You may have heard that recently, the sun expelled
large amounts of plasma that began arriving this past week from December 9th
through 11th in the form of geomagnetic storms--viewable as The Northern
Lights. The most brilliant meteor shower
of the year, the Gemenid, with multi-colored shooting stars, will reach its
peak tonight, starting around 9:00 p.m.[1] On
Monday, December 21st, the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the
southwest sky, will make the two planets look like one giant star, what people
are calling the Christmas star. The last
time this conjunction would have been observable to the naked eye was in 1226,
close to 800 years ago.[2]
In the ancient world, those astronomical phenomena
would have been understood as telling us something about the underlying story of
the universe—power, transition, and potential transformation that God or the
gods are contemplating. A comet at
Julius Caesar’s funeral indicated that Julius had been resurrected. A comet or shooting star, a sword star,
appeared in the sky above Jerusalem both justified the Roman attack on
Jerusalem and gave hope to the Jewish rebels hoping to withstand the Romans—everyone
reading these astral signs from their own point of view. And, of course, we read in our own faith
story signs from the heavens of Jesus’s natal star which give direction to
those seeking to make their way to a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying
in a manger.
That is what the Bible is all about—trying to make
meaning in a world full of signs and portents of what is and what is to
be. The Bible is not a “fact” book or a
history book. The authors of the Bible
aren’t even going for that. They are
trying to relate the world they see and making meaning out of that world, to
tell us the deeper story or stories that are at work. And they do that through a variety of
literary devices.
Empires are built on stories that justify their
violence. In fact, they will seek to
provoke a populace into armed response so that they can bring a heavy fist down
to take land, seize resources, and do unthinkable things to people they refer
to as animals, cockroaches, or barbarians.
What empires depend on is that the violence and death they wish upon you
becomes so prevalent that it begins to occupy space in your own head. Pretty soon an oppressive force is the story
that repeats in your own head so well that you give assent to it through your
own self-defeating behavior.
Demon possession is a profoundly political
phenomenon that acts in the same way.
One nation, one people, or one ruler so dictates the life for another
people that they rent space in their minds.
Those occupied or oppressed by another nation do everything they do
conscious of how it will be seen by those who oppress their people and occupy
their land.
Those occupied and oppressed know the
story of the occupier and the oppressor better than the occupier and
oppressor—those who enforce that story.
They have to. For if they call a
meeting with some of their friends, will it be seen as an act of rebellion by
the nation in charge? If they are seen
in a location not appointed to them, now will they be punished? If they know too much, share too much, or
talk too much, will they be seen as a threat?
Make sure every joke is not interpreted as an insult. Tell your stories in a code that is clear to
your people but not quite clear to the people who rule. The people who rule must believe you are
joking, or overtly serious, or you’re just half-off your rocker. Act like you know who is boss. Make sure you don’t act like you are free.
Demon possession is when that reality of
occupation and oppression becomes so manifest in one person that the person
possessed has space not only in their mind rented out but also down deep in the
fabric of their soul. Their body is
shackled. They manifest the behavior of
a carnivorous animal that cannot control its appetite or measure their
actions—like the behavior of those who occupy their land and possess their
people. And, finally, individuals
possessed by a demon harm themselves and people they love as a symptom of the
sickness that is felt throughout the community.
Individuals who are possessed by a demon manifest what their whole
community experiences.
Demon possession says that the only
narrative, the only story you have is someone else’s story. Your own story, your own people’s story, is
to stay sublimated below the story of someone else or something else.
Today we lit the candle of joy on our
Advent wreath. Biblical joy always seems
to be associated with suffering in the Bible.
As in, though we go through persecution and suffering, we will still
hold God’s joy in our hearts. Joy is the
deep knowledge in our bones that there is a plan and purpose and that that plan
and purpose is being worked out. Or
there is anticipation that a story exists or is beginning to manifest such that
we know something greater, bigger, deeper than the cultural story—maybe through
stars or comets or angelic song—is now taking place. We read the world in such a way that our
suffering and persecution is not what God intends for us.
There is something deeper. Joy is the antithesis of demon
possession. Joy is the knowledge that
God has plans for you and your people beyond what you may experience.
In a little over a week, we are going to
celebrate the birth of Christ on Christmas Day.
Now there are all kinds of people and pastors and churches who will tell
us what that means in relationship to who Jesus was and what he was all about. Some will talk about the forgiveness of sins
and Jesus’s sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. Then there is the commercial Christmas and
the message it is trying to spin in our heads.
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, “Commercial Christmas is
much going through the demanding motions of office parties, shopping,
decorating, sending and receiving cards, wrapping gifts... enough to create
deep fatigue.” I would add, especially
with pandemic packed on top of it.
In contrast, “[a]dvent,” Brueggemann continues,
“Advent is a wake-up call away from such careless participation in the
‘festival of stuff.’”[3]
But what does the Bible, particularly the
gospel of Mark, tell us what this Jesus was all about? What does Jesus tell us about the plan and
purpose God has for us even in the midst of a wider narrative that seeks to
tell us it is god? For if Jesus is
repeating the sounding joy in the midst of such demonic evil, what was he out
doing in the world?
