I was torn this
week between focusing on the Psalm and focusing upon the Gospel lesson from
Mark. For those attending for the first
time, I have remarked on the challenge of trying to learn the habits,
interests, sins, and the like of a new congregation in a very short time. I was leaning toward the Psalm, simply
because the Adult Bible Study, led by Larry and Tom, seems to be leaning to
doing that book in the Bible next. I
thought I might help do some foundational work for them and remind you that God
has something to say to you through that wonderful book. Then I had the chance to seek advice from
Gregg, our Treasurer. I asked him how
quickly he thought we would be starting the Psalms in the class. Gregg gave that thoughtful look, considered
all the variables he knew existed, and then answered. “2018. 2017 if we really push hard through
Colossians and don’t have any distractions.”
So, I used Gregg’s advice to discern that I should be preaching on Mark.
The passage from
Mark comes immediately after Jesus has called His Twelve. As I mentioned earlier last month, Mark loves
to use the word “immediately.” In our
passage alone, Mark uses the word three times.
By the time one gets done reading Mark, one feels as if he or she has
been sprinting a marathon. Jesus has
called His Twelve, which in itself was unusual because disciples usually sought
out rabbis, and now He takes them to synagogue to worship. Mark gives no account of what scrolls were
read or what Jesus taught. People are
amazed, however, as He taught as one having authority.
Such a
description might be difficult for us to understand. But the difference is the difference of
knowledge about and knowing God. The
rabbis and scribes and priests taught using citations or footnotes, though
their teaching was more oral than written.
Whenever the rabbis or scribes taught something, they would cite all
those impressive gentlemen (sorry, ladies, no women served in those positions)
who agreed with them. Picture the
character played by Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. She was always pulling quotes out of the air
and then citing the author. William
Blake. Robert Frost. Who cares?
It is a horrible way to teach and to learn simply citing someone else’s
opinion, whether that opinion is in the mainstream of accepted thought or
not. In many ways, though this would be
a lecture for another day, such a way of teaching is evidence of dead
knowledge, of inaccessible knowledge, of simply knowing about a subject.
Jesus, of course,
strolled into the synagogue that Sabbath and began to teach with a distinct advantage. He knew the heart and mind of God in ways the
scribes and rabbis and priest never could.
As one person of the Trinity, Jesus was uniquely equipped to teach those
who listened to Him. Jesus knew the mind
and heart of the Father. He did not have
to examine what this rabbi or that scribe or that priest had to say about
God. Mark knows this. So do we as readers. What happened during Mark’s account of our
Lord’s baptism? We were made privy to
that private conversation between the Father and the Son where the Father said
to Jesus, “You are My Son, whom I love.
With You I am well-pleased.” We
know where Jesus gets His authority. He is
God. He is God’s Anointed.
It is, however,
not yet time for the world to know Jesus’ true identity, nor is the world ready
to accept Him. Not too surprisingly, an
unclean spirit declares that it knows about Jesus, too. And the unclean spirit wants to know what
Jesus is going to do with all of them.
“Have you come to destroy us?” In
a different way, the unclean spirit has knowledge about God, but it does not
know God. It correctly identifies Jesus,
but it is unwilling to bend the knee.
Jesus, of course, is not in Capernaum to tussle with demons. He is not in Capernaum to identify His true
purpose yet. So He commands the demon to
be silent and come out of the man. And
the demon obeys. Those of us who know
that Jesus derives His authority and power from God are not at all surprised by
the result. But the people who witness
the event sure are surprised. Jesus
makes no big gestures; He does not invoke some flowery prayer. Jesus simply commands the demon and it
obeys. Period.
The people who
witness the teaching in the synagogue and then the exorcism are simply amazed
by what they have seen. He teaches as
one who possesses authority and even the demons bow to His command. There is something unique about this son of a
carpenter from Nazareth. Something
unique and powerful has come from Nazareth, even if Nathanael is unsure as to
whether He is good. It is also an
interesting tension set up by the author Mark.
