apology, and before they could accept it, they would wait to see how serious the church was about living it out, and about living into a new relationship with the First Nations.
That’s when the interesting work began.
On one hand the spirit of our church – which includes trust in our own rightness, reliance on paper resolutions and Council motions to change the world, belief in our self-evident goodness of heart, and a sense of ourselves as the good guys – was probably yelling out from the back of the room, “What’s going on here? We did what we wanted to do, even got what we needed. Now why not go home and just leave well enough alone?”
On the other hand, up at the front with nothing but God’s love for all people in his eyes and in his heart, Jesus says, “Be quiet! Come out of them, you ungodly spirit, and be gone! Let these people be free to follow the new and more godly ways being opened up for them.”
And in the midst of that spiritual struggle, the choice is ours – whether to let the unclean spirit go, and let ourselves be free of it, or not.
For thirty-five years the United Church has been living into its choice to be free to follow the way of God, and to start living the kingdom of God into the life of the world. And this year our Church Council, after a few years of talking about it, is choosing to include in our church’s program, some learning around First Nations’ identity and history, our historical relations with First Nations in our area, current attitudes we might be living out, and what this might mean for our life as a church.
It’s a matter of welcoming Jesus into our midst, and opening ourselves to what he shows about God’s way of being in the world today, and what it means to be God’s people. And if it’s more than we bargained for, that’s when things get interesting, and especially life-giving.
* * *
Have you ever found in your life that more than giving you what want, God sometimes gives you what you need ... and that what you need sometimes is more than you bargained for?
If so, give thanks. It may be that you're on the cusp of the kingdom of God.
Hymn: Silence, Frenzied, Unclean Spirit (lyrics by Thomas H. Troeger, 1984)
“Silence, frenzied, unclean spirit!” cried God’s healing Holy One.
“Cease your ranting! Flesh can’t bear it. Flee as night before the sun.”
At Christ’s words the demon trembled, from its victim madly rushed,
while the crowd that was assembled stood in wonder, stunned and hushed.
Lord, the demons still are thriving in the gray cells of our mind:
tyrant voices, shrill and driving, twisted thoughts that grip and bind,
doubts that stir the heart to panic, fears distorting reason’s sight,
guilt that makes our loving frantic, dreams that cloud the soul with fright.
Silence, Lord, the unclean spirit in our mind and heart;
speak your word that when we hear it, all our demons shall depart.
Clear our thought and calm our feeling; still the fractures, warring soul.
By the power of your healing, make us faithful, true and whole.
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