Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

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what I’m about this morning

is as much a "thought experiment" as it is a sermon.

So you may find me a little less organized

and a little more stream-of-consciousness

than you would usually expect.

So that means you’re probably going to have to stay alert.

Hope you had your coffee this morning!

Mark’s brief story here

seems to deal mostly with the question of Jesus’ authority.

In the first half of the passage,

people in the synagogue are listening to Jesus teach,

and they are astounded because, as Mark says,

"he taught them as one having authority,

and not as the scribes."

So it becomes apparent even in Jesus’ speaking

that he has a certain, compelling authority.

But what comes next is even more interesting.

"Just then there was in their synagogue

a man with an unclean spirit," Mark tells us.

What does that mean?

That this was a regular attender

who happened to be plagued with a recurring case

of unclean spirit?

That this was an unfortunate person

who just happened to wander in off the streets

while Jesus was teaching?

It doesn’t much matter,

because what Mark is really interested in

is what happens next.

The unclean spirit speaks,

Jesus rebukes it, him, whatever,

and orders it to come out of the man,

and it does so, apparently quite unwillingly.

And once again,

Jesus’ audience is astonished.

"What is this?

A new teaching – with authority!

He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."

Even the unclean spirits obey him.

At one level, perhaps, that seems obvious …

and yet, I don’t think people of faith live as if we believed it

now, any more than they may have done then.

For the moment,

let’s bracket the question of

"just what is an unclean spirit, anyway?"

and we’ll come back to that.

Let’s just talk about it as forces that are opposed to God,

forces of evil, if you want …

that even those forces are, in the end, compelled to obey Jesus.

Do we believe that?

If we were taking a true/false theology test,

we might mark that as true,

knowing that it’s the "party line,"

but do we live as if we know it’s true?

I wonder.

Let me speak only for myself for a moment.

I don’t find it hard to believe for a minute

that God is active in the lives of people, or institutions, or whatever,

that choose to pay attention to God.

I do not doubt that every person here this morning

feels pulled to obey Jesus …

that is, even though we don’t always actually do it,

the connection is there.

We know we ought to follow Jesus,

and to do what he commanded,

and often that’s just what we do!

And even in those times when we fail,

or when we act bad because we feel like it,

still, we feel the pull of obedience

that tells us when we have done wrong.

So it would make sense – both theologically and personally! –

for us to pray for things like

courage to do the right thing,

forgiveness for our sins,

the will to do what is right

even when we are tempted to do what is wrong,

and so on.

I believe that God acts on and within those of us

who choose to align ourselves with God’s will,

God’s plan for humankind and for the entire universe,

God’s blueprint of love, and justice, and shalom.

I also do not find it too difficult to believe

that God can exercise control over "nature," let’s call it.

I do think that for a lot of reasons,

most of them incomprehensible to us,

God only rarely chooses actually to do so …

And that’s one of the things on my list to ask God about,

if I ever get a chance to do so, in the great beyond:

Why that tsunami?

Why hurricanes and floods?

Why viruses that mutate and kill?

Why Alzheimer’s?

You know.

The sorts of things that are probably on your list as well.

But I guess I really do believe that,

having created the earth and the heavens,

God could command certain natural phenomena,

and they would have to obey.

So it makes sense for us to pray

for disasters to be averted,

for the victims of disasters when they occur,

for healing for loved ones who are suffering from illness,

and for miracles, for those said to be "incurable."

We may not often get just exactly what we asked for.

But we do get God,

even in the midst of nature’s chaos and hurt.

It is, however, much harder for me

to wrap my mind around the notion

that God has authority over even the unclean spirits.

I want to believe it …

If you gave me the true/false theology test,

I would answer the question as "True,"

but I don’t think I live as if I believe it.

There are people – kinds of people –

that, deep down inside, I really think are beyond redemption.

And I mean, I personally think this,

not that I think that’s theologically really the case, okay?

But, I mean …

dictators who torture and murder thousands of their own people …

those three teenagers caught on video beating and murdering homeless men …

corporate executives who rob the pension fund

to finance million-dollar birthday parties for their trophy wives …

telemarketers and door-to-door salespeople and brokers

who prey on the confused elderly …

I’m sure all of us have our own list.

Do we see any evidence at all

that God has authority over the willful human evil

that plagues our world?

I don’t …

and yet, here’s the amazing thing.

My own limited point of view,

my own fragmentary understanding,

my own doubts and fears,

do not keep God from having authority.

Just because I can’t see it,

doesn’t mean it isn’t so.

Which means that a growing edge for me …

and, I suspect, for many of us …

is that we must learn to pray for

even those situations where God seems to have no authority.

