Scripture Readings:
Hebrew Scriptures – Deuteronomy 18: 15-201
15The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. 16This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: “If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.” 17Then the Lord replied to me: “They are right in what they have said. 18I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. 20But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.”
Gospel Lesson – Mark 1: 21-282
21They 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. 27They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
“What Have You to Do with Us, Jesus of Nazareth?”
In that great children’s classic which are the seven books called the Chronicles of Narnia written by C.S. Lewis, one point is made over and over again: Aslan, the great lion, the one who called the land of Narnia into being, who rescued it from endless winter and who stands as its judge at the end of time, is not a tame lion. Aslan’s breath smells of summer and new-moan hay, but one puff can blow out the stars. Aslan’s paws are like velvet, but his claws can rake like the blades of many knives. Aslan can carry children on his back, but when roused to anger he terrifies even those who love and trust him. Aslan can be joyful, even fun-loving, so that in his company everything seems more delightful, but he can also be gravely serious and filled with deep sorrow and anger at evil, foolishness, and those who cause hurt and harm. Nobody can control Aslan, nor can anyone take him for granted, not even those who love him and know him best. Aslan is always larger than their image of him, greater than either their understanding or expectations. And those who let him down – and in doing so let themselves down – learn the meaning of the reminder: “Aslan is not a tame lion.”
I don’t know how true the story is, but it was told that a boy’s mother once wrote to C.S. Lewis that her son felt guilty because he loved Aslan more than he loved Jesus. It could be that this is because we’ve taken the flesh-and-blood reality of Jesus and turned him into a milk-and-cookies Jesus. We’ve taken this man who wandered for days in the wilderness, who wrestled with evil spirits of his own, and made him conform to a Jesus “meek and mild”.3 What we end up with is a sweet baby boy grown up into a mild-mannered Mr. Rogers-like teacher of good-neighborliness, who died but who then by a magical reversal gave us all a happy ending by being resurrected and ascending back into heaven.
I think that Mark’s Gospel rejects this milk-and-cookies Jesus. The very pace and speed of his narrative, the uncanny authority with which his Jesus speaks and acts, portrays for us nothing less than the glory of God full blown. Even the numbing stupidity of the disciples impels those of us who read this story closely to be challenged by Mark’s portrait of who he believed this man Jesus truly was.
We are no less confronted with the reality and power of the demonic in our day than the people were in Jesus’ time, but we tend to use the words and concepts of the social and natural sciences instead of phrases like “a man with an unclean spirit” to describe it. But who among us will deny that evil exists, and that it still needs to be confronted, however we choose to name it – and make no mistake, it’s got to be confronted and exorcised. Evil, however we understand it, still resists being brought out into the light, squirms away from the touch of the healer, and often cowers in the presence of the power of love and compassion. We know this, not just by watching and listening to the lead stories on CNN, or by reading about it in our own local newspaper, but by recognizing it in ourselves. There are things in each of us that we do not want to bring out into the light of day, wounds that we resist healing – or allow others to heal – love that we refuse to trust.
That’s why when we think of only a milk-and-cookies Jesus and not a flesh-and-blood Jesus, we get it so wrong. The power and authority that will confront darkness, woundedness, and all that is unloved, and demands that they leave, is a power and authority of incredible fearlessness and strength of purpose. No wonder the people who witnessed this exorcism in the synagogue were so impressed! It must’ve been something to see.
This isn’t the only time in Mark’s Gospel that so-called “unclean spirits” recognize and identify Jesus – they call him “Son of God” long before any of his disciples do.4 But they say it with loathing and in real fear. They can’t stand his presence; and they won’t stay where he is. His authority is to them a terrifying thing. That’s what’s wrong with the milk-and-cookies Jesus: he can’t scare the hell out of anybody. And if he can’t even disturb the forces of evil, then he can’t come close to healing or saving us.
One of my favorite theologians, Rita Nakashima Brock, writes about Jesus’ authority coming from his knowledge of demons:
The image of Jesus as exorcist is someone who has experienced his own demons. The temptation stories point to the image of a wounded healer, to an image of one who by his own experience understands vulnerability and internalized oppression. In having recovered their own hearts, healers have some understanding of the suffering of others. Naming the demons means knowing the demons…. The Gospels imply that anyone who exorcises cannot be a stranger to demons…. To have faced our demons is never to forget their power to hurt and never to forget the power to heal that lies in touching broken heartedness…. Jesus hears, below the demon noises, an anguished cry for deliverance.5
At the end of the Narnia books, Aslan calls all of the creatures of Narnia into a time of judgment. He doesn’t say anything, nor do they. They simply pass in front of him; and those who can pause long enough to look him in the eyes – however terrified they might be – pass over into the unending light of the New Narnia. Those who can’t raise their eyes fall away into eternal darkness. Faith, in the end, is the capacity to trust in a love far more powerful than ourselves, and to surrender to it, gladly. This is what Jesus offers; and it’s the source of his authority. But make no mistake about it: there is nothing tame about him.
