Mark 1:21-28
1.
I’ve already preached my 30-minute sermon on the Apartheid-Free resolution—so you’ll be happy to know I’m not going down that long road today.
I do want to offer a few thoughts about the gospel this morning, and why it is that Jesus’ first move as a rabbi and movement builder is an exorcism. I mean, that’s pretty wild, right? That he doesn’t take the new recruits up into the hills for a picnic, or at least a showy multiplication of loaves. Instead, he and they confront this unclean spirit in the synagogue—and he sends it away. Wild!
But first, I do want you all to know that I’m aware, this week, of a particular kind of dis/ease or tension in my heart. Not a scary tension, I think, but a creative and unsettling one just the same. And I believe it’s the tension between the pastor’s calling (which has very much defined my life) and the prophetic imperative (which so often wakes me in the darkest hours of the night). These two things living within me and stirring within my spirit: the pastor’s calling and the prophetic imperative.
I’m not alone among my peers, of course, but I am obscenely lucky, and luckier than most of them. Because I get to serve here, with you. And I can’t possibly tell you how grateful I am for the chance to do ministry in a community that values, even cherishes both chambers of my Christian heart. In equal measure.
But this week, and I’m sure this comes as no surprise to you, the two seem to be at odds, in conflict, at least a little bit. And I just want you all to know I feel that today, I know that. But it’s also my belief—and frankly, the gospel itself—that discomfort, dis-ease, can be an opportunity for spiritual growth, deeper discernment, even congregational transformation. So while I didn’t sleep much last night, and the tension’s real, so too is the opportunity before us, and the God who meets us at every crossroads and every border.
2.
So about that crossroads. I am, of course, both of these things—a pastor who loves his people and a would-be prophet who hears in the gospel a clarion call to peace, justice, shalom. And not just abstract justice, and generalized peace—but specific lovingkindness for flesh and blood neighbors in real neighborhoods, and concrete peacemaking in painful conflicts, where violence is real and existential. In my pastor’s heart, I want us all to get along, and I want us to feel the beating heart of God in our care for one another, in our vibrant worship and ministry together, and within these sacred walls whenever we’re together. In the prophetic tradition, I am enjoined by the Spirit, even burdened by the gospel, to preach good news to the poor, to build partnerships that manifest that good news in action and living hope. Even if that strikes smart folks as silly. Even if it offends the institutions and leaders that I love.
So there’s the rub, right?
In my pastor’s heart, I find each of you delightfully unique, curiously beautiful, and made in the image of God. Undoubtedly made in the image of God. And I hope you know me well enough now to know I’m not just sassing you. I mean all this stuff. And it’s easy for me—because I think I’m built this way—to love you and celebrate you, and to channel a bit of God’s love in the ways I listen to you and care for you. I love this work. And it’s thrilling to watch a church grow like ours is growing in just this moment. No question about that!
And, just the same, in the prophetic tradition, I am responsible for the gospel I preach, I am accountable to the One who planted its seeds in my soul. In every way that I love my work, I love the tradition, the vision, the gospel that constitutes the church. So I am moved by the stories of poor friends shaking off the chains of winner-take-all capitalism; and I am claimed by the demands of black friends seeking racial justice too long deferred; and I am responsible to Dov Baum of the American Friends Service Committee, and Rabbi Brian Walt of Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Rev. Mitri Raheb and Zoughbi Zoughbi in Bethlehem, and Jean Zaru in Ramallah, for the tears they’ve shed in my company, and for the pain they’ve asked me to hold in my heart, and for their passion for peace, justice, shalom, salaam, and a new world free of hatred and tyranny and occupation. In faith and love, I am accountable to them.