We must pray for God to be at work

even in the lives of those who seem to think there is no God

… or, who seem to think that they are god.

We must pray for God to redeem

even the ones we think of as unredeemable.

We must pray for God to save

even those we would frankly like to see burn in hell, or its equivalent.

We must at least act as if we believe

that God has authority even over the unclean spirits.

Speaking of which, let’s "unbracket" the question now,

and think for a moment about "what is an unclean spirit?"

A first-century worldview isn’t all that helpful to us

when we think about evil in a twenty-first century world.

And yet … and here’s where the thought experiment really happens …

how would it change the way we think about the world

if we understood something like "unclean spirits"

as being responsible for at least some of the evils that plague us?

I don’t want us to get all weird and spooky,

or irrational, for that matter,

but what I’m suggesting is this:

In the first century,

if a person "had an unclean spirit," so to speak …

probably someone that we today would think of as mentally ill …

that person was to be pitied,

but not blamed.

He or she might have to be restrained,

for his or the public’s own good,

but that was understood to be the fault of the unclean spirit,

not the person him- or herself.

How would it change the way we think of the people

on our own list of "unredeemables," whoever they are …

if we thought of them as plagued by an unclean spirit?

What if we thought about our myriad social problems

as being the work of unclean spirits?

The thing I like about that kind of reframing of the questions,

is that it doesn’t take away our responsibility

for doing something about it, or them,

but it does take away the need for trying to find someone to blame.

Think, for example, about the way we have re-thought

the concept of mental illness.

We long ago got away from blaming demons …

but for much of human history,

it was thought that people who saw hallucinations,

heard voices, harmed themselves, etc., etc.

were just acting bad and could really stop it if they wanted.

Now we understand that it’s not a choice; it’s chemistry;

it’s a force beyond the influence of one’s own will

that acts upon the mentally ill person.

And one can make certain choices about

how you respond to your own diagnosis of mental illness,

but you can’t choose whether you have it.

It is, in that sense,

like an unclean spirit.

Something not under our control.

We understand something of the same thing

about alcoholism and other addictions.

While people can control what they do about having the illness,

they cannot control the fact that they have the illness.

Similarly, I wonder whether it would help us to

think of new solutions to society’s problems,

and to be more willing to think God would intervene …

if we understood things as being the results of –

maybe not unclean spirits –

but something similar.

When we see people behaving in criminal ways:

can we first see the social structures that have left people with no good choices

before we question the choices that they have made?

When we see unbelievable greed at work,

can we first see a society’s warped values and emphasis on

"whoever dies with the most stuff, wins"

before we blame the greedy and try to deal with – and make them deal with –

the consequences of their greed?

When we shudder before what seems to be mindless violence …

can we step back and first look at

the subtle violence of racism, and poverty, and corruption

before we work on the necessary steps to protect ourselves

from those who would do us harm?

Until and unless we name the unclean spirits,

and address them, and/or seek God’s help in casting them out,

we will never be well.

One of the failings of mainstream religion, I think,

is that we fail to take evil very seriously.

We label particular actions or persons as evil,

and beyond God’s reach,

but don’t want to see that there are systems of evil

in which we are all embedded.

Rather than looking for things to blame,

I would suggest that we need to think of the power of forces outside ourselves –

whether you want to call them "unclean spirits" or not –

that may trap us into behaving ways we know we shouldn’t behave,

doing things we know we shouldn’t do,

believing the worst about one another,

treating human beings and our earth

as means rather than a valuable and good end in themselves.

That’s not to say that we thereby escape responsibility …

we are still responsible for acting on our knowledge

and insisting that God act.

But we do, I think, need to understand that

as much as we would like to write off certain people,

the actions of certain groups of people,

the opinions of certain other groups of people …

we are all, to some extent,

the captives of forces we cannot completely control.

What good news it is, then,

that Jesus is able to command even the unclean spirits,

and they must obey him.

God is not powerless against the forces of evil

that frighten us,

that make us feel helpless,

that threaten to overwhelm human life.

God has authority even over

murderous dictators, thieving corporate executives,

and homeless-bashing teenagers,

even if they neither know nor acknowledge it.

God has authority over us as well,

both that within us which is good and just,

and that within us which is still subject to the unclean spirits.

God can cast those out of us, if we will ask …

God can cast them out of our society, if we will ask …

which will, of course, have impacts on us

that we can’t possibly foresee,

which is why we mostly don’t ask!

Which is another sermon for another day.

God has authority.

Even when it doesn’t always look like it.

God has authority over us,

over those who seek to do God’s will,

and over those who seek to thwart God’s will.

Even the unclean spirits.

Amen.

© 2005 Julie Adkins (e-mail: Drjadkins@trinitypresdallas.org)