What two groups will be fighting Jesus the hardest during this Gospel
account? The Jewish authorities and the
powers and principalities who seek to mislead people from God! Towards the end of the book, it will appear
that Satan and his minions and that the Jewish and Roman authorities have
won. This Man with authority will be
nailed to a cross and put to death. For
three days, it will seem as if true power resides with them. Then, in that unconquerable demonstration of
power and authority, God will raise this Man from the dead, demonstrating to
all who heard His teaching that He truly knew God.
A number of you
have commented to me after church, in Bible Study, in my office, and even via
e-mail that I seem to be a bit fixated on our baptisms. Part of the reason I may seem fixated on your
and my baptism is because of the season.
Epiphany kicks off with the baptism of Jesus. The rest of the season is spent reminding us
of His manifestation in the world that rejects Him. Baptism is important to us because we are
baptized not only into His death, but into His Resurrection as well. If we accept the significance of the sacrament,
we have died to selves and struggle, with God’s grace, to live to His honor and
His glory that others might be drawn into His kingdom. Part of the reason we focus on baptism, you
might say, is that we begin to want less knowledge
about God and more to know
God. Baptism inaugurates that process by
which we come to know our Lord better and more fuller. To be sure, we will not know Him perfectly as
did Jesus until He recreates us with His eyes, His ears, and His heart, but
part of our struggle in our faith is the effort to get to know Him better and
better each day. How is this
accomplished?
For starters, we
know we meet God each and every day in the Scriptures, right? Why do you think we as good little
Episcopalians/Anglicans read the Scriptures?
Do you think we like to snicker at the idea of people struggling to pronounce
some of those names in there? Do you
think it is some method of indoctrination from which there is no escape? No. We
encourage one another to read the Scriptures because it is in His holy Word
that we learn who God is. We learn from
Jonah and a million other places that God is merciful and ready to turn aside
from His wrath, eventually learning that His mercy is best demonstrated in the
life and person of Jesus Christ. We
learn our Lord’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt and tons of other places in
Scripture that our God is a deliverer, no matter the odds, eventually learning
that His ability to deliver His people is best demonstrated in the work and
person of Jesus Christ. We learn from
Scripture that what God values is not easily seen or heard, as evidenced by the
movement of the Star in the eyes of the magi or the inward digesting of the
angels’ message to the shepherds, but that nothing and no one escapes His
penetrating gaze. In short, we come to
know God through our study of Scripture.
The details may change in our life from those recorded in Scripture, but
because we know Him, we expect Him to act in our lives!
How else do we
move from a knowledge about God to know God?
Does the word prayer mean anything to you? We are taught, repeatedly, that prayer is
really divine communication, are we not?
We are real good at talking to God about our perceived needs and our
perceived lacks. Some of us have come to
know Him a bit more and learn to be thankful and joyous in the face of answered
prayer. A few of us even learn to be
silent and to listen for His voice. But
prayer is an activity which opens us up to the heart and mind of God. I shared with you last week of how I prayed
for evil people to be destroyed, only to be reminded that I, too, like the
folks in Nineveh, once rejected God and rightly could be called evil. Given some conversations with you this week,
some of you understand all too well the nature of God’s grace. Many of you remarked how prayer played a
pivotal role in allowing you to come to that fuller understanding. We should not be too surprised. Did not our Lord often stop ministering and
seek a place and time to pray?
Lastly, how else
do we come to know the heart and mind of God?
Who comes to dwell in our hearts when we are baptized? Who bestows upon us those gifts He deems
necessary that we have and utilize for His glory in our lives? Who circumsizes our hearts and writes God’s torah
on them? Yes. The Holy Spirit. We focus so much on the baptized into His
death and the idea of going to heaven that many of us forget that when we are
baptized into His Resurrection, we are empowered by His Holy Spirit. I see the squirming. Yes, I understand that, for many of us, the
Holy Spirit is the challenging Person of the Trinity. But we are promised by our Lord Himself that
when we are baptized into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, we will be empowered to accomplish things greater even than did He
while on earth. The Holy Spirit bestows
upon us gifts, charisms, which are unique to us and necessary for us to manifest
God in the world around us. One might
claim, by virtue of our baptism and by the empowering of the Holy Spirit, we
become authorities with respect to our gifts.