In the gospel passage from Mark today,
Jesus is out teaching and healing. But
his primary activity, the thing he is doing over and over, is casting out
demons. Jesus is an exorcist.
In our culture, we rarely tell this
story. Because if Jesus is an exorcist, joy
is found in the grit and pain and terror and trauma of life. Joy is hard-edged, overtly political, and
demands attention to world events.
Jesus, firmly rooted in the Jewish God of
Exodus and Exile, believes this God wills freedom from oppression and
liberation and deliverance from occupation.
At joy’s core is the knowledge that God’s plan is being worked out for our
freedom and liberation. The gospel
clearly asks, is it just for the Jews that God wills freedom and
liberation? And the answer is, “No!”
One
of the historical and present enemies[4]
of the Jewish people shows up in the form of a lowly female and asks for an
exorcism for her daughter. At first,
Jesus betrays the ethnocentrism of the day and refuses. But the mother persists. Even though Jesus refers to her as a
dog. She persists, “Don’t even dogs deserve
scraps from the Master’s table, Jesus?
Don’t all people oppressed and occupied deserve God’s love and grace?” She persists and persists. It is her daughter. And so, Jesus grants for the enemy of his
people what he also wills for the Jewish people.[5]
That demon possession is about nations and
governments, both a religious and a political phenomenon as stated by Jesus, is
also found later in Mark. Because Jesus is so efficient at driving out demons,
he is accused of being Satan, Beelzebulb, the ruler of demons, and replies to
these accusations, “How can Satan force Satan out? A nation whose people fight against each
other won’t last very long.”[6] Jesus not only makes it clear what he is
doing, he also makes it clear he believes that Rome, the story he is throwing
out of possessed Jews, is the ultimate evil—a strong religious and political
statement.
The gospel of Mark’s tone is urgent and
uses an economy of words to press its point.
Mark does not have a Christmas story.
Mark is stark and that starkness may make Mark seem less romantic than
Matthew and Luke.
Though, it should be said, we have so
romanticized and sanitized the Christmas stories that the evil, poverty,
violence, and suffering in them often go unrecognized. Peasants that, against their own will, must
travel while the woman is pregnant to a place where they have no home or
refuge. Refugees, who seek to escape the
massacre of children, and cross the border into
For many of you, a sermon like this might
destroy the warmth and good feeling you want to have for your family
Christmas. Because I love and care for
you, I am sorry if you sense that taken away from you in a sermon like this
one.
But maybe, maybe you have to have a God
whose joy is more grit than romance. You
want and desire a God who seeks to throw out the devils of poverty, violence,
and domination. You also do not profit
from these demons, purposefully or by association. Rather, your hope might just be in a new but
ancient understanding of God who shares bread, tends to the sick, and teaches
how we are to all weave together the Beloved Community.
That God seems to be much more concerned
about choosing power “with us” and beneath us rather than maintaining power
“over us.” Rather than rent space in our
heads . . . God wants to join hands alongside us and move our feet so that we
might know ourselves to be a liberated and free people. This idea that there is something we have to
do or accomplish before God wills this for us is utter nonsense. Because God loves and moves to collaborate
with the universe to bring about an end to oppression and occupation.
Jesus believes that God wills an end to
the terror, violence, and poverty that dominates, occupies and oppresses the
Jewish people. Jesus is rooted so firmly
in that belief that he goes through the countryside putting himself in harm’s
way to declare God’s intent. Jesus
exorcises out those demons which stand in God’s way to bring freedom and
liberation to all the people.
What the gospel story asks from its
readers is if we believe that story deep enough in our bones to collaborate
with God, we can call those demons out from our communities. “Come out!”
Jesus declares, and we remove the
shackles, stop harming ourselves, get our minds right, and know that we are
loved. God wills our liberation and
freedom. God scours the countryside,
stopping in every community, looking for you, seeking to put an end to your
slavery, oppression, and domination.
The Northern Lights this past week, the
Geminid meteor shower tonight, and the Christmas Star appearing would have been
signs to the ancients that God was active and seeking to bring transformation—that
there is a deeper story. Maybe it is not
so much that signs appear in this moment in time but that there are always
signs of God’s deeper and broader story than what the empire tells us. The empire says, “You are consumers. Go shop.
You are American citizens. Care
only for these people. Do not pay attention
to the world’s largest worker strike in history. You and you alone are patriots and the
righteous ones. Go fight in wars to
continue the American lifestyle. Call
freedom the freedom to execute people who are not like you and feel no
remorse.”
John is out there baptizing to say,
“No! You are the Beloved Children of
God.” And Paul saying, “You are all, all
of you, the Beloved Body of Christ.” And
Jesus is exorcising the demons of racism, militarism, and materialism so that
we might know who we are down deep. Down
deep. The signs are there.
So that you might rejoice and take heart
in the night, so that we might awake and greet the dawning of a new day, an
alternative story, a deeper story is being told, so that we may way from the
sleep of a story that wants us to remain dormant and docile . Awake.
Rejoice. Be strong. Be loving.
Be fearless. There is a deeper
story. Amen.
