January 28, 2024
The First Triumphal Entry
Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Mark 1:21-28
Rev. David Germer
The first three Sundays of January, Patrick preached through what I found to be, and the feedback from many of you confirmed, an incredibly helpful series on the basics of Christian worship. Starting this new year felt like a great time to reground ourselves in the fundamentals – the bath, the book, and the meal – baptism, the Word of God, and communion or the Lord’s Supper. This morning’s gospel text from the first chapter of Mark picks up right where Patrick’s text last week left off – Jesus has been baptized by John and tested in the wilderness, he’s proclaimed the good news of the coming kingdom of God, and he’s called the first disciples to receive him – to follow him, and to fish for people. Simon and Andrew left their father, and followed Jesus.
Now, listen for God’s word in 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 quiet 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 Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
So, it’s clear, I hope, that I’m continuing Patrick’s series: back to basics, the fundamental aspects of Christian worship – baptism, Word, Lord’s Supper, and… casting out evil spirits. And, in the same way that Patrick last week gave a bit of a “how to” on receiving communion, I thought it’d be fun to do the same this week – some “exorcism 101!” (Not really.)
No. This is one of those passages that might lead us to say, “You know, I believe in the literal truth of Jesus – his life, his teachings, his sacrificial death. I can even get on board with his resurrection, the miracles, the healings. But what on earth am I supposed to do with passages like this?” What are we to make of Jesus casting out evil spirits?
What I imagine the vast majority of us in this room are on the same page about, is that this absolutely is not instructive, practically, for our weekly worship or our daily lives (in the way that baptism, the Word, and communion are). Not only is spirit-cleansing not on that foundational level, it’s not something we think about at all. When we do it’s because we read a passage like this, and we (and by we I mean mainline Christians in general) either say:
- “Well, that was for Jesus, not us (thank God);” or we say:
- “Surely this is a case of first century folks doing the best they could to explain things they didn’t physiologically or psychologically understand – like mental illness or epilepsy.”
My goal this morning is not to lift up spirit-cleansing – casting out evil spirits or demons – as something that we must claim as essential and foundational. But I do want to challenge those two assumptions, in order to hold up a something bigger that I think is going on in this passage.
The first is the easiest and quickest to deal with. Is this just for Jesus? No. Yes, this is something Jesus does, various times – once very memorably casting a group of demons into pigs, in other gospels it happens with large crowds of people, and on an individual basis – a boy, a girl, a man, a woman. Jesus is an equal opportunity exorcist.
But he also, immediately after appointing the 12 apostles to be with him and to be sent out by him – sends them with the authority to do the same – to cast out demons. A few chapters later he sends them out again, two by two, and that specific function and calling is named again – they’re given authority over unclean spirits. Sometimes they have success, sometimes not… but it’s clear that Jesus understood this as something in which his followers would take part. So not just Jesus.
But can that second response and assumption get us off the hook? Was that “just back then,” and a result of the time they lived in – their misunderstanding of how our bodies or minds work? Or is there some deeper spiritual truth that Jesus is addressing, some reality that Mark is inviting his readers to see?
Let’s look at where Jesus is, and what’s going on.
Throughout the gospels, especially the gospel of Mark, the synagogue and the Temple are locations of opposition, to Jesus. They stand as a symbolic foil, a place where those opposed to Jesus’ purposes – whether spiritual forces (demons) or human religious leaders, or even just regular citizens whose hearts have become hardened – are seen at their worst. The idea and purpose of the synagogue and temple of course was the opposite of this – places where people could worship and pray and offer themselves to God. To feel God’s presence in a special way. But it had become something different.
Later in Mark, just after Jesus’ so-called ‘triumphal entry’ into Jerusalem on a donkey, he enters the Temple, and cleanses it. The striking image on the cover of the bulletin is a modernized depiction of that story. But long before that was another confrontation, preceded by another triumphal entry into a place of worship, to set things right. After picking up his first two disciples, Jesus goes directly to the synagogue, because this is the symbolical center of his mission.
He’s like (in this way and only this way) a gunslinger in the old west who wanders into town, hears that the riff raff in black hats have taken over the town watering hole, and marches right on over, to see what’s up, and to make a statement: things are about to change: “You may have the rest of this town paralyzed by fear. But not me. I’m not gonna stand for this.”
The black hats easiest to spot, during those days, in the synagogue, were the Scribes. The Scribes were kinda like celebrity professors – most college campuses (and even seminaries) have at least one or two of these. These specifically were master Bible teachers, moral pillars, and accomplished civil lawyers, all rolled into one. None of these are perfect examples of all those, but you could imagine or think of people like Walter Brueggemann, or Cornel West, or Henri Nouwen… or even someone like Martin Luther King. These almost legendary, larger than life figures, who carried a lot of influence…
Except… In Mark there are 19 references to scribes, and 18 are negative! The only positive example is when a scribe asks Jesus about the greatest commandment, and approves of Jesus’ response, and Jesus approves of his approval. All 18 other times – they are the antagonists of the story. And in this first example, Mark describes Jesus confronting them exactly at the place of their power – their teaching and influence – by noting the difference between HIS teaching (which left all watching astounded and amazed), and HIS influence, or his authority. Exousia – that’s the Greek word used for authority. It’s used 9 times in Mark – 6 times about Jesus; 3 times about… who would you guess? NOT the Scribes. Not demons or unclean spirits. It’s used those other three times in reference to Jesus’ apostles. And it’s authority that he confers to them.
