“Teaching and Healing Immediately” Colchester Federated Church, January 28, 2024, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (Mark 1:21-28)

Last Sunday we considered the action-packed nature of the Gospel according to Mark.  Mark shares the stories of Jesus’ life with a curious sense of urgency.  Jesus seems to be on the move all the time.  As soon as Jesus calls his first followers—Peter, Andrew, James, and John—they immediately stop fishing in the Sea of Galilee and start fishing for people.  Mark shares, “Jesus and his followers went into Capernaum.  Immediately on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and started teaching.”[1]  The people react to Jesus’ teaching with amazement.  Jesus taught with authority.  All seems to be going smoothly as Jesus begins his work of ushering in the kingdom of God, helping people to change their hearts and lives, trusting the good news. 

Though suddenly in the synagogue there is a person with an evil spirit . . . screaming.  Our Gospel story takes a sudden turn.  The demon confronts Jesus and speaks to him, even identifying Jesus as “the holy one from God.”[2]  Jesus responds with, “Silence . . . Come out of him!”[3]  Mark tells us that the unclean spirit shakes the man and screams, then comes out of him.  Once again, the response from the folks in that synagogue in Capernaum is amazement, “What’s this?  A new teaching with authority!  He even commands unclean spirits and they obey him!”[4]

We are still in Chapter 1 of Mark’s Gospel and Jesus has just called his first followers.  Right away Jesus teaches with authority and throws out a demon.  You know, as one does when we begin working at a new job.  Mark tells us that news about Jesus begins to spread throughout the region of Galilee.  This makes some sense.  Because the people who witnessed this miraculous moment in that synagogue in Capernaum witness the alignment of Jesus’ words and actions in a powerful way.  He does what he says he is going to do—imagine that!  Jesus keeps his promises.  Jesus teaches and heals with authority immediately.  One could argue that this story of Jesus throwing a demon out helps set the tone for the rest of the Gospel.  Because Jesus truly is the “holy one from God” and even the evil spirits know that.

The truth is that sometimes we may hear these biblical stories about demon possession and Jesus throwing demons out and not know what to make of them.  I may or may not have had the reaction this week of—the magi just left to go home and Jesus just called the disciples and now we have to talk about demons?  We just got our Star Words!

Let’s just go there.  Sometimes in the ancient world people may have been categorized as “possessed by demons” in a way that we would be reticent to say today.  After all, there have been remarkable advancements in mental health care as we better understand and help people with their emotional, psychological, and social well-being.  For instance, would someone who we would classify as clinically depressed or anxious (the two most common mental health conditions) have been classified in Jesus’ day as being “possessed by a demon”?  Because people in the ancient world didn’t know what to make of people suffering in this way?  Perhaps, and thus we may feel uncomfortable, uncertain, or confused hearing stories about Jesus throwing a demon out.  Of course, these healing stories show Jesus’ compassion and ability to see people that others may have ignored or misunderstood.  Even still, complications abound.

I’ve been reading a book called Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age by Dale C. Allison Jr. who teaches at Princeton Theological Seminary.  Professor Allison writes that there are a significant number of people who have religious experiences—moments of terror or joy, visions, near-death experiences, glimpses of the afterlife, encounters with angels and heavenly voices, premonitions about events that are yet to be.  In one of the Encountering Mystery chapters there is a lengthy discussion about religious experiences that are not all “sweetness and light,” but rather that people experience true terror that seems to come out of nowhere.  Professor Allison shares that in these religious experiences people have a “reaction to a perplexing, menacing enigma.”[5]  Maybe we modern people living in a secular age should not be so quick to discard experiences that are difficult to understand rationally—because there are other ways of knowing.

The most useful thought I have encountered (and have admittedly shared before and probably will again) about demons and exorcisms comes from the great preacher Fred Craddock.  Craddock once said, “Not believing in demons has hardly eradicated evil in our world.”[6]  That is such an honest statement.  Because whether we believe in the existence of demons or evil spirits or not, it doesn’t mean that there is no evil in the world.  “Not believing in demons has hardly eradicated evil in our world.”

In our church’s baptism liturgy, we hear promises that parents make on a child’s behalf or promises that a person makes for themselves with believer’s baptism.  One of the promises is: “Do you promise, by the grace of God, to be Christ’s disciple, to follow in the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, and to bear witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as well as you are able?”[7]  To resist oppression and evil.  This is part of our baptism liturgy here at Colchester Federated Church.  As much as this is a lofty question, it’s also a question grounded in our lived experiences.  Because when we are baptized into the faith and family of Jesus Christ, we are challenged to follow Jesus, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, to witness to Jesus’ work and word.  These are promises that we do our best to keep, knowing that perfection is not possible.  Still, we are called to resist oppression and evil.

Because whether we believe that evil spirits exist or not, evil has not been eradicated from our world.  Turn on the news or read your local newspaper.  We will see story after story that can absolutely break our hearts.  We also know that sometimes, on an internal level, there are things that hold us back from God.  There are things that make us feel less than who God created us to be.  Sometimes we may even feel weighed down by something that is destroying us inside.  Now we may or may not call any of this “demonic” or “evil.”  Though biblical stories about exorcisms have something to say to you and to me.  As Professor Cynthia Briggs Kittredge of the Seminary of the Southwest relates, “The ancient world view that attributes illness to unclean spirits that lies behind this story, although outdated medically, does dramatize forces that wreck [wreak] havoc within individual[s], communities, and countries — mental illness, addiction, sexual abuse, and racial hatred. The gospel proclaims Jesus’ ‘authority’ over even the most unclean of spirits that continue to take us over.”[8]

However we understand these ideas, stories about Jesus exorcising evil spirits like we hear in today’s Gospel according to Mark are ultimately stories about healing and transformation.  It’s about the struggle to not let anything or anyone other than God tell us who we are.  It’s about the struggle to remember that God has named us and claimed us as God’s own, and this applies to everyone.  Because we will never look into the eyes of another person that God does not love.  As Christians, we can remember our baptismal promises and take heart as we gather as the Body of Christ here in this place.  Remember that we are called to resist oppression and evil.  And sometimes the gift of gathering for worship is feeling like we are a little less alone and can therefore be a little more courageous.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Mark 1:21, CEB.
[2] Mark 1:24, CEB.
[3] Mark 1:25, CEB.
[4] Mark 1:27, CEB.
[5] Dale C. Allison Jr., Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age, pg. 38.
[6] Fred Craddock as quoted by Kate Matthews Huey in “With Authority/Power To Do,” UCC Sermon Seeds,  https://www.ucc.org/sermon-seeds/weekly-seeds-with-authority-power-to-do-so/
[7] “Order for Baptism,” United Church of Christ Book of Worship.
[8] Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Commentary on Mark 1:21-28, January 28, 2018, Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/fourth-sunday-after-epiphany-2/commentary-on-mark-121-28-4

Photo by Rev. Lauren Ostrout.