Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash
I’m not preaching at our church this week, so I thought I would offer one of my favourite sermons from last year.
I just watched The Pope’s Exorcist with my kids - which, I’ll admit was an interesting parenting decision - so perhaps, it’s the reason why I have the topic of demons on my mind these days.
But also, it’s the time of year - post Christmas, when the weather is bad, and the news is worse - that many of us struggle with our mental and spiritual health.
Now as you will see below, the sermon starts in somewhat of a creatively emotive way, but I hope these words and those that follow, land with you in the way they are intended; which is ultimately to remind you of your belovedness , and all the positive possibilities that Christ sees in you.
Today’s scripture is Mark 1:21–28, where Jesus heals a man with an “unclean spirit” in Capernaum.
I am legion, for we are many.I am the shadow monster.I am the unclean spirit.I grip, I convulse, I claw, I bite.I am the scraping source of terror in the night.I am that sweet song of sin in your ear.I am the dementor's kiss.I suck you dry then I puff you up.I throw tires on the fire of your ego and when your hands are triumph raised, I plunge deep my poisoned pike.I am the critic.I am the vertigo of the soul.I am the needle in the arm. I am nihilistic thought within your head.I am the loop of failure that keeps you tossing in your bed.I am the learning watcher.I am the shame maker.I am the rage stoker.I am the comment section troll.Beneath my perfect skin are slugs and worms and razor blades.I am demon, I am baba yaga, I am Belfagor.I am the rat king.I am the lord of the flies. I am pride, envy, avarice and wrath.I am legion, for we are many…Now, what have you to do with me?
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For churches like ours that lean towards a more metaphorical rather than literal interpretation of scripture, we tend to stumble over gospel passages like the one presented today from Mark.
They make us uncomfortable - they get us squirming in our pews.
To put it bluntly, we don't know what to do with demons.
And Mark, more than any other Gospel writer, emphasizes Jesus’ miraculous power to heal and to exorcise. Of the eighteen miracles recorded in Mark, thirteen have to do with healing, and four of those are exorcisms.
Now, Jesus’s rebuking of the unclean spirit in Capernaum is the very first act of his public ministry - this is foundational to who he is and his mission in the world - and so, we are compelled… compelled to wrestle with what to do with demons.
For our spiritual ancestors, the possibility of manipulating the physical or spirit world was never questioned - there was always something else going on beneath the surface of things - including, as many believed a quite literal battle between the forces of good and evil - read the Book of Revelation sometime for a blow by blow account of this.
But in our days, the typical modernist approach focuses on finding rational explanations for things that appear to transgress natural laws - so things like demon possessions are demythologized and arm-chair diagnosed as epilepsy or some other condition.
Now, I know that we here today will have a variety of viewpoints on things like angels and demons and exorcisms and great cosmic battles for the soul of the universe.
I personally don't believe we need to literalize what we see in scripture for it to have authority in guiding our lives - taking scripture seriously does not require claiming its inerrancy, but also.... also I don't believe we should close ourselves off to the miraculous - to the mysterious - lest our lives becomes flat, utilitarian and void of all spiritual adventure.
And while we may have different understandings of the spirit possession we see in our gospel text today, I bet most, or all of us, have had the feeling of being “possessed” by something that we wish could be exorcised.
I bet most, or all of us, have behaviours that we struggle with, some form of unhealthy addiction or compulsion we wish we could be free of.
And it’s not that we don’t know what’s good for us, but more often than we would like, we end up listening to the siren song of temptation in our ear.
Like the man in Capernaum, at least sometimes, I bet we all feel like we need help - we need assistance from an energy, a strength, a wisdom that is greater than our own.
The gospel compels us to take seriously our mental health and our spiritual health and see how these different dimensions to ourselves are interwoven, and how faith, and the spiritual adventure of following Jesus can be foundational to the wholeness and healing that we seek.
Now these days, we might not use phrases like "unclean spirit” to describe THAT which must be exorcised, but in the language of the bible, words like “unclean” and “impure” simply mean: that which is contrary to the sacred. So, it is those forces contrary to the sacred, that Jesus speaks and acts in opposition to.
Mark’s message is clear: Jesus comes into people’s lives as a healing liberator, in direct, authoritative opposition to the death-dealing forces of chaos and ruin. And it is these forces that immediately recognize him for who he is, well before any of his followers.
"What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?" says the demonic one "Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."
Jesus's reply, which in Greek, is the word phimoō, is often translated into English as “be silent”; but some scholars don't feel this is strong enough.
