4 Epiphany, Yr B(2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

4 Epiphany, Yr B (2024)                                                        The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

I Corinthians 8:1-13                                                           St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Mark 1:21-28

In the name of the one, holy, and living God:

            in whom we live, and move, and have our being.  Amen.

Today’s homily may look a little more like a Bible study than a sermon…

            I have a lot of questions for today’s gospel story.

       I humbly offer you my reflections.

This story tells the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry from the perspective of Mark.

Mark is a man of few words…

he gets right to the point with little, if any, embellishment.

He begins his written Gospel with these words:

            “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ,

                        the Son of God.”

He sets up his gospel story to say that it is good news…

            and the good news concerns Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Jesus isn’t just a good man or even a prophet…

            he is the Son of God.

So today…a mere 20 verses in to the gospel,

Mark begins telling us about Jesus’ public ministry.

According to Mark, Jesus has no warm-up act…

            he just dives right in to the depths of his power.

Having just called Peter, Andrew, James, and John,

            they went to Capernaum,

      and on the sabbath day Jesus enters the synagogue to teach.

He apparently is there teaching for a bit because they are amazed at his teaching,

as one with authority.

In the midst of Jesus’ teaching, we are told that there is a man present who has an unclean spirit.

This man suddenly cries 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.”

Now I want to pause here and look at what’s happening.

Who is this man?

The text suggests that perhaps he is just an ordinary man who has,

up until now,

        not drawn any attention to himself.

He is just one of the many folks gathered to worship in the synagogue that sabbath day.

If he were known to be demon-possessed or otherwise exhibiting some form of unruly or harmful behavior, I wonder if he would have been allowed into the synagogue in the first place.

So, up until this point, perhaps no one else had detected the unclean spirit within this man.

            He looked just like everyone else.

He says to Jesus, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

            Have you come to destroy us?”

Who is the “us” that he refers to?

Is it all the people in the synagogue?

Or is he referring to himself and the unclean spirit that inhabits him?

Jesus gives a stern rebuke saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”

Jesus is speaking to the unclean spirit…

            an entity who can be separated from the man who stands in the flesh before him.

And then we hear,

“And the unclean spirit,

convulsing him and crying with a loud voice,

came out of him.”

Jesus understood that the man was not the unclean spirit…

            the unclean spirit had invaded the man.

In order to restore the man to wholeness and health,

            he commanded the unclean spirit to leave him…

                        and the unclean spirit left.

Jesus restores this man to himself…and to his community.

This is Jesus’ first public act of ministry, and it’s a doozy!

Now, talk of unclean spirits, demons, and evil is not often the vocabulary of most Episcopalians;

            at least, not in my experience.

So, I’m going to go out on a limb this morning and talk about that, given today’s gospel.

As my years increase,

I would now say that I have come in contact with evil incarnate.

Without mentioning the particulars of time or place,

I recall one night when I woke up crying…

       more like sobbing. 

I was crying loud enough to wake up Ray,

who can sleep through almost anything!

He asked me what was wrong.

I told him that I felt like I was in a battle with evil

and that I felt like I was losing.

He immediately responded… “let the blood of Jesus wash over you.” 

Let the blood of Jesus wash over you.

What that meant to me was to let the power of the love of Jesus wash over me.

I think this love is why Jesus shed his own blood for us…

            to show us that we do not repay evil with evil…

       because that only leads to more destruction.

Harm begets harm.

We are to love our enemies…those who wish us harm.

Love overcomes death:

the healing power of God’s love is the only thing that can overcome evil.

This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

In today’s gospel story, the unclean spirit recognized Jesus as the Holy One of God.

            Spirit recognized Spirit.

It also seems that the unclean spirit considered itself “bound” to the man…

inseparable…

       as the spirit asked Jesus,

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”

No.

 Jesus’ command tells us that he did not see the man and the unclean spirit as one:

     “Be silent, and come out of him!”

There was a man

            with an unclean spirit.

Jesus offered healing…

to restore the man to wholeness;

       not to destroy.

Evil only knows destruction.

            Love knows healing.

I once had a parishioner who told me she felt she was battling evil.

She felt her faith in God was being pulled away from her

as she had been struggling with an ongoing illness for over 20 years.

I do not recall what I said to her,

but I think now I would respond with deeper listening and understanding,

      acknowledging her struggle with her experience of evil.

Dr. Scott Peck, a psychiatrist, wrote a book called People of the Lie,

 in which he tries to name his experience of what he believed to be evil,

       as separate from mental illness.

I have often heard the “unclean spirit” in today’s gospel equated with mental illness…

            but it strikes me more as a spirit of evil.

Peck says that the goal of evil is to confuse.

Evil can often be subtle.

            Remember the man with the unclean spirit is right there in the midst of the synagogue,

      apparently blending right in with everyone else.

It is not until the unclean spirit recognizes Jesus that it speaks out,

            both recognizing and fearing the power of the Holy One of God.

If you recall,

Jesus had just been tempted by Satan in the wilderness for 40 days

prior to his calling the four disciples. 

      He recognizes the unclean spirit for what it is.

And that he has power over it.

So, what has all of this to do with us?

I do not know.

I just wanted to wrestle with today’s text…

it is not something I have heard much about in my many years in The Episcopal Church.

I do believe that evil exists,

both in human institutions and systems,

and in individual people.

I think it is worth paying attention to,

            and I think that, like Jesus,

       it is important to separate the person from the unclean spirit.

The person is still a beloved child of God.

Peck believes, from his experience,

that if people continue to choose harm,

then the evil can become more rooted within them,

       such it may only be possible to be healed by the likes of the Holy One of God saying,

“Be silent, and come out!”

I do not pretend to understand all the dis-eases of body and spirit of this life,

but one thing I do know:

     we who call ourselves Christians have been baptized into the life and death of Jesus Christ,

    the Holy One of God,

 who has through his death and resurrection overcome evil and death.

This reality is not some amulet that guards us against pain, adversity, or even evil,

but this reality means that in the end Jesus, the Christ,

     will heal the fragmented and broken world in which we live,

bringing us salvation: healing and wholeness.

Amen.