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Green Blades Preaching Roundtable

4th Sunday after Epiphany

Year B
January 28, 2024
Pastor Mark Ditmanson

Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8: 1-13
Mark 1:21-28

Today we have a little story early in the gospel about Jesus and a miracle, but there is the bigger story under and around this one, much bigger.  Picture this: Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-Us, the One who created the ever-expanding universe with a word, just by speaking, “let there be light,” and something far more amazing than just a big bang theory happened – yes, in this story this God clothed in human flesh and wearing a homespun Nazarene robe, has just walked into worship.  Not only that, he has started teaching, and dazzles everyone.  Imagine that, Jesus is at a local church, they called it synagogue, it was their worship service, and he is participating.  That is a powerful detail.  The creator of the universe goes to church.  Remember that.  The author of all life went to church that day in Capernaum. 

Who else was at church that day?   Who else, well the rule makers and the rule keepers were there.  Yes, the super righteous were there, the regulars were there, the conformers were there, they went to worship too. Who else?  Someone who was not doing so well, he was in fact tormented; whatever you call it, his life was possessed by something unclean.  And just like the others he came to church, to worship.  I don’t know why, and neither do you and Mark doesn’t tell us.  But that tormented man has just sat through the same sermon Jesus has given; and whereas everyone else is dazzled by the words of grace and challenge so typical of Jesus, the tormented man responds out of the unclean spirit occupying his soul, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”  

But I ask again, why was he there?  Because he was welcome there – not shut out – not excluded.  The spirit-possessed was welcome to be in the presence of God – because we are a hospital for sinners, we are the destination for the seeking and the incomplete, a haven for the hurting; we are not the club for the best, nor a society for arrived.  We are there because we need God.  He was there because he needed God.  And he was in the right place.

God entered their story that day, God got involved in their liturgy that day, God delivered the message that day.  Those folks most likely went to synagogue expecting a regular comforting service because it was regular day, but that day God spoke, and the words of God told them of love and compassion, maybe in a parable or two they tried to unravel, (you have heard the other sermons Jesus gave,) but then when a disruption happened that could have spoiled anyone’s worship experience - when the unclean spirit broke out – in a breathless moment Jesus walked the God talk, Jesus practiced what he just preached, and Jesus loved him and set him free, and the people knew in an instant they had indeed been to church that morning.

Okay, so here we are, and we trust that Jesus is here in worship.  He has told us how we will experience him – in a child he took in his arms; in two or three gathered in his name in the sincerity of prayer; in the bread that is broken, in the cup that is poured; in the table fellowship that welcomes all; in the least of these our brothers and sisters; in the stranger shown hospitality, in the creation which without Christ would not have come to be – Jesus is here.  And we have come to worship because he has invited us.  In a day and culture when going to church is less and less the regular pattern of spiritual life, when listening deeply to the story of God told in the Word of God is less and less practiced; this story of Jesus gives us more than just something to think about; it gives us reason to get up and go to worship, and keep on going to worship.  And we are here today not only for ourselves, so that we might be able to hear his voice deep in our aching souls, so that we might be able to touch the hem of his garment to heal our hurting hearts, so that we might taste the bread of heaven to regain that assurance of our place at his table; yes, we are here for all that, but oh no, we are not here at worship just for ourselves today!  I have grown tired of hearing he excuse, “Oh, church just doesn’t do anything for me.  I just don’t get anything out of it.”  An elder friend told me when I was a teen that he didn’t always want to go to church and rationalized that he just didn’t need it all the time; but he went because he came to know that somebody else might need him to be there.  We are here for all the little ones Jesus tells us to welcome so that we will welcome the maker of us all.  We are here to worship to make this sanctuary sanctified for all the little ones, all the seekers, all the troubled souls, today and for every tomorrow so that they and we will have a place to grow in grace.  We are here to be part of the sustaining work of God’s gracious presence among us.  Yes, we go to worship, because God goes to worship and we want to be with God.   

            And going to worship to be with God means that we see things in a new way.  I am seeing in this story that the unclean spirit was found not out there in the world.  The Gospel writer is shaking us up by pointing out that the very first exorcism, the very first healing, cleansing, happens not out in some godless world (an oxymoron by the way) but within the church, in the assembly of the people of God.  There will be more out in the world to be sure, there will be more everywhere; but this one begins right in the midst of well meaning, sincere, faithful good people.  Maybe you have noticed that I have not called the spirit demonic, or evil.  The original story is persistent in saying unclean.  And significantly unclean are the situations Jesus will deal with in stories in the next verses and chapters.  In each case Jesus enters and restores the sufferer to rightness and cleanness.  We don’t know what the details of this man’s life were and what kind of spirit gripped him or the vile and ugly effects that were tearing his life apart.  But we do know that we live in a world of unclean spirits today; and we see it every day.  We hear the news filled with evidence of the unclean.  Who has not been shocked by the stories of vile and systemic racism, and the smears of anti-semitism or anti-muslim actions, or the abuse and murder of indigenous women and girls?  Who can accept the devastations of war, the atrocities enacted upon the Ukraine, or the Palestinian, or the Israeli, or the Rohinga?  Who can accept growing unclean dead zones of plastic in the oceans; clouds of particulates harmful to human life in the air we breathe; dangerous chemicals leeching into our rivers, lakes, and aquafers; injurious substances injected into our foods; and addictive and lethal drugs flooding markets. It is an evil effect, an evil unclean spirit, and it is the uncleanness of human greed, and anger, and hatred, and jealousy drives it all. 

            On that day with all the almighty authority of the One who created all things good, Jesus said, “Be silent and come out!”  And the ministry of the cosmic embodiment of God in Jesus of Nazareth began in the particular need of one victim, one man, in church.  The ministry of Jesus is very much characterized by healing and cleansing, and by saving and making whole.  Jesus didn’t promise that man that he should wait for his reward in heaven.  Jesus healed him that same day.  What is God calling you to say to the uncleanness rampant in our hurting world?  Are you part of a prophetic Word-bearing people who listen, love, and protect God’s creations?           

And so we are Christ-ians!  We have been baptized, we have been called.  When we gather together – that is when we are a “synagogus” – we are part of the cleansing touch of Jesus who comes to forgive, reclaim and renew you and me and our world, continually.  When we leave our sanctuaries and re-enter the so called secular world, we are invited, and more than that, we are obligated by what we have learned to continue to be part of the cleansing honoring loving touch of Jesus.  This story invites imagination to see how we can speak God’s love so that wars will cease, waters will be protected, women will be safe, and justice and peace will reign.  This story of Jesus is telling us to expect conflict with evil in the particular; and this story is telling us that in Jesus with the awesome authority of God, we shall overcome.  This story is telling us that the kingdom has come near, and our hope teaches us that the kingdom has come here with freedom, light, life and healing.  Christ has entered our story and we are God’s new creation.

 

Pastor Mark Ditmanson
Pastor Mark Ditmanson
Retired
Grand Marais, MN

Mark Ditmanson is a retired pastor living in the Grand Marais, MN area. Beekeeping,monarch watching, gardening, and planting trees keep him busy these days.

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