Rather, the term would be better rendered as “be muzzled”.
Muzzled, like a rabid dog, able to bark, but not bite. It growls, but cannot infect. It makes noise, but is kept in its place.
"Be muzzled, and come out of him!" Jesus commands as one with authority.
It is important to notice here that Jesus speaks directly to the demon. He recognizes that while the possession is part of the person’s reality, it is not the person himself.
We are not our demons.
We are not our addictions or unhealthy compulsions, we are not those forces contrary to the sacred, we are beloved children of the living God, worthy of wholeness, and Jesus can see that.
One of our ‘wise ones’ in our bible study at Metropolitan said something that has stuck with me: “Jesus is the one who sees people for their possibilities, not their demons.”
Jesus sees our possibilities, not our demons.
And as with those disciples so long ago, when we follow him, his word has power. His word has authority in our lives.
Thankfully, taboos around mental health are lifting and more people are feeling comfortable talking about their struggles - this is a very good thing. As is medical research into diagnosable conditions in which medicine is an entirely appropriate form of treatment, and is giving renewed life to so many.
And yet, in this time, when we as a society are en masse moving away from the miraculous, there are also implications to our mental and spiritual health when life becomes flat, utilitarian and void of all mystery.
We must be wary of the medicalization of the human experience, and those instances when it is really the culture that is sick, not the person.
Think about how loneliness and isolation and stress and feelings of meaningless are so often the triggers for addiction and other unhealthy compulsions.
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There was a famous study done in the 1980's where scientists would put a rat in a cage, alone, with two water bottles. One of the bottles was just water. The other was water laced with heroin or cocaine.
Almost every time they ran the experiment, the rat became obsessed with the drugged water, and kept coming back for more and more, until finally, it died.
But another scientist, Bruce Alexander, a professor of Psychology in Vancouver noticed something about this experiment: the rat was put in the cage all alone. It had nothing to do but take the drugs.
What would happen, he wondered, with a different set of circumstances… a difference culture, so to speak?
So, Professor Alexander built what he called Rat Park.
It was a lush cage where the rats had coloured balls to move around, and tunnels to scamper through, and all the best rat-food, and plenty of friends to play with.
The rats in Rat Park also tried both bottles, but they mostly shunned the drugged water, consuming less than a quarter of the drugs than those in the isolated rat experiment.
While all the rats who were alone became heavily addicted, none of the rats in the community of Rat Park did, and none of them died.
Of course, people are not rats, and our reality is much more complicated, and it is a tragic truth that despite the best efforts of loving families, sometimes people with ample access to supports fall into addiction and other serious mental health struggles.
But on aggregate, modern science recognizes that social determinants, including access to supportive community, have a profound impact on our mental and physical health.
Professor Peter Cohen argues that human beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. It is how we get satisfaction, and if we can't connect with each other, we will connect with something else - drugs or drink or food or porn.
A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because they couldn't bond as fully with anything else.
As another of our ‘wise ones’ in Bible Study recently "the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, it is connection."
The opposite of addiction is connection, and so as we talk about individual recovery we also need to talk about social recovery.
How can we all recover, together, from the societal sicknesses of loneliness and isolation and stress and feelings of meaningless that have taken hold - that have possessed - so many?
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"What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
"Be silent" he says "and come out of him!"
Jesus sees people for their possibilities, not their demons. And his word has power. His word has power in our lives.
As his followers, Jesus calls us into relationship, into spiritual adventure and he sends us into the world to spread his message of hope and healing. But as with his followers so long ago, he does not send us alone.
He sends us together, and he promises, even through the centuries, that “wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with you.”
I am there with you.
His church is one of the few places left in society, where you can actually build relationships with people that don't have some sort of transactional or financial function.
It is one of the few places that still brings people together from various ages, abilities, genders, ethnic backgrounds, political views, socio-economic circumstances, to make not some monoculture of instagrammed idealism, but an often messy and always beautiful garden of human possibility.
And rather than being reliant on algorithms and A.I. chatbots for answers, the church is one of the few places where we can still tap into the energy and wisdom and strength of deeply held traditions.
The church of Jesus, is one of the few places that really takes seriously the link between spiritual and mental health - that recognizes that we are not our addictions or compulsions, we are beloved children of the living God, worthy of wholeness.
None of us are perfect, and at times we all do things that are contrary to the sacred. But in the church we seek to follow, we seek to be bonded to the one who sees our possibilities, not our demons.
Jesus sees our possibilities, and his word has power in our lives.
So, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Everything.
As it turns out… absolutely everything.
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