Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
We know the old saw about first impressions: they matter. That’s why we dress up when we go to a job interview. It’s why we’re on our best behavior when we first meet our significant other’s parents. We want to present our best selves. That’s why you show up to a job interview wearing a suit and not sweatpants and an old t-shirt. That’s why you show up to the gym in athletic attire and not an outfit courtesy of Brooks Brothers. That’s why you don’t spend your first date with someone talking about how you come from a long line of pig rustlers, murderers, and grifters.
The accounts of Jesus’ first acts of public ministry are different in all four Gospels. Each one of them has their own point of emphasis.
In Matthew’s Gospel the writer reports, “23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.”
Luke tells us, “14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.”
In the Gospel of John, it’s the miracle of water being turned into wine at the wedding in Cana: “9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. 12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days.”
If first impressions are so important, what does it say to us that Jesus’ first act of public ministry in Mark should be teaching and the casting out of a demon? 21[Jesus and his disciples] went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught.22They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 25But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
It’s certainly much more precise and direct than the accounts from Matthew and Luke, and it’s decidedly more dramatic than the miracle of turning water into wine. In that story, Jesus is pretty low key about the whole thing. To such an extent, in fact, that not everyone knows what has happened. In fact, it would seem that John wants to make sure that we don’t miss it, either, because he adds that last line: “11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” It’s like John is waving a big sign that says, “This is it, right here! Don’t miss it!”
Mark doesn’t utilize any such devices, nor does he need to. The people are astounded at his teaching, because he teaches with authority. And in case we should be questioning what kind of authority that is, he shows us. The event of the casting out of the demon demands our attention with its dramatic pronouncement by the demon, Jesus terse but effective command to “come out of him”, and the demon’s convulsing, screaming departure.
What we have, here, is the essential narrative conflict in the Gospel of Mark: it’s the conflict between the power of Evil and the power of God. It’s foreshadowed in Jesus’ temptation in the desert which immediately precedes today’s reading, and it gets played out as a series of conflicts between Jesus and demons, Jesus and the “scribes and Pharisees” and the conflict between Jesus and his “mother, sisters, and brothers” (3:19b-21, 31-35).
We don’t necessarily have the same understanding of demons that they did in first century Palestine, but that doesn’t mean that Evil is absent from our world. It’s actually quite easy to see. We simply need to ask ourselves, “What does evil seek to do?” If we look at the example of the man possessed by the unclean spirit, we have pretty good idea. He’s likely to become a danger to himself. If he hasn’t been already, he’s likely to be ostracized. He will be alone and isolated from synagogue, family, and community as a whole. He will be denied a livelihood and common decency. He will be denied his identity as one, created in God’s image. He will be stripped of the abundant life promised him in the covenant. That is what evil seeks to do: Rob us of abundant life. So, the first thing, the very first thing that Jesus does is to free this man from the clutches of the unclean spirit. In doing so, he restores him. Jesus restores him to himself. Jesus restores him to his community.
Jesus restores him to his family. That is the heart of Jesus’ mission and ministry. It’s the first thing that Jesus does. And first impressions matter. Jesus frees the man from an unclean spirit that robs him of his life, his family, and his community. It keeps him from the abundant life that God desires for him and for all creation. We need to be reminded of that.
God stands firmly against the forces that hold us down. God stands firmly against that which prevents us from having the abundant life that God intends for us. God is firmly opposed to anything and everything that would rob us of that abundant life. And God is prepared to confront those forces which would seek to do so. God is willing, ready and able to do this for us. And for all of God’s children.
While it’s important and necessary to remind ourselves of the radical promise that God makes to us through the person of Jesus. It’s even more important that we remind ourselves that this promise is not exclusive to us. Nor does it include only the people who look, think, or act like us. We need to be mindful of that because it’s very easy to slide from “for us” to “only for us”. It’s all to easy to take what’s intended to be a personal message for us, and to reappropriate it as a private message.
