Sermon for August 19th, 2018

Mark 1:21-28

21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22 They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23 Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24 and 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.” 25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27 They 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.” 28 At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

Miracles: Casting Out The Demon

Dr. Grady J. Walker was my college English professor, a father figure in my life, and the man for whom my son, Grady J. Locke, is named. He also had a wicked sense of humor. He grew up in the rural town of Sayre, Oklahoma, and at a moment's notice he could shift from his usual refined, English professor voice into the voice of a backwoods pentecostal preacher in the middle of a tent revival. His favorite time to do this was whenever he observed me behaving in some way he disapproved of. He would put his hand on my forehead and (with just enough of a twinkle in his eye to let me know he was joking) he would begin to mock-pray: "God grant me the power to save this poor, wretched soul--in Jesus name, I command you Neal Locke, to come out of this demon! Neal, you leave this poor, helpless demon alone and don't bother him anymore! Amen!"

I think that's the only exorcism I've ever taken part of, and apparently I was the target, not the beneficiary.

The second miracle in our sermon series on the miracles of Jesus (although it's the first miracle of Jesus in the gospel of Mark) is the healing of a man an "unclean spirit." In the original Greek it's a πνεύματι ἀκαθάρτῳ (pneumati akatharto), literally a non-cathartic spirit. In modern English, the word catharsis (which comes from this same Greek root) is defined by Merriam-Webster's dictionary as the "elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression.

So one way to look at this miracle is that Jesus encounters a man who is troubled by deep psychological issues, (which the most advanced scientific terminology of his day tended to describe as a demonic possession), and by bringing this complex out into the open, by giving it expression, Jesus provides the man with catharsis, or healing.

I don't say this to minimalize the supernatural or miraculous aspect of what Jesus does here. Like the water into wine miracle last week, Jesus radically accelerates a process that might otherwise take weeks, months or years of counseling and therapy into two short commands: "Be silent" and "come out."

But also like last week's story, I think the real miracle here is not the flashy thing on the surface that we are so quickly drawn to. It's not the exorcism. In fact these were pretty commonplace in Jesus' time--contemporary written sources tell of plenty of healers who wandered the Palestinian landscape performing healings and exorcisms. This was more like a basic credential--if you wanted to claim to be a messiah, you'd better be able to cast out demons, or no one would take you seriously. Every would-be messiah can do that much, at the very least.

• Framed with teaching...the exorcism is the proof of the teaching, and the disraction from it.
• Three reactions: people in the synagogue, reaction of the demon, our reaction.
• Brian Blount: “Mark’s world of Jesus walking around possessed by the power of the Spirit of God. In such a world you either go with the man and help him create the holy chaos he’s creating or you find a way to do everything you can to stop him so you can get your people back in line.”