Well, welcome back to the Gospel of Mark, sisters and
brothers in Christ! Welcome back to the
stories of a Jesus who disquiets and challenges us. We’re in for some tough ones this summer –
I’ve joked with our worship planning committee that I’m glad we’re getting
these texts in the summer when many are going to miss them (which subtly shows
my own lack of faith, my own captivity to sin).
But Mark is tough…more aptly, Jesus is tough in Mark. Welcome back to Mark. I’d encourage you to read Mark this summer. It’s short, but packs a punch. Welcome back to Mark, where Jesus shakes the
foundations, and questions even something that I always thought was a sure bet: family.
Our 6-year-old son has picked up yet another saying from his
friends: “Awkward.”
Our Gospel text today ("awkward") starts out with Jesus being accused of insanity.
In ancient times, this was the equivalent to being possessed by a demon,
actually THE demon, Satan himself.
Which sounds strange to our modern ears. Satan is more the object of jokes nowadays
than someone or something that is taken seriously. I love SNL’s Jason Sedakis, who does a great
Satan on Weekend Update, the spoof news skit.
He’s complete with horns and a pitchfork and a red tie and likeability. But in mocking Satan and demonic images, or by
relegating them to tv shows and books that entertain, we cover up or mollify
some realities that a text like this forces us to confront: that evil is real. Whether you believe in a person named Satan
or not is not important. What’s important
is that we must acknowledge the presence and the reality of evil in the world
and even more importantly in ourselves.
That we are subject to some powerful forces, that are mostly subtle, a
wolf in sheep’s clothing.
I’m not sure how many of us grew up in homes where racism,
for example, was “just the way it was”…good, nurturing, loving, safe homes, but
the demonic was as pleasant and as present as the smell of your mother’s
lasagna. Or sexism – nothing to argue
about it, it’s just the way the world works, in the home where I grew up. Loving nurturing, good place. Or perhaps violence was how problems were
solved, ultimately: A good smack across the face or the bottom. Many of these were good, nurturing homes, and
yet something divisive and wrong had slithered in. The demonic is never obvious…and it often preys
on our certainty and our pride.
This is the stuff of Mark’s gospel. Complicated, tricky, “awkward”. And Jesus goes there.
And good people, families, well-meaning faithful Jewish families
are the ones in this Gospel text today who are out there accusing Jesus of
being demon-possessed…because he was rattling their safe little worlds.
A quote from Richard Eslinger, helps us catch this mood:
"He is possessed," [the people] say. These things he
does must be from Satan. Such a situation threatens the whole community. Banish
him, or put him away; that is what we must do. If he will not conform to us, he
should be excluded from our world. If he acts to disrupt the world we have
created, then declare him insane and restrain his activities. Otherwise, Jesus
will shatter our world with his words.
What about Jesus’ words shatters our safe, little
worlds?
[pause] Today is a
day for honesty with ourselves, confession, and transformation. (“strong man”
quote) We’ve got to put our icky stuff
out there. Tie it up on a post look at
it. “Yeah, I’m racist. Yeah, I’m sexist. Yeah, I’m homophobic. Yeah, I’m elitist. Yeah, killing and fighting is really my last
resort, in the end there’s only violence.
Yeah, I hate [these] people or [those] people.” There is often a truth about ourselves, or
our backgrounds, that we don’t always like to admit – maybe we’ve never
admitted it – but it’s always lingering deep down there, like that tub of
yogurt that’s been forgotten in the back of the fridge. It never gets moved, but it comes out in
other ways.
And we know it needs to get moved. We know our sin needs to be exorcised. The fridge needs to get cleaned out. And we know it. We want to be cleaned out, but it could get
stinky. To have to admit to the racism,
or the sexism, or the violent tendencies or the destructive phobias of my own
family or my own soul, that could get stinky.
And I could be persuaded to just let Jesus move along, to “clean someone
else’s fridge,” like I pass on a salesman at the door. No, thanks (i.e. go away).
But Jesus comes on strong.
And he doesn’t go away. Jesus
works on us, he waits on us. He sits
outside and waits and watches and loves us.
He sits through all our blaming and running and hiding and throwing
stones. He even sits through us calling him the demon-possessed. “I’m not demon possessed, I’m not stinky, you
are, Jesus!” He sits through our
immaturity. And loves us.
Jesus waits. Jesus loves. Jesus forgives. And Jesus encourages us to be honest, to
point to the “strong man” – put it out there and name those things that possess
us, whether it’s money or prestige or violence or addiction to stuff or fear or
bigotry. For Jesus does the cleaning. Only Jesus truly exorcises our demons, our
bigotry, our arrogance, our tendencies toward violence, our fear, our pride,
our hatred and lingering anger. All
those things that stink. Jesus cleans us
out, ties up the strong man, and plunders our house, our bodies with
forgiveness. How about that: plundered
by forgiveness, plundered by God’s mercy and grace. And we are made whole again at this font, at
this table. And now we are free…
Free of sin, free of Satan, free of attachment to the things
of this world, so that we can now live lives of love for each other and for the
stranger, live of service and peace, lives of risk (because we know that in the
end God’s love, not any kind of violence, wins the day). Forgiven and freed we can lift our hands, and
our wallets, and our familes and our voices up to God and say, take it all God
and use them, use me to your glory. Take
me, all of me, transformed and healed, forgiven and freed, take me and make me
an instrument of your peace. A vessel of
your love. A mouthpiece to sing your
praise and cry for your justice. Take
me, Gracious God. Into your hands, I
commend my self, my body and soul and all my things. Take me and use me for your purposes.
The demon is gone.
And we can now live.
For now we are possessed…possessed by Christ. AMEN.
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