By the same token, there’s a real temptation to define who or what may constitute the demonic, or an unclean spirit, or “that which seeks to deprive us of the abundant life, which God intends for us.” Be we on the right or on the left, many of us have very clear understandings as to who or what that might be. I know I do. But I also know that there are those whom I know and love, who feel very differently than I do. The temptation of certainty is that it might lead us to label those who differ from us as “unclean”. That makes it all the more difficult for them to hear and be transformed by God’s love. Furthermore, it makes it nearly impossible for me to be transformed by God’s love, active in them, because in my idolatry, I am blinded to the fact that, even though I may not agree with them, nevertheless, they bear the image of God. More importantly, just like me, they are called to be the embodiment of God’s love in the world today. But if I cannot see past my personal convictions, political or otherwise, I deny them the possibility of making God’s love known to me. I deny God the opportunity to act in my own life. Such is the result of idolatry.
And it is a form of idolatry. Paul is quite clear about this. “5Indeed”, Paul writes, “even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords—6yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. In other words, the unclean spirits we face are not always those that dash us violently upon the ground and cause us to foam at the mouth. Anything that stands between us and the abundant life to which God calls us is an unclean spirit. Anything that stands between us and the total claim that Christ places upon our lives is an unclean spirit. To put anything between ourselves and the Gospel is idolatry.
When we accept the gift faith, we place ourselves under the authority of the Gospel. And what the Gospel requires of us is that faith in God becomes the primary lens through which we define and see ourselves. The Gospel calls for our primary, indeed our only loyalty, to be to God. The confession that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior replaces all other cultural definitions of who we are. Worship of idols may seem like a foreign concept to most of us in the postmodern world. But do we not align ourselves with clubs, fraternal orders, political parties, or other organizations which also demand our loyalty. Paul is warning us against these kinds of things because they become modern forms of idolatry in a culture that claims Christianity as its religious identity. From Paul’s perspective, allegiance to any sort of organization or club runs counter to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The way many 21st- century Christians accommodate, assimilate, rationalize, and compromise faith in a world where so many things demand our allegiance prevents us from being authentic witnesses to the Gospel.
Idolatry, when we’re worshiping cultural gods, is no different from what Paul warns the Christians against in Corinth. And it can be just as destructive to our faith, our personal integrity, and our community.
So, to quote Martin Luther in the Lutheran catechism, “What does this mean?”
It means that we refuse to allow our faith to be influenced or compromised by anything other than the person of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. It means identifying first and foremost as Christian, and then defining everything else in those terms. So, instead of allowing politics to influence my faith, or keeping my politics discreet from faith, the Gospel calls us to allow it to define our politics. In other words, before I’m an Independent, Conservative, or Liberal, I am a Christian. Before I’m a Lutheran, Methodist, or Episcopalian, I’m a Christian. Faith is not something that we can compartmentalize. It’s not merely a part of who we are. It’s who we are in our totality.
Jesus very first act of public ministry in the Gospel of Mark is to cast out an unclean spirit. He frees the man from that which would keep him from the abundant life God intended for him and in doing so restores him to himself, his family, and his community. How do we go about doing the same thing in the world today? The demons of this world are not those who stand on the opposite end from us on the political spectrum. Nor are they those with whom we simply disagree.
What are the things that rob us and those around us of abundant life? Addiction? Job-loss? What about a hostile work environment or unsafe working conditions? How about situations where power is abused? Where harassment and discrimination are tolerated or even outright encouraged? How soul-destroying is the lack of access to housing, education, medical treatment, or healthy food? Where in our lives, in our community, or in our world do we see conditions which are utterly devoid of any kind of hope for a better future? That is where we truly see the evil and demonic at work in the world today.
The challenge for us is not finger-pointing or assigning blame. The challenge for us is getting down to the business of diminishing, if not outright eliminating, the things that rob us, our neighbors, and our community of life. The challenge for us is putting aside a political culture that insists upon reducing everything to a binary, us vs. them, mentality, so that we can go about actually working to make a concrete difference.
The Gospel of Jesus has the power to free us – all of us- from the unclean spirits and robbers who would seek to take from us the abundant life God has promised to us all. And God calls us to take up our role in that continuing struggle. To show the world exactly what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your strength, and all your mind. And to love your neighbor as yourself. AMEN