Some of us may get one charism; others may get more. The focus, though, is never on the charisms
but on their use to His honor and His glory.
But think for a second of the significance of that event. You and I, by virtue of our baptism, have
been entrusted with a gift necessary to glorify our Lord and to proclaim His
kingdom. Is it not a wonder that the
world does not turn and embrace such a gift?
Such opportunity? Yet we who know
about God, how often do we quit trying to know God?
I was put in mind
of the practical difference between a knowledge of God and knowing God this
week as I ministered with members of our congregation. Jerry dragged me over to St. Luke’s and even
arranged a tour for me. I asked my guide
how we at Advent could better support them in their efforts to serve people in
our community of Nashville. In our
discussion about the emergency food pantry, he pointed out the cases of
macaroni and cheese. Now, before I say
what I am going to say, I used to love those boxes. They were an awesome after school snack when
I was a kid. I have no doubt, too, that
for many families, those boxes mean the difference between eating and not. Anyway, they had cases of mac &
cheese. They had little milk. And they had precious little other diversity
to assist those in need. I have no doubt
that those who receive the boxes will be thankful. And those who have fed the homeless with mac
& cheese boxes have demonstrated a knowledge of God by giving a gift of
food. But I wonder. How many of those who gave mac & cheese
boxes would serve Jesus mac & cheese from a box were He to show up for
dinner at their house tonight? Some
would, because that would be all they could afford. But how many of us grab a box or ten and then
pat ourselves on the back for being “good” Christians because we have fed the
hungry in our midst?
Knowing God means
we understand what He means when He tells us to feed Him in them and them in
Him. You and I are called to feed the
hungry as if it were our Lord who was hungry.
We see Him in them and serve accordingly, and we see them in Him and
serve them thankfully and gratefully, knowing He served and loved us first.
Or consider the clothes. It is a similar problem. People give things to St. Luke’s that they
would never wear. The volunteer staff
spends all days Mondays sorting and combing through the donations. Those that can be sold are priced and put out
on the floor. Those that cannot are
offered to Goodwill and other charities.
To be sure, those with no money for clothes in this cold weather are
thankful for our rags. But, here again
is the hard question: would those rags be what we would give our Lord were He
to show up on our doorstep naked, in need of clothes? If doing to the least of these means we have
done unto Him, is that not precisely what many of us have done? Knowledge of God versus knowing God. Are you beginning to see the difference?
Although we do
not think of it often in these terms, when we skimp, when we act as if we have
finite resources, we are testifying to the world around us that God has a lack,
that God is a God of scarcity. In Bible
Study today were angry and upset about a commercial that will air today showing
God without a charged cell phone battery.
But how many of us live our lives hoarding that which He has bestowed
upon us? How many of us, through our
life and witness, testify that God does not have enough? When we skimp what we feed the hungry in His
name, when we skimp on the clothes we offer in His name, whenever we choose to
deal with those suffering from mental illness or addiction like they are the
cause of their problem, we are testifying as to whether we know God or just
have knowledge about Him, whether He is the source of all things given us, or
just a pretty good guy after whom we would do well to model our life. When we skimp, we deny His power, His
authority, and His love.
Of course, I have
left unaddressed, for the most part, the discussion of spiritual warfare in
this pericope of Mark. Mark is not a
physician. He is not misdiagnosing
Tourette’s, addiction, schizophrenia, or any other mental illness. He is making a theological claim. There is an unclean spirit that has taken
control of an unfortunate man, a man whom I might point out does not need to
repent of the possession to Jesus.
Because of the possession, the man is unable to ask for aid. The demon claims to know who Jesus is and
asks if He has come to destroy them. Whether
the demon thinks it can fight against Jesus or is conceding that Jesus is its
opposite is, in all reality, unimportant.
