January 29, 2012 – I Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28
I Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28
Infecting the World with Grace
4th Sunday after Epiphany [Lectionary 4] – January 29, 2012
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
So: Mark’s story speeds along.
It’s time for Jesus’ first action since his baptism just a couple of weeks ago and
since his first sermon last week: The reign of God’s grace is coming near.
In today’s story, you can see how his baptism is getting worked out in his life and
how God’s reign of grace is indeed breaking into the world.
He brings healing to a man possessed by demons, by bad spirits:
he performs an exorcism! How cool is that!
What you need to remember from the story of Jesus’s baptism is that
Jesus has been given the Holy Spirit of God, which has taken up residence in him.
A Holy Spirit that blesses rather than curses.
A Holy Spirit that claimed him as beloved and pleasing.
You can be pretty sure that the spirits that possessed the man, on the other hand,
were not telling him this, were not telling him that he was beloved or God-pleasing.
So Jesus casts out that spirit so that a better spirit, a Holy Spirit of grace,
might take up residence in the man instead.
It all seems kind of weird.
Just like when I tell you the next thing I’m going to say:
I too have done several exorcisms!
Whenever I say that I know I can be pretty sure of having your complete and undivided attention.
Which I now have.
So: yes: I’ve done several exorcisms, of people and of homes over the years.
Sometimes people feel as if their minds or bodies have been taken possession by
something they can’t control.
Sometimes people tell me that there is something unhealthy at work in their homes,
troubling their sleep, agitating their households, disrupting their peace.
The last one I did was in an apartment building for some relatives in Regina.
The people living in the apartment said there was something in the apartment that
was disrupting their lives, making it difficult to live and work,
causing anxiety and unrest.
So I came one night and read this story from Mark’s Gospel.
And then I prayed, prayed that this spirit might be at peace,
prayed that it might not need to torment these people any longer,
prayed for the Holy Spirit of Jesus – the spirit of peace and grace – to
take up residence in that home instead.
I can tell you that I’m not even sure I believe in the existence of disembodied spirits.
But I can also tell you that a) (and here’s a newsflash for you) I don’t know everything and
b) these kinds of prayers have worked every single time I’ve prayed them.
I’m just saying.
So: even this is pretty strange and weird, and I’ll be the first to admit it,
and it is certainly not a very common thing for me to be asked to do.
But then you notice a kind of strange detail in this story about Jesus in Mark.
This man that Jesus helped, this man that was possessed: he was a member of the synagogue!
He didn’t come from outside.
He wasn’t way off in some remote place far from church.
He was right there.
He was one of the people in church that day.
And so now you start to think maybe all this is closer to home than you think.
And then you start to think okay, maybe we wouldn’t say that people are
possessed by unclean spirits anymore, but maybe we would say that
people are possessed by unhealthy spirits of others kinds these days.
Spirits that are opposed to what God intends for everything God hopes and intends for them.
If I’m honest with myself, I would have to admit that sometimes anger possesses me and
leads me to say and do things I later regret.
I’d have to admit that occasionally envy possesses me and
has caused me to squander my resources in ways that I regret.
Among us possession by the spirits of workaholism, greed, and apathy is not unknown.
Among us possession by the spirit of addiction is not unknown.
Suddenly the story is not so foreign, and not so distant.
(David Lose at http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=550)
The thing in the story, the good news in the story, is that the Holy, life-giving, spirit of
Jesus and his amazing grace is stronger than the unclean spirits.
And the thing to notice is that Jesus is not afraid of the bad spirits.
Jesus doesn’t avoid them. Jesus is not afraid of being infected by them.
In Mark’s Gospel with is dizzying pace from one scene and one action to another you
get a real sense of Jesus’s activity, his pro-active activity.
You know the saying, “One bad apple spoils the whole bunch”?
That was a very current notion in Jesus’s time as well,
the idea that if you touched a person with an unclean spirit, or a sick person,
or a dead person you too would become infected with a bad spirit.
But Jesus never, ever, not once worried about becoming infected by associating with
the sick, the morally unclean, the mentally unwell or even the dead:
in fact, he went out of his way – way out of his way – to find them and heal them.
(Ben Witherington III at http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark1x21.htm)
And infect them with something better: with the stronger spirit of grace, and acceptance,
and love, and blessing and new life.
Infect them with the assurance that they are beloved.
That they matter to God.
That they are God-pleasing.
Jesus isn’t worried about the bad infecting the good.
Jesus is concerned, rather, that the good infect the bad.
Jesus’s task is to infect the world with God’s grace.
To take it wherever it is needed.
Whether that is in far-off Tyre and Sidon.
Whether that is right in the midst of the well-meaning synagogue assembly.
Or whether that is smack-dab in the middle of human suffering and sinfulness and evil and
hypocrisy and injustice and violence: on the cross.
Jesus is going to take that loving grace wherever it is needed.
Well: what is it that possesses you that you need to be freed from?
Where does Jesus need to come to you this morning?
This morning my prayer is that you might be freed from whatever bad spirit is possessing you
and inhibiting you from becoming everything God hopes and intends for you.
And this morning my prayer is that the Spirit of the living God of grace as it has
been made known to us in Jesus might take possession of you –
of all of us together – instead.
This will change your life.
It may not make your life any easier.
It may make it more difficult in some respects.
But it will bring you the peace of knowing that in being possessed by
the kind of love made known in Jesus
you are becoming what you were meant to become:
the very image or likeness of Jesus,
who in turn is the very image of the God of all grace.
You don’t need to do anything to get that grace or earn it.
Indeed Jesus seeks you out this morning in this place of worship.
Jesus is going to bring that loving grace to you, this morning.
And place it in your hand.
And touch it to your lips.
So you can ingest it.
So his Holy Spirit of loving grace can take up residence in you,
and name you beloved, God-pleasing.
So that together, as his exorcising body, you can take that Holy, good Spirit to where
it is needed and continue to infect the world with grace.
And you will.
On Victor Street, we are witnesses to this grace and to the authority Jesus has to
not only say something, but to make it real.
From the outside, it looks to many like we’re completely insane to stay on Victor Street.
It seems like a bad place to many. There are bad spirits here.
The spirits of violence and addiction and mental illness.
To many perhaps it appears that we will be infected or harmed in some way by those spirits.
A couple of years ago when two girls were shot at in broad daylight five houses down,
I’m sure many on the outside wondered if that was it, the jig was up,
it was time to move on and find a quote unquote “better neighbourhood.”
But that would be to desperately misunderstand the Gospel as we understand it at
First Lutheran Church, the good news that the good of God’s grace
has come to infect the bad with its goodness and grace.
Rather than picking up the Real Estate news you figured out a way of walking the talk by
starting up the Kids Club free drop-in to create a safe place for
children in this neighbourhood, right here on Victor Street.
Because this street is beloved by God. And the children on this street are well-pleasing to God.
Because the Spirit of God has taken up residence here. In you.
So be of good courage. Receive that Spirit, the Spirit that blesses rather than curses.
Let it cast out the poison.
And take it to where it is needed: to this street, to your homes, to your workplaces,
to your schools, to your marriages, to your friendships, to one another.
And so it will be that Mark’s story this morning will continue on – in you.
So together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
