PODCAST: 01/28/2024

Sabbath Morning or Love is the Ultimate Authority

Mark 1: 21-28

Rev. Loren McGrail

Holmdel Community United Church of Christ

January 28, 2024

 

            It is Sabbath morning in the small fishing village of Capernaum on the Galilee. Jesus has just called his disciples. He is joining them at their Synagogue. In this story, Jesus is described as having a different kind of pedagogy. The scribes were “amazed,” saying “What is this? A new teaching– with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

            Astounded and amazed. Dear Ones, when was the last time you were astounded or amazed or brought to your knees? In church? How about tears to your eyes? Was it a hymn? A prayer? A sermon? What it that powerful video we saw on MLK Sunday from the Salt Project?

Was it the kindness of another person reflected in their caring hug? When were you last astounded or amazed?

            The crowds recognize that Jesus teaches with authority but so do the ‘unclean spirits’ for they recognize him as the Holy One of God too. I would like to share with you three very different ways to understand this Gospel story. Each has value and when braided together helps us understand the historical political context; opens up our heart to deep healing; and shines a light on how we as followers are called to dismantle systems that disempower and oppress others.

Let’s start with the historical political context. Theologian Ched Myers says that the demons in the synagogue are the representatives of the scribal establishment whose authority undergirds the dominant Jewish order. The exorcism then, represents an act of confrontation where Jesus must assert his authority over them in order to restore God’s shalom.

For Myers, this story shows us how from the very beginning Jesus was going to be a challenge and a threat to the religious elite and not just the Roman Empire.

It makes the question, “Have you come to destroy us?” more than just provocative, but actually the beginning of the recognition that Jesus is a threat to the religious system. For many, this story foreshadows what will happen in Jerusalem when the religious authorities which includes the scribes will turn him over to Pilate and the Roman authorities.

            Now to the good news about our individual healing. Our gospel story reminds us that Jesus’ authority rebukes every unclean spirit, demon, or evil that cages us in through illness, despair, addiction, traumatic stress, or memories. As the poet McGurgan says, Jesus’ calloused hands reaches out to each of us to command relief and heal us.

            I would like to share a brief story about my own experience with being asked to cast out demons. Let me start by saying that there was nothing in my seminary training about this subject or how to perform exorcisms. Here is one story.

            As you may recall, I went to Andover Newton Theological School. As part of my calling to be a healer and a Reiki Master, I taught and supervised a Reiki clinic at the seminary. The people who came to our healing room were mostly students suffering from various kinds of anxiety and body aches and pains. One day a student named Dave came to see us. When asked what brought him to us, he said, “Make the voices stop.” Dave was a brilliant scholar with Asperger’s and came to us distressed and anxious talking about demons. Not knowing quite what to do, I opened the window and called the spirits to leave. Then I invited Dave to name them. While he did this, I put my hands over his ears, so he could find some quiet. I invited him to feel the warmth of my hands and God’s loving energy filling and soothing him. My team-mate worked on opening up his root chakra, lowest energy center that connects us to the earth and keeps us grounded. I then focused on his heart and crown chakra, connecting him to God’s loving and healing energy. After a few minutes you could feel his body let go of whatever had been holding him. We then talked a little about what to do when he felt them returning----how to calm himself down with his hands over his ears and then over his heart. I reminded him God’s loving energy was always there.

            What I learned from this experience and from a few others, is that it is important to name the demons, the forces that are oppressing us. Before you expel them, you must name who or what they are and then command them to leave. You engage with the full armor of God grounding and protecting you. This is what I know.

As we think now about healing and restoration of our own economic and political systems, I find the words from Ephesians 6: 12 hauntingly relevant as they invite us to rethink who or what are the demons of darkness in our own times. "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, authority, world leaders of darkness itself, and against those with a spirituality of wickedness among the heavenly places." Dear Ones, we do not fight against our own personal demons; we are called to fight against systemic and political evils too. Our Gospel story reminds us that Jesus’ mission is to restore all to health and well -being.

            In our country now, one of the biggest evils is the enduring and dehumanizing practice of racism. To exorcise this, it will require each and every one of us to name and face the lies we have been taught or tell ourselves. It will require us to announce to the world where we stand. Flying our flags and speaking out publicly are ways we can do this.

            The late great theologian and civil rights activist Vincent Harding offered this explanation on racism to explain the heart of the matter. He said, “Race is like a bone stuck in our throat, refusing both digestion and expulsion, endangering our life…It is the need of our nation to deal with its terrifying and compelling history, to exorcise the demons of our racial past and present, perhaps even to discover the healing possibilities that reside in our many-hued and wounded variations on the human theme.”  Note how it is only after the exorcism that we can begin to discover healing possibilities.

            Activist /theologian Ruby Sales picks up this metaphor and says that this is a “thick bone which is splintering into every artery of our society, infecting our institutions, systems, relationships, future, and culture.” In addition, she says, it has created a spirituality of hopelessness and cynicism that does not believe in our capacity to become more fully human.

            Dear Ones, to answer Jesus’ call to discipleship, we must not just drop our nets, but work on getting ourselves untangled so we can join Jesus in exorcising some of those demons that deprive us of our freedom to participate in God’s shalom. I would like to end with this prayer I wrote for us today: