What Have You to Do With US?

By

Reverend Litton Logan

January 29, 2006

          Pastor Jones comes to the pulpit for the morning sermon.  He looks out over the congregation and sure enough, Ole Sam is already on the nods.  Pastor Jones is tired of Sam sleeping through every sermon, especially since he knows that Sam stays at his cup to long on Saturday evening.  Come Sunday morning, Sam under the punishing demands of his wife has to come to church and there he sleeps off his hangover.

          Pastor decides this Sunday he is going to teach Sam a lesson.  At an appropriate point in his sermon, Pastor Jones asked, “All those who want to go to heave, stand up?”  Naturally, every one except Sam, who is sound asleep, stands up.  Later the pastor in an even louder and more focused voice asked the question, “And, who wants to go to hell, stand up?”  The pastor’s louder question rouses Sam and the only thing he hears is, “stand up”.  Sam stands up, looks around the congregation, and says with some embarrassment, “I don’t know what we’re voting on preacher, but it looks like you and I are the only ones for it.”

          Often we think we know where and why we stand where and why we do in life.  However, if we look at ourselves, tilt our perspectives just a little we may find that we are not be standing where and why we thought we where.

          This morning’s scriptures from the Gospel of Mark are scriptures that may tilt us a bit.

Mark 1:21-28 (NRSV)

²¹They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught.  ²²They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.  ²³Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, ²⁴and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”  ²⁵But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”  ²⁶And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.  ²⁷They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this?  A new teaching—with authority!  He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”  ²⁸At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible

First

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          In our scriptures for today, Mark skips forward in time from the calling of several of Jesus’ disciples on a week day to a scene with Jesus in a synagogue on the Sabbath.  Jesus, as a visitor to this synagogue, was most likely invited to teach.  He teaches with an immediate and personal authority.  I take this to mean that he was not given to academic equivocations or citing the authority of others as he taught.  He taught in the absolutes of the Spirit of God.  The people were amazed and recognized that he was truly an anointed person of God.

          In this congregation, there was a man who Mark tells us was possessed of an unclean spirit.  The earliest audiences would have most likely understood this to mean that the man was rendered unclean because he was possessed of a demon or an evil spirit.  Alternatively, he may have been an unclean person—ceremonially or morally defiled--by his choices and therefore considered demonic.  During this time and even among some to day, it is believed that supernatural spirits can possess the minds and bodies of human beings.  Hollywood has made a lot of money off such ideas.

Across the annuals of religion and mythology, demons are generally seen as malevolent beings whose function is to hinder humans from achieving a proper relationship with God or from doing good.  The force that lies behind the demonic realm in most religions is pride.  I cannot stress enough the importance of this understanding.  The demons and the arch demon—the devil or Satan--because of pride attempted, and some believe still attempt, to usurp the power and position of the Supreme Being in the universe and especially in the lives of human beings for their own prideful interests. 

Thus, there is believed by many to be a great cosmological battle being waged at this moment between the forces of the demons and the good spirits or angels of God.  One of the major battle fields in this struggle of pride is the human mind and spirit.  Thus, the demons attempt to keep humans from gaining a right relationship with God by provoking people to sin, which causes alienation from God and undermines God’s power and presence in the world for good.

          Demons have also been seen as the supernatural agents behind famines, diseases, wars, earthquakes, accidental deaths, and various mental or emotional disorders.  People afflicted with mental or neurological disorders were considered “demon possessed” and natural disasters were frequently seen as the work of agents of the other world.  Sometimes the devil or a demon is blamed for such things and at other times, God gets the blame. 

          Suffice it to say, the ancient’s understandings of human psychology and physiology as well as their understandings of the forces of nature are generally not ours.

          However, for Mark, in these opening verses of his gospel, he is primarily interested in showing that Jesus is the Mighty Son of God through his words and deeds not prompting a discussion about or validating demons.

          Regardless of how we choose to label or diagnose what was wrong with the man who confronts Jesus, the thing is, we need to hear his question:

“24 and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are, the [or a] Holy One of God.”  (RSV)

          In addition, I want to make a special point of the fact that this man is in the synagogue—he is in effect in church.  He evidently is a member of the community and was allowed to enter the synagogue.  He is not portrayed as some crazy, frothing at the mouth, lunatic, but rather setting in the synagogue.

