Mark 1:21-28
They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 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." But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
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." At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
The Hebrews came into being as a people in a harsh time and a harsher place. They came into what we now see as the Holy Land as a wandering tribe of herdsmen, moving their flocks from grazing to grazing. Descendant most likely from one family, with all its servants and in-laws and hangers-on, every time they grew they split and split again into new sub-tribes, but even though they multiplied, with no home base they were never a power in their part of the world. So, for defense, they developed rules – rules that marked them out as a separate people and keep them pure and tied just to themselves, so that they did not fade into the surrounding peoples and disappear. Rules that were strictly followed ... or else.
They had rules on what they could eat, who they could marry, who and what and how they could worship, who was in charge – rules that set them firmly apart from the neighboring folk. “We are the people who live by these rules. Everyone else is not.”
Rules, it seems, always proliferate over time – adding more and more rules, never fewer, until the rules themselves become more important than the concepts they were intended to safeguard.
We all live by rules – and most of our rules today exist for the same purpose as did the Hebrews’ – to remind us who we are and to enable us to live together. We have rules to ensure safety and order. We stop at red lights, we don’t help ourselves to others’ belongings just because we take a fancy to them, we pay our share of taxes. Yes, there are always those who couldn’t care less about the rules, but most of us make a sincere effort to live that way.
We also, like the Hebrews, have rules that mark us as members of our particular “tribe” -- whether we are aware of those rules, or not. We are middle-class, we’re all educated to a degree, we maintain homes – we live the way people in our tribe live – and we don’t often go outside those unspoken rules. And if we should ever step outside those lines, we will find that some people find themselves threatened by us - for no other reason than that we have done something different.
For those of us who were raised in western Christianity, there are also unspoken rules as to who Jesus was/is. We are so enculturated by a lifetime of images of the blond, blue-eyed Jesus that it’s hard to escape that picture. Our Jesus is soft and pretty and gentle and soft-spoken and doesn’t seem to have ever done a lick of hard work.
In reality, Jesus was a dark-skinned, dark-haired Galilean, born into the lower class, son of a woodworker, who was most likely trained to work hard himself. Young people were certainly not encouraged to just hang about in this day.
He was a young Jewish male – an observant member of the Jewish faith -- not a Christian, not the “Son of God” – just an everyday guy. Nobody special. And that was why it was so shocking when he took his turn reading and expounding in synagogue – as all Jewish males were expected to do in turn – and first, read and taught with an authority no one expected, and then followed that by expelling a demon with a simple command.
This did not fit the rules. The rules, by this time, said that elders had all the wisdom, and they especially said that, if anyone had this kind of power it would be a priest or Pharisee, certainly not a woodworker from Nazareth.
So where did this guy come from? Who gave him permission to speak and act in this way? Where did he get that authority? I’m pretty sure there were very mixed reactions to all this. On one hand, Jesus had just done something wonderful, his words and actions were exciting. They carried a hint of more wonderful things to come. But, on the other hand, Jesus had just broken a whole bunch of unwritten societal rules – and that made him suspect.
Who did he think he was? What did he think he was doing? Where did he learn to do this? Who taught him? Those who were worried about him and his unauthorized authority had studied long and hard to get where they were. They had followed all the rules and worked to be able to claim to be authorities. And this Jesus guy just waltzes in and even the demons listen to him. He is going to be a problem.
People who go outside societal rules make us uncomfortable. If they might chance to be right, then maybe we have been wrong all along. And most people will fight against ever having to face that possibility. Too many of us hate change, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a good thing. How can we grow and improve if we are unwilling to change? How can we ever more into the new life Jesus invited us to if we are unwilling to rethink old certainties?
How many of us are unwilling to move from where we are – where we are comfortable – even when it is Jesus calling us to something new - something better?
Oh, and that evil spirit? People who live in non-scientific thinking cultures have always attributed sickness and what we used to call “acts of God” to invisible spirits. Seeing all these things as totally beyond human control they concluded they could only be the acts of unseen spirits.
We today, in our scientific world, think we have it all figured out, and we tend to blithely explain unusual behavior in others in medical terms. I suspect we still haven’t gotten to the root of it all.
