Sermon from Sunday January 29... Mark 1:21-28 Those who know me know that I’m not fond of using the Lectionary. For the most part it can be repetitive (like the last two weeks of call stories) and it often starts or stops in the middle of whole stories. This drives me crazy when they stop in the middle of a story on one week, then pick up the last part of the story the next week. This does'nt seem right to me.
The one aspect of the Lectionary I do like is that it often includes the difficult stories like the one we have today. When this happens many pastors choose other reading from which to preach on… not me… I like to tackle the hard passages because I believe these are the hard lessons God really wants us to hear that we often just blow off because we pastors don’t want to offend and challenge members of the congregation.
Prayer:
Today our reading is one of those difficult passages because whether or not we want to talk about the issues of evil spirits our lectionary forces us to do it. We have difficulties because many people don’t believe in the devil or demonic activity and whatever was thought of this activity in the past this is now often rationalized as mental illness.
- A Barna research question asked N. Am’s if You believed in a Devil or Demonic Activity? 65% of N. Am’s said “No”
- Asked differently, “Do You Believe Evil is Present in the World?” 82% said “Yes”
And more times than not, when we see evil played out in a person, we say this person is “Possessed” and out of his mind. This is a problem for many religious people.
Frederick Buechner says, “The problem with evil is perhaps the greatest single problem for religious faith.
We have difficulties trying to understand it… how someone can kill another, harm children, or be so intent on destroying life. We are often are appalled how people can carry out terrorist attacks or kill thousands of people just because of their race or religious affiliation.
The problem with evil is I don’t believe the evil impulse are all that far away from even the most normal of us.
Author Taylor Hackford says, “The Devil is merely the impulse inside of us to choose what is ethically wrong. It’s not about some guy with a forked tail… we ourselves are responsible.”
In other words, we all have dark sides given different situations would or could find ourselves possessed with the potential to do evil works. And, If we look at being possessed as Evil robbing us from God’s hopes and dreams… then we could say that this might not be as foreign to us as we might think. In fact, we might even have first-hand experience with it.
Personally speaking, I have on occasion been possessed by anger towards my spouse… my kids… colleagues… friends… other family members. How about you?? Have you ever been so angry something took control over you?
What about being possessed by jealousy or envy? Greed and Power?
Drugs, Alcohol, Pornography, Gambling, How many of you are or have been Workaholics?
What about being so possessed that you’ve used your knowledge and resources in ways you now regret….
If were honest, we’ve all experienced some form of evil possession that has robbed us from all God has blessed us with.
Here is the good news…
If we look closely at the man possessed in our story today… and we often miss this… he is in the Jewish meeting place, ie “The Church” and it’s the Sabbath, ie “Sunday Worship” and if you think about it what better place would you want to be when your struggling with sin or evil? If I know the church… and if a guy like this would walk into one of our churches, we or someone would ask or escort a guy like the one in our story out of our church. We wouldn’t want to be associated with a person like him.
After-all it would be too much of a distraction, and we wouldn’t want this kind of publicity. But think about this, the church is the perfect place for sinners… how many of you are sinners? Raise your hands… ya’ll better raise your hands because if not we might have to rethink this place.
Jesus happens to be present on this Sabbath day teaching and people are amazed at his teaching. Our story doesn’t say what Jesus was teaching, but that he taught with authority. How do we know when someone is speaking from authority? We know when this happens because of the person’s passion and knowledge. But I believe what Jesus does here is he just loved this man.
Jesus tells the evil spirit to, “Be quiet and come out.” The spirit shakes the man relentlessly and with a shout comes out. The good news is Jesus’ authority and power cleansed the man and will cleanse us today as well. Jesus’ authority and power works through the church and though us by showing the love of God to those who are struggling with possession of evil behaviors.
I know I’ve seen and have heard of stories; perhaps you have as well, the stories where people have had dramatic encounters with God’s mercy and grace. Sometime the healings and restorations come slow, but nonetheless dramatic in their own right.
Sometimes we are part and parcel of such restorations by our presence and journey with people we care about. Maybe we can do this by being a sponsor to an alcoholic or drug addict. Or maybe just standing or journeying with a struggling person.
You see… God works with us, thru us, and in us to help people experience God’s hopes and dreams for them and to free people from the evil spirits that so strongly possess them and us.
Maybe if we, or the church, as David Lose, a Lutheran Theologian at Luther Seminary states, “ would invited people to contemplate or even name the things that possess us. Perhaps, the congregation is what God had in mind as the place where healing could take place. This is risky business, I know, and I trust that the church of God is able to discern the best way to broach and encourage honest and faithful conversation about how to walk with people. But here’s the thing, I believe that Jesus is still in the business of freeing us from the powers which seek to rob us from all that God hopes and intends for us.”
I too believe this and I pray those who are struggling and suffering evil possessions can connect with those in this church and begin a journey to discover hope and healing from the things that possess.
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