I want to further point out that no book in the bible, Old or New Testaments, is written to people outside the community of faith, be that community Old Testament Judaism or New Testament Christianity.  We do not have any book written to the unbeliever or sinner, who is outside the community of faith.  Therefore, we must see the bible as the Church’s book, which is addressed to those within the Church.  As such, the Bible tells the stories of faith and addresses the issues of faith within the community of believers whatever those issues may be.  With this in mind, let us venture further into the text.

          Jesus commands the evil spirit to be silent about who Jesus is.  This is a constant theme in Mark’s gospel—the hidden-ness of Jesus’ divine nature.  The only ones who seem to know who Jesus really is in the Gospel of Mark are the demons and the women. 

Now this makes perfect sense to me.  At the risk of sounding chauvinistic, women seem to be far more discerning about the spiritual at times than are men.  My grandmother and my Aunt Mattie use to tell me when I did something bad that they could just see the devil in me.  My Aunt Mattie had a very special exorcism service she performed on me with a piece of kindling wood when I gots “da debil” in me.

Demons and women would not have been reputable references for a person’s character or their religious calling in Jesus’ day.  Sort of like a politician’s endorsement of a preacher today.  Jesus goes out of his way to keep a low profile as a miracle worker in Mark’s gospel.  He does this by constantly telling people to be silent about his miracles.  It is important that he not be forced into decisions about his life’s work because of his powers.  He, like you and I, must be free to choose God’s will because it is God’s will for us not because it may endow us with special status or rights. 

          Well, what possible relevance could this story have for our modern minds, especially given our understanding of neurological conditions, mental illnesses, personality disorders, and the forces of nature?  What could it possibly mean to Christians—those of us in the synagogue community, I mean those of us in the Church of Jesus Christ?

          I think these scriptures are very relevant for us, and I wouldn’t be too quick to relegate this story of the demoniac to just a primitive teaching story.  Just because we understand human behavior, diseases, character disorders, and natural disasters differently doesn’t mean that the truth inherent in these scriptures isn’t relevant to us, nor is the cure Jesus specified in these scriptures for unhealthy and unholy human behaviors irrelevant.  I think this possessed man’s question is right on target for those of us in the Church today--What has Jesus to do with us?  I also think Jesus’ remedy for the demoniac is on target for us in the Church today.

          I think when a person is so possessed of such a prideful mind-set that they willfully live contrary to God’s will and ways and declare that they will be their own, ultimate authority and reference for value in life, then it is most appropriate for that person to ask the question, “What has Jesus got to do with me?”

Folks, I’ve never seen a demon, but I have experienced the demonic.  I’ve seen the demonic in its grossest and most subtle forms.

          I’ve seen the grossest forms of the demonic in war, racial, gender and age discrimination, drug and alcohol abuse, commercialized vice, and unrestrained carnality with all the consequences of such things.

          I’ve seen the subtle forms of the demonic in intellectual pride, pseudo social tolerance, pseudo graciousness, human indifference, and apathy towards the grossest forms of human evil and sin.  I’ve seen the demonic in the self-satisfied pride of social status and affluence.  I’ve seen the demonic in such shallow cliques of the simple minded “as live and let live”“, different strokes for different folks”, “You can’t legislate morality.”  I’ve seen the demonic in well intended but un-reflected upon religion also.

          When the power of God comes on the human scene through the message of Jesus Christ, it will naturally prompt a question in those of a base and prideful nature--“Jesus, Holy One of God, what have you to do with us?”

          Do you realize that if we really, really listen to the teachings of Jesus as one with the authority of God then we will not be able to set idly by or participate in those things that exploit men, women, and children just because we believe every one has a sacred and inalienable right to consume irresponsibly, to exploit nature, abuse or misuse creatures or other people.

          If we hear the radical message of love and mutual respect in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we won’t be able to stand by and let others commercialize vice and sin under the simple minded rubric of “each-to-his-own” in service of our sacred, idolatrous cow of individualism.  We will not be able to stand by and allow demonic people to enslave human minds and bodies via their passions and appetites by selling them drugs or other vices.