And to be totally honest and completely transparent, your United Church of Christ is responsible for all of this: for the strange brew in my Christian heart, this two-step tango featuring a pastor’s heart and the unsettling and prophetic imperative. I am who I am because of your United Church of Christ. The passion in our community for kindness, the uncompromising commitment to inclusion and affirmation. The insistence on concrete acts of solidarity and love. Long ago, and ever since, I have discovered in the UCC a resilient faith in a God whose grace is always more wonderful than we imagined, a God whose mercy is always more forgiving than we suspected, a God whose forever commitment to the world means there is always a way to heal it, to bless it, to redeem it.
3.
So friends, here’s what I believe, right now, today. Pastor. Prophet. All of me. I believe that you and I can disagree, even painfully, about something as important and consequential as today’s resolution. And I believe that I can continue to love you, and cherish you, and encourage you as your pastor. I have no doubt. I believe that I can insist that the Apartheid Free Movement is faithful, and that it’s right, and that it’s urgently important—and you can insist that it’s too much, too soon; or that it’s sets a dangerous precedent for the church’s role in politics and foreign affairs; or that it puts our Jewish friends in a really tough spot. You and I can disagree about all of that; and we can continue to love one another, build a beloved community together, serve the Seacoast together. And I can be your pastor, I can show up for you in a hundred different ways and be there when you need me. With love.
I sure hope you believe all this too. For all the tension I’m feeling this morning, and for the knots in my tummy that tighten today, I believe in a God who does hard things, a God who allows us to do hard things, a God who insists that we love one another bravely, even and especially as we take on difficult moments and pursue justice and peace in a broken world. I believe in a God who does all that. And we’re going to be just fine. Whatever happens this afternoon.
4.
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And what strikes me, then, in the gospel this morning, is Jesus’ determination to do hard things with great love. What moves me in this story about the first day of his new movement is his courage in taking on painful truths for the good of the human soul. He seems to know that building a new movement, a gospel movement, means acknowledging human prejudice and pain, and generously but directly insisting on other values and other ways. So when that man with the unclean spirit confronts him--“I know who you are!”—Jesus rebukes the spirit (not the man, mind you). Jesus rebukes the spirit and says, “Come out of him!”
There was, in Jesus’ time, a purity code that was all too often activated in religious life, marginalizing the “unclean,” privileging “normative” behaviors and “credentialed” identities, and shaming those who lived outside the boundaries of so-called normalcy and social convention. I think you get the idea. This still goes on, right? And if we’re faithful, we’re working all the time to identify this code, and clear it out of our churches. But it takes effort.
Well, in Jesus’ time, this kneejerk purity code allowed the clerical class (that’s scribes and clergy) to exert significant power within the synagogue, and it allowed them to determine who could and who couldn’t seek blessing and support from the community itself. Again, let’s be honest. This still goes on. In way too many places and way too many churches. And right from the start, Jesus seems determined to confront the way this code is enforced, and the men enforcing it. Again, he’s building a new movement, within the synagogue it would seem, but a movement exorcised of prejudice, division and caste.
Remember this is the very first thing Jesus does with his new friends. He does not take them for a picnic. He does not do that bit multiplying the loaves and fish. He takes them to a synagogue on the sabbath, presumably his synagogue on the sabbath. And he finds this fellow possessed by an unclean spirit; in other words, he confronts this believer in the community who’s twisted in knots by the code, and embittered by the code, and rendered cruel by the code; and he calls the spirit out of him. He calls the spirit out of him.
Now that’s the exorcism part; except it’s more like face-to-face evangelism. Jesus says, in effect, “This way you have of dividing up the world into the clean and unclean; this spirit that judges some so harshly and makes no space for them in your heart; this privileging of the privileged—it’s killing you. It’s suffocating your soul.” See what I mean. It’s that kind of thing with Jesus. “So come out of him,” Jesus says to the unclean spirit. “Come out of him now.”
Just a couple of things on this.