What’s fascinating to me, is that what we’d expect to get in this opening face-off confrontation, is Jesus bringing the heat, with shockingly profound words. (Kinda like what we get in the sermon on the Mount, or when Jesus enters the synagogue at the beginning of his ministry in Luke’s gospel and reads from the Isaiah scroll). In a Western, it’d be where we see the bad guys threaten the good guy by drawing their guns with such speed, and then firing with such accuracy (maybe at some bottles at the far end of the bar) that we’re on the edge of our seats to see the good guy do it even faster and with superior precision… but here it’s like the director cuts away, too early, and we just hear someone say, after the fact: “boy he showed them, didn’t he? That was amazing. We’ve never seen anything like that.”
We don’t get Jesus’ teaching in this story – not a single word of it! In Mark, the person of Jesus is more important than the subject of his teaching. One commentator put it this way: “If we want to know what the gospel or teaching of Jesus consists of, we are directed to its embodiment in Jesus the teacher.” What matters is the teacher, not the lesson.
I imagine this rings true, for most of us in our experiences. I mean, think about the best teacher you ever had. (Thinking of them? For many their name or face immediately came to you.)
Now, think of what is was that made them so good – that made them the best. (Pause)
If we had more time, and I had you turn to your neighbor and tell them the five facts – the five pieces of information they taught you or asked you to recount their five most formative lesson plans…we’d be here for a while. You wouldn’t be able to do it!
You don’t remember a great teacher’s teaching, as much as you remember HOW they taught. Their passion. Their curiosity. Their care for you. Their desire to help the material come alive in and for you, to connect the dots – to see that same spark in you. There’s a well-known line you can find attributed to almost anyone who ever said anything noteworthy: “People won’t remember what you said but will remember how you made them feel.” You remember their actions.
Jesus has some memorable words. (He’s the one our Deuteronomy passage foresaw, the one God raised up to speak God’s Word). One could argue that Jesus spoke the best most important words ever uttered! The best teachings, and lessons.
But here, Mark is saying, do you see what he’s DOing??
He’s bursting onto the scene, striding into the place that is wrongly set against him, and drawing the battle lines – he teaches and acts with an authority entirely different from the Scribes, and he asserts that authority to defeat any and every power and force that will work against his purposes. And it’s no accident that Mark’s story names both human and spiritual forces.
This early scene showdown isn’t just with the Scribes, but it’s also between those anointed with God’s Spirit and those held captive by unclean spirits; between the kingdom of God and the dominion of the Adversary – the force in direct opposition to God’s purposes in the world.
This story shows Jesus standing firmly in contrast to the Scribes, AND acting in direct opposition to the unclean spirit… AND all that both the Scribes and the unclean spirit represent: a social order of power, fame, and corruption, of dismissiveness and oppression and captivity. This is the first (and wouldn’t be the last) major confrontation, in this war over humanity.
What’s remarkable is that here we have not only a teaching story in which we hear no words that Jesus spoke to the people; we also have an exorcism without ever hearing a single thing about the person who had the unclean spirit. No history or background or follow-up, at all!
The focus of the story is 100% on Jesus, and what he does… And it comes immediately after Jesus invites the first disciples to follow him… Because (Mark is saying, clearly) this is the one we are called to follow.
The one who says, “Pay attention, because you need to know that there IS power in the world that aims to rule and destroy.
To use and abuse people.
To profit from human lives.
To take away their dignity.”
We see that power in the world today:
- In our justice system and in local economics – in deliberate and casually unconcerned racial inequity, wherever someone stands to gain or lose profit.
- We see it in global conflicts – in religion twisted for national interests; In civilian bombings.
- We see it in politics – In policies created to score points, in refusal to stand up for what one knows is right because out of self-preservation; in the way that some otherwise radically loving people are reduced to not even entertaining the idea that someone might have complicated and thoughtful reasons for voting differently than they do, and so reducing them to a meme or social media slur.
These are unclean spirits, running rampant. We cannot pretend that spiritual evil – in the form of anything that opposes the good news of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection – is an antiquated idea that we’ve grown out of. It’s not.
AND. That same one we follow, who wants us to see all that, also says: “Look at me, and see that there is a greater force than power-hungry human leaders, a greater force than unclean spirits, a greater force than the Adversary.”
“Look at me and my life, my devotion to and love of God; my humble service of others; my authority over those other powers; my sacrificial death; my triumphal resurrection.”
“Look at me,” Jesus says, “and see an authoritative teacher who loves you, a healer on a mission to set you free.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.