Mark 1:21-28 Epiphany 4
Possessed by demons. What image does this create for you when you hear that? I think I am safe in saying that for many of us, the movie The Exorcist was both moving and terrifying. We watched Linda Blair’s character, Regan, as she turned from a sweet little girl into a murderous creature. Can you still picture Regan sitting up on the bed, her head spinning 360 degrees, something like split pea soup violently spews out of her mouth, drenching those who are standing in the room? As Father Merrin and the young priest Father Karrass perform an exorcism, the older priest’s heart gives out and he dies. Father Karrass becomes enraged. He then begs the demon, “Take me! Take me!” For the brief period that the priest and the demon are together in the same body, the young man throws himself out the window, thereby killing both himself and the demon. But this is just a story, isn’t it? Enlightened people of the twenty-first century are not possessed by demons. Are they?
It is interesting to me that the writer of Mark chooses to present an exorcism as Jesus’ first act of public ministry. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus first public ministry is his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. In the Gospel of Luke, it was Jesus’ preaching in his hometown, which offended people, as we know preachers often do. In the Gospel of John, it was the wedding at Cana, in which Jesus turned water into fine wine, that began Jesus’ ministry to the people. But in our gospel of Mark, Jesus’ first public act is one of that begins with controversy and confrontation.
The controversy begins because Jesus was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. A man with an unclean spirit was suddenly there. Maybe he was there all along, but no one interacted with him. Why didn’t anyone notice him? Had he been here before? Whose seat was he sitting in? Eyes glared when he stood up, and gasps were heard when he cried out loud, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” It’s a good question. “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” “Be silent!” Jesus commanded, “and come out of him.” The demon did, but not without first crying and shouting and convulsing. Demons always try to resist God.
I’ve come to treasure Mark’s perspective of Jesus’ initial ministry. In his first public act, Jesus looks at this being, and sees the unclean spirit. But Jesus sees more than that. Jesus sees the person, too. And this broken human being, who does not seek and has not asked for it, receives healing anyway. Jesus restores this person to himself, and to his loved ones. Jesus heals him into wholeness, and this once demon possessed person becomes part of the community again.
Seeing the humanity in people is something that Jesus does so well. He does that with lepers, and those who are blind, or cannot hear. He sees the value in prostitutes and greedy tax collectors. Jesus sees into the souls of those possessed by the demons. Truth be told, we all have demons. Our holiness and our un-holiness reside in the same body. For some of us, it is addiction to drugs or alcohol. The demons of addiction are many. Some people are addicted to work, and some to praise, and some to shopping. The demons that haunt us may be incidents of physical or emotional abuse. Demons, the things that defy God, come in many sizes, shapes, and textures.
Our society today seems to have lost the ability to see past people’s demons, to find our commonality in the midst of our craziness. We fail to see the humanity in the other, especially when we disagree with them. And we have had a lot of disagreements recently.
Dr. Brene Brown, a research professor and author, spoke recently at the Washington National Cathedral.[1] She observes that over the past twenty years, we have “sorted ourselves by our ideology into factions.” We spend time with those who think like us, and we have no interest in being with those who don’t. There is a fascinating correlation to this. The rates of loneliness have risen in proportion to our grouping ourselves with the like-minded. The more sorted we become, the lonelier we become.
We think that being part of a group will make us not feel lonely, but we have no real connection with those whom we hang out. “We just hate the same people,” Dr. Brene Brown says. She terms our relationships like this, “common enemy intimacy.” [2] We aren’t interested in getting to really know those who share our same dislikes. We just want validation.
In his TED Talk, What Makes a Good Life, Robert Waldinger points to the on-going 75-year research project, the Harvard Study of Adult Development.[3] The study reveals that one in five Americans report being lonely. Both Waldinger and Brown cite the fact that loneliness kills, literally. It is a better predictor of early death than our demons of obesity, smoking, or excessive drinking. According to a UCLA study, loneliness diminishes our brain function, raises our blood pressure, contributes to cardiovascular disease, increases inflammation, and interferes with our sleep.[4] Loneliness has become such an epidemic that the United Kingdom’s Parliament has appointed a Minister of Loneliness.
This is a “crisis of spiritual connection,” Brown has determined. She defines spirituality as “the deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to each other by something greater than us, something rooted in love and compassion.”[5] We have forgotten this. We failed to see the humanity in those who do think like us, or vote like us, or look like us. When we dehumanize people, it is easy to treat them as if they do not matter, or even worse.
Dr. Brown asserts the answer lies in holding hands with strangers, and being in communion with people you don’t know, sharing moments of collective joy and pain.[6] Healing happens when we sing together, and pray for people we have never met. We are called to find the face of Jesus in the other. Together, we who are possessed and broken come and gather around the altar. In community, we come, bringing our demons with us, to receive again God’s love, forgiveness. Together, our wounds will be healed in our sharing, in Jesus’ broken body and his poured-out blood, — the body and blood of Christ given and shed for us. Christ does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We are fed to go out into the world, looking for Jesus in others and being Jesus for them, too.
In his first act of ministry among the people, Jesus chooses to bring healing so that the person possessed with demons can be part of the community. Our service of baptism, and affirmation of baptism are done in community. In our profession of faith, the first question we are asked is, “Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God?” We promise to do so with God’s help. We cannot do it without God, and Lord knows we cannot do it without each other.
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” the demons ask. Everything. “Have you come to destroy us?” Yes.
~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin
[1] https://cathedral.org/sermons/sermon-dr-brene-brown/ accessed January 27, 2018.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Robert Waldinger, What Makes a Life Good. TED Talks, November 2015.
[4] https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/the-health-effects-of-loneliness.html.
[5] “Something greater than us” is not cats, even though the cats think so!
[6] https://cathedral.org/sermons/sermon-dr-brene-brown/ accessed January 27, 2018.