First, Jesus wants his disciples—those committed to learning with him, and serving at his side; Jesus wants us to know that we can do hard things, important things, with great love. Everywhere he goes, every crowd he encounters, every soul he meets in the street—is going to challenge him, and challenge his friends. The burden of human misery is heavy, heavy, heavy; and the cost of human cruelty can tie our hearts in knots, and sometimes render us speechless, and more often than not exhausted. But right from the start, first day of the new movement, Jesus wants us to know we can do hard things with great love.
And then, second, Jesus engages this kind of ministry—pastoral, prophetic, gospel ministry—with profound humility. Mark’s Gospel is especially brilliant on this. Again and again, Jesus himself comes to understand his own limitations, even his own prejudice; and again and again, he has to confess his own brokenness, recognize the wisdom of another’s life, and change his mind or his heart or his way of seeing the world. It’s a powerful, beautiful example. Jesus sets out for us, for every disciple in every age, and for the church itself, an example of humility and courage. That we might take up hard moments with love, speak truth to power and envision a world redeemed; and that we might do all of this with profound awareness of our own limitations, our own need for grace, and our own humanity.
So I’ll leave it there. You all know what’s on my heart today, and I want you to know how very, very much I appreciate the opportunity do hard things here, with great love and courage. Whatever comes of today’s deliberations, I hope and trust we will continue along this path. For as Dietrich Bonhoeffer—another exorcist, by the way—as Bonhoeffer said all those years ago: “We are not called simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are called to drive a spike into the wheel itself.”
Amen and Ashe.
1.
I do want to offer a few thoughts about the gospel this morning, and why it is that Jesus’ first move as a rabbi and movement builder is an exorcism. I mean, that’s pretty wild, right? That he doesn’t take the new recruits up into the hills for a picnic, or at least a showy multiplication of loaves. Instead, he and they confront this unclean spirit in the synagogue—and he sends it away. Wild!
But first, I do want you all to know that I’m aware, this week, of a particular kind of dis/ease or tension in my heart. Not a scary tension, I think, but a creative and unsettling one just the same. And I believe it’s the tension between the pastor’s calling (which has very much defined my life) and the prophetic imperative (which so often wakes me in the darkest hours of the night). These two things living within me and stirring within my spirit: the pastor’s calling and the prophetic imperative.
I’m not alone among my peers, of course, but I am obscenely lucky, and luckier than most of them. Because I get to serve here, with you. And I can’t possibly tell you how grateful I am for the chance to do ministry in a community that values, even cherishes both chambers of my Christian heart. In equal measure.
But this week, and I’m sure this comes as no surprise to you, the two seem to be at odds, in conflict, at least a little bit. And I just want you all to know I feel that today, I know that. But it’s also my belief—and frankly, the gospel itself—that discomfort, dis-ease, can be an opportunity for spiritual growth, deeper discernment, even congregational transformation. So while I didn’t sleep much last night, and the tension’s real, so too is the opportunity before us, and the God who meets us at every crossroads and every border.
2.
So there’s the rub, right?
In my pastor’s heart, I find each of you delightfully unique, curiously beautiful, and made in the image of God. Undoubtedly made in the image of God. And I hope you know me well enough now to know I’m not just sassing you. I mean all this stuff. And it’s easy for me—because I think I’m built this way—to love you and celebrate you, and to channel a bit of God’s love in the ways I listen to you and care for you. I love this work. And it’s thrilling to watch a church grow like ours is growing in just this moment. No question about that!
And, just the same, in the prophetic tradition, I am responsible for the gospel I preach, I am accountable to the One who planted its seeds in my soul. In every way that I love my work, I love the tradition, the vision, the gospel that constitutes the church. So I am moved by the stories of poor friends shaking off the chains of winner-take-all capitalism; and I am claimed by the demands of black friends seeking racial justice too long deferred; and I am responsible to Dov Baum of the American Friends Service Committee, and Rabbi Brian Walt of Jewish Voice for Peace, and the Rev. Mitri Raheb and Zoughbi Zoughbi in Bethlehem, and Jean Zaru in Ramallah, for the tears they’ve shed in my company, and for the pain they’ve asked me to hold in my heart, and for their passion for peace, justice, shalom, salaam, and a new world free of hatred and tyranny and occupation. In faith and love, I am accountable to them.
