Epiphany Sermon (4 B)

Given by the Rev. Lee Barford, Jan. 29, 2006
Text: Mark 1:21-28

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable before you, O LORD, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen.

There are some portions of Holy Scripture that, when reading them, make us want to say something like, “Well, isn't that interesting.” And then we want to move on to what comes next, because what we've just read is a too out there, a too outside our experience, too unbelievable.

Today's Gospel lesson definitely meets that description. Convulsions. Loud screams. (And during worship, too. Not very Episcopalian.) And worst of all, there isn't a lot of ambiguity: what's going on here is that Jesus is casting out his first daemon. And being sophisticated, respectable, educated people, living in an age of science and reason, we know that there can be no such thing. In four hundred years since the invention of the scientific method, no one has demonstrated a single case. We're so much smarter than our ancestors who believed in sort of thing---aren't we? So let's just skip this daemonic possession stuff.

There are two problems with that attitude. One is that we aren't any smarter than our ancestors about many things: the things of God, the things of Good: the things of the spirit, the things of the heart. And also the things of Evil: pain, separation, and dysfunction. Unlike knowledge of the physical world which is taught and learned with relative ease, knowledge of the things of Good and Evil must be re-learned in every generation. We are not spiritually or morally any smarter or better than our ancient ancestors.

There's a second problem with just ignoring such daemonic possession stories. As Episcopalians and Anglicans we do not believe that the whole Bible must be read literally. We do not say that we must believe everything in the Bible in the same way, the way that we believe the sun will rise tomorrow. But we do so say, in the words of every Book of Common Prayer (1)--from the first, in 1549, to the present 1979 Book of Common Prayer--that the Lord “hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning.” In other words, we must take everything in the Bible seriously. It is all a message, a mirror, and a guide in our work of making a small bit of the Kingdom of God real here on earth. And if we take that attitude, then we see something else. If we want to treat lightly some piece of the Bible, maybe it's because it's not relevant to us, but maybe we want to ignore it because it tells us something about ourselves or our situation that we don't want to feel or think about.

So if we're willing to take this passage seriously, but not entirely literally, were do we go? First of all, what is a daemon, an unclean spirit? It is something that makes us spiritually unclean, makes us unfit, unwilling, not even desirous of worshiping God, of being in relationship with God. There are plenty of such forces out there. Addiction. Mental illness, and the abysmal treatment and support many of the mentally ill receive. Lust for power. Greed. The desire to control others. The desire for an unattainable level of stability or safety.

And these forces, like the unclean spirit in today's gospel reading, have voices. Loud voices. The voice that says, “Everybody else is doing it.” The voice that says, “Greed is good.”

I want to explore this last example a bit more, because it shows that this isn't all about our individual behavior and beliefs. As many of you know, I'm not an employee of the church. Except for a couple of years as an academic, I've worked in private industry since I was 17, mostly for large corporations. And during this time I've run into many people in business who say that they need not behave ethically as long as it is for the good of their company. And they say this because they are surrounded by voices that tell them so. The law of the land is that business managers have a duty only to shareholders. Business magazines publish articles (2) that say that that duty means that businesses are “amoral entities,” and so you or I, as an agent of an amoral entity, need not act morally either. In other words: Go ahead. Recommend or decide to have your new product made by slave labor in Outer Slobovia. Go ahead. Have all your employees work 29 hours a week, never 30, so they don't qualify for medical insurance. It enhances shareholder value. That's all that matters. You're not a moral agent here.

Now I want to be careful. I don't want you to go away saying, “Lee said corporations are unclean spirits.” I'm saying nothing of the kind. Modern levels of nutrition, health care technology, safe transportation, sanitation, instantaneous long distance communications, and on and on simply wouldn't be possible without large corporations. Those nations that tried to do without them failed their people miserably. But I do say that any voice that says “You need not love your neighbor as yourself right now because you are acting as an agent of the company” is an unclean spirit.
So there a number of forces, desires, and voices here and now that are unclean spirits. And our need for defense from them is great.

For, as Martin Luther wrote in the middle verses of A Mighty Fortress:

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God's own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us.

In this, as in so much other perplexity, the answer is Jesus. Jesus shows us in Gospel stories like today's that he is utterly the master over these forces, desires, and voices of addiction, madness, and dysfunction. By rising from the grave to which these forces sent him, Jesus showed he could defeat the worst they could do and give us hope to share in that victory. But more than passively share. He commanded us to teach all nations what he taught us. And he made all of us, his Church, his body in the world until he comes again. So until that day, the day when God destroys evil, we also share in the struggle against it, so that his truth does triumph through us.

Let us pray.

Lord God, let us to be true disciples of your Son when faced with the unclean spirits of addiction, madness, greed, and so many others. Help us to perceive them before they damage us or any other of your creatures. Guide us so that we may carry out whatever role you would give us in your victory over evil. In the name of Jesus Christ the, your Holy One. Amen.

1 This phrase has appeared in every English and American prayer book. See 1549, 1552, 1559 Book of Common Prayer, collect for Advent 2. 1979 Book of Common Prayer, collect for Proper 28.
2 For example, Lewis, Bob, “Offshoring Ethics,” in InfoWorld, April 4, 2003.

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