Sermon for January 31, 2021 - The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany - The Rev Elise A. Feyerherm

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Psalm 111

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Mark 1:21-28

I suspect that I am not alone in my fascination with the concept of evil spirits and demonic possession. It doesn’t occupy a great deal of my time, but I confess to being drawn to accounts of such things, almost in spite of myself. When I was an early adolescent, my friends were obsessed with Ouija boards and the gothic soap opera “Dark Shadows” (I was too scared to watch it). Sleepovers would inevitably feature ghost stories and bumbling attempts at seances. 

There is something fascinating to many of us about these stories of spirits, ghosts, and demons wreaking havoc with human lives, and I find myself wondering what this has to tell us. There are a multitude of stories in the gospels about people who are possessed by demons, like this one we heard today. It is not enough, I think, to dismiss them as figments of an unscientific imagination, naïve misreadings of more mundane instances of epilepsy or mental illness. 

I don’t really know if demons really exist in a literal way, or if people can really be “possessed” by them. But I am hearing in this gospel reading a call to take the powers of evil seriously, however they manifest, whether on a personal or societal level. I am also hearing that however evil manifests itself, it possesses some common qualities, which are these: it harms, it hides, and it hollers on the way out.

Evil harms; its effect is always to undermine the flourishing of what God has created as good. It does harm to our sense of self and our relationships, to bodies, to the natural world, to systems meant to care and support. I know the effect of evil spirits – the most powerful evil spirit in my life is that persistent belief that I do not matter, that I am incapable of offering anything of value to the world. That spirit has done me harm my entire life, depriving me of joy and generosity everywhere I go. I imagine that you, too, have or have had an evil spirit that did your soul harm, keeping you from seeing and being the beautiful creation that God has made you. I suspect that everyone does.

The same is true on a global, systemic level – there are “unclean spirits” everywhere. Racism and classism and sexism and heterosexism, the worship of capitalism, and the acceptance of violence, all continue to slice into the beautiful bodies God has lovingly formed – human bodies, animal bodies, the body politic, the Body of Christ. These unclean spirits – they harm.

Evil also hides. You would think that such evil spirits would be easy to spot, and when spotted, to eliminate them. But this is so often not the case – it’s what makes evil so…evil. It can disguise itself, if not as good, then at least as the inescapable inevitable. Just the way things are. 

Notice how Mark tells us that there is in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and “he” cries out to Jesus. Who is the “he” that is crying out? Is it the man in the synagogue, or is it the unclean spirit that is within him? We can’t really tell. And how often this is the case with the evil we confront – the evil that harms is good at hiding. At some point the line between the evil spirit and the person or institution becomes blurry. Perhaps I become so accustomed to my own self-loathing that I begin to see it as who I am. I identify with it as essential to my sense of self and cannot imagine myself apart from it. 

On a societal scale, we can so easily come to the point of not even recognizing our evil spirits, or acknowledge that they are doing damage. We tell ourselves that white supremacy isn’t really a thing anymore. Or we identify ourselves as a people so closely with a capitalist economy that it becomes impossible to imagine American without it, to the extent that we are blind to the damage it is inflicting on everyone, including the one percent at the top.

Yes, evil spirits do not just harm, they hide. In fact, that is often exactly how they do so much harm.

Evil harms. Evil hides. And evil also hollers on the way out. As it is being cast out by Jesus, the unclean spirit convulsed the man it has possessed and cries out with a loud voice. It does not go quietly – it clings angrily to power and continues to wreak havoc even as it is being cast out. 

Do you notice this in your own unclean spirits? Whenever I try to begin to imagine that I could silence the voice that tells me I am nothing, you would be amazed at how it puts up a fight. “If you start to believe in yourself,” it whispers, “you will become prideful. You will think yourself better than others. And you will fall flat on your face and be exposed as the failure you really are.” Or in other words, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Leave us alone.”

Yes, evil definitely hollers on the way out. It storms the Capitol when it sees that white supremacy and the “traditional” family is being replaced by equality and inclusion and justice and yes, real love. It continues to try to suppress the votes of people of color, and hollers that it is being discriminated against because those on the margins are finally being seen and heard. It hollers that if we go this route of inclusion, we will no longer be the “real” America.

Evil harms. It hides. And it hollers on the way out. 

But know this – these spirits, whether inside of us or in the fabric of our society, holler precisely because they know they have met their match. The unclean spirit recognizes Jesus and the divine authority he wields – it knows on some level that it stands against God’s beautiful reign, God’s beautiful beloved community, and that it – evil – will not win.

New Testament scholar Dennis Sweetland has written that in the Gospel of Mark, as Jesus performs exorcisms and healings, he is “translat[ing] the kingdom of God into action.”  “In both,” Sweetland writes, “Jesus intrudes upon enemy territory. He challenges and defeats the forces of evil that stand in the way of the fulfillment of the kingdom” (Mark – From Death to Life, 36). The power of evil in the world, whatever it is, is real. But when evil meets Jesus’ words, and Jesus’ actions, it is revealed for what it is, as a harming, hiding, and hollering force that has no future with God.

Today, Jesus’ voice is heard in his disciples. It is through us that the voice of Jesus calls out the evil spirits for what they really are. We name, out loud, white cis heterosexual elite ableist supremacy when we see it possessing us and those around us. Even – and this is important – when it is doing so in our very communities of faith and worship. The unclean spirits sometimes hide the best in places where we think we’ve cast them out – and this can be especially true in communities of faith. Our love and good intentions provide prime hiding places for unclean spirits, because they protect our collective and personal reputations with denial. 

Not us – not in the synagogue, in the church, in the prayer meeting, in the bible study. Evil spirits harm because they hide in the most unlikely places.

So, in Jesus’ name, we name, out loud, the unclean spirits we see and the ones we do not always see but are teaching ourselves are still there. In so doing, we empty them of their power, at least partially – for it will not ever be completely over as long as humans tread this earth. But Jesus’ voice will be heard, and God’s reign will never be defeated. That is the message of Gospel.

Hear the voice of Jesus, dear Church, to the unclean spirits: “Be silent, and come out.” Hear the voice of Jesus, and let him speak this powerful word through us, that when the demons that harm and hide holler on the way out, we may rejoice and say, “Great are the deeds of the LORD.”

Let us pray:

Lord Jesus, you command the spirits of evil and they obey you: reveal the harm that is being done not only around us but in our own souls and in your Body the Church, no matter how close we may find it, and make us ready to speak your powerful word, that your reign of justice, inclusion, peace, and abundance may spread in every corner of the world. Amen.