And to be totally honest and completely transparent, your United Church of Christ is responsible for all of this: for the strange brew in my Christian heart, this two-step tango featuring a pastor’s heart and the unsettling and prophetic imperative. I am who I am because of your United Church of Christ. The passion in our community for kindness, the uncompromising commitment to inclusion and affirmation. The insistence on concrete acts of solidarity and love. Long ago, and ever since, I have discovered in the UCC a resilient faith in a God whose grace is always more wonderful than we imagined, a God whose mercy is always more forgiving than we suspected, a God whose forever commitment to the world means there is always a way to heal it, to bless it, to redeem it.
3.
I sure hope you believe all this too. For all the tension I’m feeling this morning, and for the knots in my tummy that tighten today, I believe in a God who does hard things, a God who allows us to do hard things, a God who insists that we love one another bravely, even and especially as we take on difficult moments and pursue justice and peace in a broken world. I believe in a God who does all that. And we’re going to be just fine. Whatever happens this afternoon.
4.
.jpg)
There was, in Jesus’ time, a purity code that was all too often activated in religious life, marginalizing the “unclean,” privileging “normative” behaviors and “credentialed” identities, and shaming those who lived outside the boundaries of so-called normalcy and social convention. I think you get the idea. This still goes on, right? And if we’re faithful, we’re working all the time to identify this code, and clear it out of our churches. But it takes effort.
Well, in Jesus’ time, this kneejerk purity code allowed the clerical class (that’s scribes and clergy) to exert significant power within the synagogue, and it allowed them to determine who could and who couldn’t seek blessing and support from the community itself. Again, let’s be honest. This still goes on. In way too many places and way too many churches. And right from the start, Jesus seems determined to confront the way this code is enforced, and the men enforcing it. Again, he’s building a new movement, within the synagogue it would seem, but a movement exorcised of prejudice, division and caste.
Remember this is the very first thing Jesus does with his new friends. He does not take them for a picnic. He does not do that bit multiplying the loaves and fish. He takes them to a synagogue on the sabbath, presumably his synagogue on the sabbath. And he finds this fellow possessed by an unclean spirit; in other words, he confronts this believer in the community who’s twisted in knots by the code, and embittered by the code, and rendered cruel by the code; and he calls the spirit out of him. He calls the spirit out of him.
Now that’s the exorcism part; except it’s more like face-to-face evangelism. Jesus says, in effect, “This way you have of dividing up the world into the clean and unclean; this spirit that judges some so harshly and makes no space for them in your heart; this privileging of the privileged—it’s killing you. It’s suffocating your soul.” See what I mean. It’s that kind of thing with Jesus. “So come out of him,” Jesus says to the unclean spirit. “Come out of him now.”
Just a couple of things on this.
First, Jesus wants his disciples—those committed to learning with him, and serving at his side; Jesus wants us to know that we can do hard things, important things, with great love. Everywhere he goes, every crowd he encounters, every soul he meets in the street—is going to challenge him, and challenge his friends. The burden of human misery is heavy, heavy, heavy; and the cost of human cruelty can tie our hearts in knots, and sometimes render us speechless, and more often than not exhausted. But right from the start, first day of the new movement, Jesus wants us to know we can do hard things with great love.
So I’ll leave it there. You all know what’s on my heart today, and I want you to know how very, very much I appreciate the opportunity do hard things here, with great love and courage. Whatever comes of today’s deliberations, I hope and trust we will continue along this path. For as Dietrich Bonhoeffer—another exorcist, by the way—as Bonhoeffer said all those years ago: “We are not called simply to bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are called to drive a spike into the wheel itself.”
Amen and Ashe.
