Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B
Photo AMI Travel
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus, and presumably the four fishermen that he had just collected, came to Capernaum where Jesus set up the home base for his ministry. And when the sabbath arrived, Jesus entered the synagogue and began to teach. Now the way Mark words this in the Greek, he indicates that Jesus is a regular at the synagogue and this may not have been the first time. Jesus shows up on every sabbath and teaches. Now those that have come for worship on the sabbath have been listening to him and are astounded. He teaches with authority, not like the scribes.
Now, before we go bashing the scribes, we have to remember that they were trained to hand on the traditions that had been passed down through generations. That was their job. They were the poster children for “but this is the way we’ve always done it.” But the way they had always done it was through writing and being able to read the scriptures themselves, but the folks that came to the synagogue were often unable to read or write, so they just took what was told to them for granted. What people were responding to with Jesus was hearing the interpretation of scripture like they’d never heard it before and the scriptures were opened to them in fresh ways and the teaching came alive. Jesus is, after all, the living word and that word burst into life as Jesus was explaining it to them.
It’s interesting that scripture is given life through the very Word himself, as he is referred to in the Gospel of John, and is reviving the hearts and minds of the listeners in the synagogue with this life giving teaching when “just then” a man with an unclean spirit shows up. You’ll notice as we go through the Gospel of Mark this year that everything in this Gospel happens immediately, now, and then and then! It is full of action. So, “just then”, immediately, this unclean spirit interrupts the teaching that Jesus is doing.
Now, maybe some of you remember the movie, “Fatal Attraction.” I like to think of this passage as an example of the fatal attraction these unclean spirits seem to have with Jesus. Why announce yourself to someone whom you know has the power to destroy you? Throughout the Gospels when Jesus encounters the unclean spirits, they just seem to be fatally attracted to him. Instead of running away, they seem compelled to reveal themselves, to confront him. For many of us, I think most of how we think about evil or unclean spirits is shaped by Hollywood. Heads spin around, demons seem to hide around corners in dark hallways, and their scariness is enhanced by carefully chosen background music. Jesus doesn’t really deal with spirits like that. He speaks to them as one with all the authority of heaven. There’s no magic or special incantations or rituals to rid the man of the unclean spirit. He rebukes it and frees the man out of the authority given him from God. That is what Jesus came for–liberating God’s creation from what harms us, disrupting the reign of evil in this world. Jesus frees us from fear.
Mark’s Gospel mentions that the people watching were astounded. Utterly amazed. There’s a connection here that it’s the same sort of bewilderment and wonder they had at his teachings. They were astounded at the teaching and they were then astounded at Jesus’ command over evil. They heard the interpretation of the scriptures and they saw it put into action. What they were witnessing was a demonstration of the divine powers of heaven at work, the authority that Jesus was given over evil and good. In the Gospel of Mark we are going to hear a lot about Jesus’ liberating God’s beloved people from the forces of evil at work in the world.
To everyone in that synagogue, this man was deemed unclean. Who knows how long this man had suffered or what he had suffered, but it doesn’t appear that anyone had noticed the man was even there until the spirit controlling this man decided to speak to Jesus. And what I think is more astounding than even Jesus’ power over the voice of evil, is how he saw the sacredness of this person on the outskirts of those worshiping in the synagogue, how he saw a human person created in the image of God. Jesus saw past the demon and noticed a man who had been suffering from what had been possessing him. He noticed a man no one else seemed to have bothered with, or had ignored and he cared enough to stop his teaching right in the middle of it and tend to the soul and body of this man.
As it is with evil, this demon tries to belittle Jesus–Jesus of Nazareth–the Nazrene–was not a complement. Nothing good comes from Nazareth, remember? Evil also expresses itself in the form of fear–have you come to destroy us? The outburst ends with trying to out Jesus as the Holy One of God in the middle of the synagogue, knowing that was going to rile up the scribes. Which of course, it does, and a seed is planted that Jesus is a threat to the status quo. That threat and fear grow, a line in the story that we will be following in Mark for a while. All the way to the cross.
It’s important for us to reflect on how all this transpires in a house of worship. Jesus is opening up the scripture to them in ways they’ve never heard it before, but still they miss those in their very midst who were in direct need of those healing words. Like the scribes, we can get caught up in the way we’ve always done things. Like the folks there to worship, we can overlook those in our midst who need our care. I’m sure this guy possessed by a demon was pretty annoying, at best. Probably not someone we may at first think we want in our house of worship. But Jesus saw beyond the possession and saw the image of God, the sacredness of the person God created.
We, too, can carry our own demons. We, too, can become possessed by fear, or take on the collective energy of a crowd and get drawn into a frenzy. Evil clouds our perceptions of God’s presence in the world and the work of the Holy Spirit among us. Evil tricks us into being afraid of each other, of being afraid of others not like us. We are constantly being fed a laundry list of things we should fear. Jesus came to free us from that.
I like to think that the church is more like a hospital, a place where people come and find healing, to be astounded at the teachings of Jesus Christ, to be restored and made whole. After all that’s why most of us come, isn’t it? We are seeking the active, living, loving, and healing word of God and hoping we find a community that can be with us as we are restored to wholeness in God, as we are being set free. Perhaps we, too, can be amazed and astonished as the scriptures come alive for us, as the Holy Spirit opens us to a greater and deeper understanding of the Living Word, and from the depth of our gratitude, we gather around the table together to receive Christ, and give thanks.
That may mean that the flow of things gets interrupted, like this man interrupted Jesus teaching in the synagogue. But Jesus tends to the present need to restore a soul. That soul may be a stranger’s among us or it may be our own soul. But opening ourselves to this astonishing message that Jesus brings, can open us to more and more amazement at the wonders that God can work among us. Let’s pay attention to that. Look for the Holy Spirit’s presence, and come alive in astonishment as we seek and serve our God.
Magdalena's Musings 