          God forbid that we in the church should take the teachings of Jesus to heart.  It would mean that we might have to revamp our whole sense of our religion, our nation, and ourselves.  We might even have to dismantle religious empires that capitalize on the differences among people and religions to hawk salvation plans; eternal life insurance polices, and grow bigger and bigger at the expense of people’s true needs—the Good News and the Good Deeds of Emmanuel--Christ with us.

          Why would anyone want to have a relationship with the truths of Jesus if those truths are going to cause a person to forsake their idolatrous individualism?  Well, forsaking demonic pride maybe bring a person a sense of being grounded and vouched safe in an eternal peace, hope, and wholesomeness in life and in death.  It may mean a person may have to see themselves as a part of a divine whole instead out there in life alone in the hell of their own sense of self-sufficiency and captains of their own fates. 

          I’ve known so called Christian people setting in the congregation listening to the teachings of Christ, who were possessed by the demonic spirit of prejudice, abusiveness toward family members, and unrestrained passions.  I’ve known of so called Christian people, who’ve participated in burning down houses, businesses, and churches of racial and religious minorities.  I’ve known of white Christians involved in killing black Christians in the early days of the civil rights movement.  I’ve seen migrant workers exploited and abused in the cotton fields of Mississippi by people who were in good standing at the First Church of Social Acceptance.

          I’ve seen red faces, black faces, white faces, and yellow faces distorted with a demonic hatred, anger, lust, and greed; all born out of a demonic, human pride to be the gods of their own lives, masters of their own fate according to their understandings and reasons come hell or high water. 

          Moreover, by their acts of hatred, abuse, vice, killing, maiming, and destroying, such people ipso facto beg the question of the possessed man:  "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

          Across the ages, the voice of Emmanuel—God with us--says repeatedly, “Shut up!”  “Shut up!”  “Shut the hell up!”  “Stop you’re questioning God’s holy will and ways.  “Shut up, you demonic people with your prideful indifferences, moral cowardice, unrestrained individualism, and carnality.  Shut up and come out of my people!”

          When Christ’s truths are proclaimed, people like the demoniac, come to know the answer to the question of “What does Jesus have to do with them?”  Jesus has come to destroy the unholy in them.  Moreover, in the presence of the truths of Christ, people begin to intellectually convulse, writhe with angry, and in loud defensive voices, spew forth prideful rationalizations, excuses, and justifications for their unholy, self-indulgent, and self-serving ways of life.  The demonic, the prideful, the sinful, know that the Gospel has come to destroy those prideful, human illusions of power, comfort, and self-sufficiency according to human understandings.  

There are ways that seem right to humankind but in truth such ways lead to the death of what is good in people’s lives and to what is good for life on this planet. 

          If a person will let the truths of Christ’s teachings into the secret places of their lives, they may feel the weight of their life-fear, spiritual ignorance, sin, prejudices, unhealthy appetites, and passions give way to God’s grace.  A person may convulse and resist, rationalize and justify, but if they will persist in the power of the words of the Christ, they will be led into the ways of change, healing, and become dispossessed of their unhealthy, unwholesome, and sinful behaviors. 

          The Spirit of truth may lead them to confession, to asking forgiveness, to finding professional help, or a radically altering their life styles, but lead the truth will.  Whether a person follows that truth or not is another matter.

          If you read a little further in Mark 1, you will notice that after this exorcism, Jesus leaves the synagogue and goes into the home of Simon and Andrew with James and John.  Jesus take his power into the homes of ordinary people and into their every day lives.  There he heals people in the ordinariness of life outside the synagogue—the church. 

          If we don’t believe that the Christ within us and within the world can make a difference in the every-day of the world, and we feel no sense of responsibility to the world in Christ, then what in God’s name are we doing here?  What does Jesus of Nazareth have to do with us?  I’ll say it again—Jesus came to destroy the demonic—the self-aggrandizing, selfish, self-centered pride in us and to bring us spiritual healing and a true spiritual relationship with God.  And, I will make so bold as to say that ninety-five percent of what’s wrong with the world today can be fixed with human, spiritual healing according to the words of Jesus of Nazareth. 

The truths that Jesus taught came from God to destroy the fruits of human pride--evil, immorality, complacency, and indifference wherever it is found.  Especially, when it is found in those in the synagogue--I mean the community of faith—the church--in me, in you.