Like the man purged of his “evil spirit,” then, we too may leave this sacred space this morning, recognizing our own need for that kind of radical trust and healing of our own – in the small, secret corners of our hearts, as well as in the vast spaces beyond us. How could any heart be hardened or become anxious in the presence of someone like Jesus? In the end, the very “demons” or imperfections that plague us all might just bring us closer to that powerful and yet gently guiding presence that can become – even for us – the voice of authority.
The Christian mystic and poet, Wendell Berry, put it this way:
Where
the imperfect has departed, the perfect
begins its struggle to
return. The good gift
begins again its descent. The maker
moves
in the unmade, stirring the water until
it clouds,
dark beneath the surface,
stirring and darkening the soul until
pain
perceives new possibility. There is nothing
to do
but learn and wait, return to work
on what remains. Seed will
sprout in the scar.
Though death is in the
healing, it will heal.6
* * *
1 The role of the prophet as messenger of God is the subject of much of this Sunday’s scripture. Often the word of God comes through another human being. How is it possible, though, to discern what truly is a word from God? The ancient Israelites faced that question; people at the time of Jesus faced it; we face it today.
This reading from Deuteronomy (literally “the second law”) is part of an entire section of laws which reflect the community that existed during the sixth century B.C.E. It’s here in Deuteronomy that we’re given that practical and refreshingly direct advice on just how we’re supposed to be able to judge a false prophet: “If it doesn’t come true,” the Deuteronomist would say, “then it isn’t a word from God” (an accurate paraphrase of Deuteronomy 18: 22). That’s more problematic than you might think, because how we view or evaluate an event, a situation, or even another person will depend on our own values and priorities – as well as our emotional needs at the time. Today’s readings invite us to listen for God’s word as we discern its coming to us in our own experience.
2 All of the first chapter of the Gospel According to Mark shows Jesus exercising some form of “authority” – this particular story is about an exorcism. One curious characteristic about Mark’s Gospel is that everything around Jesus seems to happen with incredible immediacy. He calls, and his disciples drop everything to follow him. He speaks, and demons run for their lives. He cures illnesses and goes wherever he wants. The people who listen to what he has to say are aware of his authority; but, curiously enough, so are the “demons”.
3 Based upon John 1: 36, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” Charles Wesley created a hymn (seen in Hymns and Sacred Poems published in 1742) whose original form looked like this:
Gentle Jesus, meek and
mild,
Look upon a little child;
Pity my simplicity,
Suffer
me to come to Thee.
Fain I would to Thee be
brought,
Dearest God, forbid it not;
Give me, dearest God, a
place
In the kingdom of Thy grace
Lamb of God, I look to
Thee;
Thou shalt my Example be;
Thou art gentle, meek, and
mild;
Thou wast once a little child.
Fain I would be as Thou
art;
Give me Thine obedient heart;
Thou art pitiful and
kind,
Let me have Thy loving mind.
Let me, above all,
fulfill
God my heav’nly Father’s will;
Never His good
Spirit grieve;
Only to His glory live.
Thou didst live to God
alone;
Thou didst never seek Thin own;
Thou Thyself didst
never please:
God was all Thy happiness.
Loving Jesus, gentle
Lamb,
In Thy gracious hands I am;
Make me, Savior, what Thou
art,
Live Thyself within my heart.
I shall then show forth
Thy praise,
Serve Thee all my happy days;
Then the world shall
always see
Christ, the holy Child, in me.
While it didn’t catch on – particularly with later generations – the images in this hymn, I think, have gone a long way toward shaping the sweetly simplistic imagery that many still have of Jesus.
4 We see it not just here in verse 24 of Mark’s first chapter, but again in verse 11 of chapter three.
5 Rita Nakashima Brock, Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power (New York: Crossroad, 1991).
6 Wendell Berry, “The Slip,” in The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 300-301. The magnificent full text reads this way:
The
river takes the land, and leaves nothing.
Where the great slip
gave way in the bank
and an acre disappeared, all human plans
dissolve. An awful clarification occurs
where a place was.
Its memory breaks
from what is known now, begins to drift.
Where cattle grazed and trees stood, emptiness
widens the
air for birdflight, wind, and rain.
As before the beginning,
nothing is there.
Human wrong is in the cause, human
ruin in the effect--but no matter;
all will be lost, no matter
the reason.
Nothing, having arrived, will stay.
The
earth, even, is like a flower, so soon
passeth it away. And
yet this nothing
is the seed of all--the clear eye
of
Heaven, where all the worlds appear.
Where the imperfect has
departed, the perfect
begins its struggle to return. The good
gift
begins again its descent. The maker moves
in the
unmade, stirring the water until
it clouds, dark beneath the
surface,
stirring and darkening the soul until pain
perceives new possibility. There is nothing
to do but learn
and wait, return to work
on what remains. Seed will sprout in
the scar.
Though death is in the healing, it will heal.