| Note: No sermon is quite the same when you read it. You miss the inflections, the expression that you gain in the hearing. The words below are only a close approximation of the sermon, taken from handwritten notes. Nevertheless, the words (as best as can be deciphered!) are shared with you here. The Webmeister |
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany When you come to an Episcopal service, you can pretty much bank on at least two things never happening. One is that the priest will walk around the church miraculously healing people on crutches or in wheelchairs like you see on late night television. And the other, even more unlikely thing to happen in an Episcopal service is when the priest preaches about demons, the devil, or the general presence of evil in the world. Well, this is not your everyday Episcopal service, and right now I'm going to blow one of those stereotypes out of the water, but don't worry, I'm not going to be walking through the pews looking for anybody in wheelchairs or on crutches. When most people hear words or phrases like "unclean spirit" "demon" or "devil" their thoughts usually turn to perhaps the most misunderstood book of the Bible, Revelation. And in that book, it says that the number of the beast, or the devil, is 666. If that's true, then the number of the beast as a toddler must have been 333. Or is 666—the beast's address, and so would 668 then be the neighbor of the beast? And what about a 666k—is that the beast's retirement plan? And is 666 F be the best temperature to cook roast beast? It's best to laugh about things that we find uncomfortable, because certainly, today's Gospel from Mark is nothing short of strange. It's a story that in our post-enlightenment world does not make a lot of sense. But at the time of this event in the Mediterranean world, around 33 AD, many people believed in unclean spirits or demons that ruled over creation. And people in this area of the world believed that these demons, these unclean spirits, one of which Jesus encounters today in Mark's Gospel, were seen as agents of Satan. When I was at seminary, there was a student who, coming from the countryside, had never seen young women dress in mid-riff shirts, tight pants, and short skirts, and he believed that they should not dress that way, and one day he said "these women are agents of Satan!" I still can't figure out if what he really meant to say was that they were agents of satin, not Satan. But I digress: in the Mediterranean world, the belief was that these agents, these unclean spirits and demons worked to enslave humanity through sickness and possession and false teaching. And even today, that belief is widespread among many of the world's nations. Jesus, as Mark tells us, performed exorcisms. And there were many others during his time who claimed to have the power to cast out these unclean spirits that were thought to have taken hold of a person. These other exorcists would do so using elaborate rituals and incantations in an attempt to persuade the unclean spirit to depart from a person. But unlike those exorcists, all Jesus had to do was simply speak. And in Mark's story this morning, the unclean spirit recognizes His voice, because the spirit says "I know who you are, the Holy One of God." And the spirit departs from the man upon Jesus' command. The unclean spirit's recognition of Jesus' voice and obedience to his spoken word clearly shows that it acknowledged Jesus' authority as supreme. In the centuries since this story was first written down, it has been interpreted many different ways. For example, since the enlightenment, that period in history in which knowledge, science, and reason became greatly esteemed values, many people began to see the story differently. And a different way of looking at is to say that Jesus didn't really cast out the unclean spirit, because the man was likely, knowing what we do about science today, he was suffering from some sort of psychological problem or maybe he was epileptic. But this same view has also been applied to Christ's miracles in the Gospels. For example, Jesus wasn't really walking on the water in the Sea of Galilee, it only appeared that way because he was standing on a sandbar. Or that in the feeding of the large crowd, Jesus didn't really multiply the loaves and fishes, it's just that people learned to share. Attempts like these to rationalize, to explain, to make sense out of Mark's story this morning or Christ's many other miracles misses the point. They miss the point because Jesus' miracles and his exorcisms, three more of which occur in Mark, are not just raw displays of supernatural power. They are much more than that: they show God's kingdom here on earth, and they demonstrate evil's imminent demise. If we rush to try to explain this story with our knowledge of science or with our intellect, we risk overlooking the message buried deeply within the story. And that message is that God's reign is here and now, and that the forces of evil, whether you label them demonic, or the satanic, or the Chicago White Sox, those forces of evil were forever defeated when Christ rose alive from the tomb Easter Sunday. So if evil has been defeated, then why is it so seemingly prevalent in the world today? That reason is simple: evil does not know that it has already been defeated. When I was a boy growing up in the desert of Phoenix, Arizona, I used to run around our backyard hunting for lizards, an awkward pastime, I know. To hunt lizards, I had to be quick because they would quickly dart under a rock or into a crack in the wall if they saw me approaching. But if I was lucky, I would be able to grab the lizard by its tail before it would scurry away. Sometimes though, when I grabbed the tail, it would break of, and the lizard would get away, a natural defense mechanism to give the poor lizard a chance against the birds circling overhead. I was always intrigued, holding that old lizard tail, because even though it was separated from the lizard it would still wiggle, as if it were still connected. The evil that exists in the world today is like that lizard's tail pointlessly wiggling after it has been separated from it's source. It doesn't know that it has been defeated, and so it presses on, unaware that one day it will be no more. And yet, one example of the tail still wiggling itself pointlessly is the widespread and popular idea that the forces of good and evil, of God and the devil are locked into some sort of cosmic battle, and that they're pitted against each other in a more or less equal contest. This belief is dangerous because it suggests that these forces, good and evil, God and the devil, are equal, and that is not our belief as Christians. Our belief as Christians is that there is one creator, sustainer, and ruler in this world: and that is God, not evil, and that is a theme highlighted in our collect for today which reads: "Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things in heaven and earth…" Yes, there is evil in the world that is dangerous, but it is not a separate or independent power that is capable of overthrowing God's reign. Evil has already been defeated. However we make sense of Mark's story this morning, however we make sense of the presence of evil in our world, the message of the Gospel is quite clear that in Jesus evil is defeated, it is separated from its source. But the message is also this: that it is through Christ that we are released from bondage and enslavement to evil. And it is through Christ that we are granted peace and new life. Thanks be to God. AMEN. The Reverend James M. L. Grace January 29, 2006 *Past sermons may be found here. |
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