What is important is that Jesus has authority to silence the demon with
a word and cast it out of the man’s body with just a word. There is no green pea soup vomit as with the
Exorcist. There is no struggle in Jesus’
efforts or strain in His voice. He
commands; even the demon obeys. The
demon certainly has a knowledge of Jesus, but it does not want to know Him.
Talking about
spiritual warfare and demons is always dangerous in the Church. It is a fine line to walk when speaking of
them knowledgably. CS Lewis once wrote
that the Devil excels in either convincing well-meaning Christians that he and
his minions do not exist or in convincing those well-meaning Christians that he
and his minions are behind every evil. They
are in many ways a modern Scylla and Charybdis through which we must pass. We ignore Satan or seek him far too often,
either to our detriment. Yet, in this
passage and in others, Jesus treats the demons as real. Paul treats them and the warfare in which
they are engaged as very real. We would
do well to remember that powers and principalities and demons are struggling
with us and those around us to steer us away from the Lord who loves us, who
dies for us, and who has authority even over them.
Do I believe that
demons and powers and principalities exist and are in warfare against our
Lord? Absolutely. Today is a perfect example. Larry presented us with a commercial that
will air during the Super Bowl that will suggest to the masses that God is
bound by the laws of His own creation.
Given that 110 million souls or so will see the commercial, how many
might be misled into believing God is not the Creator, not omnipotent, not able
to overcome any technology we devise?
Worse, as one member of the group pointed out, can you imagine such a
commercials getting through all the powers that be that treated Mohammed as
weak? As ineffective? Speaking of those 110 million souls and the
big game, how many will have skipped church today because they had to get ready
for the party or watch every single minute of the pre-pre-pre-game specials
rather than learn about the love of God?
Which will matter more in their lives?
Which will matter more for eternity?
Yes, there are powers and principalities and demons which wage war
constantly against God and try and seduce us from following Him. Sadly, they are far more effective than any
of us would wish.
But, and hear
this but well, if God has given you eyes and ears and a heart to see and hear
and understand the spiritual warfare going on around you or in the world at
large, He has likely given you the means to combat that warfare in His name, to
His glory. Perhaps your combat will be
done through prayer. Maybe your combat
will be done through conversation. Can
you imagine yourself at a party later today when someone remarks how the cell
phone commercial captured how they see God?
All you need to do is speak the Word of truth, the Word of His creation
into such nonsense, and the veil of darkness might life in their eyes. Maybe, maybe your role is to be a bit more of
an exorcist. Maybe you know somebody
suffering from an unclean spirit. Maybe
physicians and psychiatrists and psychologists are unable to diagnose the
problem of someone you know and love.
Maybe your role is to cast out a demon into the eternal darkness in
Christ’s name and to do so expectantly, with authority. After all, those of us baptized into His
Resurrection have been given power and authority to do great things in His
name. If spiritual warfare is real, it
makes sense, does it not, that a couple of us have been given that power and
that authority by the Maker of all things, seen and unseen, to free those
oppressed and manifest His power and truth to a world starving and groping for
such things!
Brothers and
sisters, how do you view your baptism?
Was it merely a ritual of water and words? Or was it something far more mystical and
infinitely more meaningful? Was it
merely a rite of passage that made people in your family happy, or was it your commitment
to begin to learn to know your Lord who saved you? If you take seriously the idea that you have
been raised to new life in His Resurrection, then you, too, share in His
authority. By virtue of your undertaking
to fulfill the oaths you made at your baptism, you have committed yourself to
knowing God as a friend. As you walk and
study and pray with Him, He will disclose more and more of His heart and mind
to you. Better still, as you come to
know Him better and better, and empowered through the Holy Spirit, you will be
given power and authority to speak and to act in His Name. People will say of you, “He/She speaks. And with authority! From where does he or she get this
authority?” Before long, if you are not
too careful, you may be the light in the darkness that He calls each one of us
to be, not just in this season we call Epiphany, but in all times and in all
places of our lives.
Peace,
Brian†
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