Whether we interpret any biblical language of “spirits” literally, or we translate it, in our minds, into more modern scientific theory, it clearly refers to something that is causing harm – something that is not good for the people involved. The threat is the same - regardless of the name we give it.
Fred Craddock, the grand old Disciples preacher, once noted that "not believing in demons has hardly eradicated evil in our world."
There’s an uncomfortable thought to leave you with. You’re welcome.
They had rules on what they could eat, who they could marry, who and what and how they could worship, who was in charge – rules that set them firmly apart from the neighboring folk. “We are the people who live by these rules. Everyone else is not.”
Rules, it seems, always proliferate over time – adding more and more rules, never fewer, until the rules themselves become more important than the concepts they were intended to safeguard.
We all live by rules – and most of our rules today exist for the same purpose as did the Hebrews’ – to remind us who we are and to enable us to live together. We have rules to ensure safety and order. We stop at red lights, we don’t help ourselves to others’ belongings just because we take a fancy to them, we pay our share of taxes. Yes, there are always those who couldn’t care less about the rules, but most of us make a sincere effort to live that way.
We also, like the Hebrews, have rules that mark us as members of our particular “tribe” -- whether we are aware of those rules, or not. We are middle-class, we’re all educated to a degree, we maintain homes – we live the way people in our tribe live – and we don’t often go outside those unspoken rules. And if we should ever step outside those lines, we will find that some people find themselves threatened by us - for no other reason than that we have done something different.
For those of us who were raised in western Christianity, there are also unspoken rules as to who Jesus was/is. We are so enculturated by a lifetime of images of the blond, blue-eyed Jesus that it’s hard to escape that picture. Our Jesus is soft and pretty and gentle and soft-spoken and doesn’t seem to have ever done a lick of hard work.
In reality, Jesus was a dark-skinned, dark-haired Galilean, born into the lower class, son of a woodworker, who was most likely trained to work hard himself. Young people were certainly not encouraged to just hang about in this day.
He was a young Jewish male – an observant member of the Jewish faith -- not a Christian, not the “Son of God” – just an everyday guy. Nobody special. And that was why it was so shocking when he took his turn reading and expounding in synagogue – as all Jewish males were expected to do in turn – and first, read and taught with an authority no one expected, and then followed that by expelling a demon with a simple command.
This did not fit the rules. The rules, by this time, said that elders had all the wisdom, and they especially said that, if anyone had this kind of power it would be a priest or Pharisee, certainly not a woodworker from Nazareth.
So where did this guy come from? Who gave him permission to speak and act in this way? Where did he get that authority? I’m pretty sure there were very mixed reactions to all this. On one hand, Jesus had just done something wonderful, his words and actions were exciting. They carried a hint of more wonderful things to come. But, on the other hand, Jesus had just broken a whole bunch of unwritten societal rules – and that made him suspect.
Who did he think he was? What did he think he was doing? Where did he learn to do this? Who taught him? Those who were worried about him and his unauthorized authority had studied long and hard to get where they were. They had followed all the rules and worked to be able to claim to be authorities. And this Jesus guy just waltzes in and even the demons listen to him. He is going to be a problem.
People who go outside societal rules make us uncomfortable. If they might chance to be right, then maybe we have been wrong all along. And most people will fight against ever having to face that possibility. Too many of us hate change, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a good thing. How can we grow and improve if we are unwilling to change? How can we ever more into the new life Jesus invited us to if we are unwilling to rethink old certainties?
How many of us are unwilling to move from where we are – where we are comfortable – even when it is Jesus calling us to something new - something better?
Oh, and that evil spirit? People who live in non-scientific thinking cultures have always attributed sickness and what we used to call “acts of God” to invisible spirits. Seeing all these things as totally beyond human control they concluded they could only be the acts of unseen spirits.
We today, in our scientific world, think we have it all figured out, and we tend to blithely explain unusual behavior in others in medical terms. I suspect we still haven’t gotten to the root of it all.
Whether we interpret any biblical language of “spirits” literally, or we translate it, in our minds, into more modern scientific theory, it clearly refers to something that is causing harm – something that is not good for the people involved. The threat is the same - regardless of the name we give it.
Fred Craddock, the grand old Disciples preacher, once noted that "not believing in demons has hardly eradicated evil in our world."
There’s an uncomfortable thought to leave you with. You’re welcome.
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