| Rector’s
Sermon
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| What’s the scariest thing you can think of? Various movie images come to mind, like a demented Jack Nicholson in The Shining, or Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Those are pretty scary, but they’re make-believe, created with the explicit purpose of exploiting your wildest imagination. A Scottish litany describes “ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night,” to which we respond, “Good Lord, deliver us!” Scary is popular. I’m not sure why, but I can well remember my own anticipation and enjoyment of various horror classics like The Mummy, Dracula, and Frankenstein. They seem pretty tame now, compared with Stephen King and the various Halloween and Friday the 13th images. Just a footnote here: while all those others scared me, I felt sorry for Frankenstein. It wasn’t his fault. One could wonder how the gospel we’ve just read would be portrayed in the movies. It’s a scary scene. Jesus is in church (a synagogue, actually) and a man with “an unclean spirit” begins to freak out. The Bible understood what it called “an unclean spirit” to be a demon, and so this man was demonically possessed, maybe like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, and is a terrifying picture of someone possessed to a degree of psychosis we could only accurately describe as “evil.” “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” “Us?” Is he one of the Devil’s legions, a host of unclean spirits who possess the innocent and do really bad things? O.K., let’s just take a breather here, and describe the context. Jesus had just been baptized in the Jordan River by John which marked the beginning of his active ministry. Jesus and his disciples go to Capernaum which is by the Sea of Galilee and set up a sort of home base for his ministry. It’s Saturday morning and they go to the synagogue which is just like you and I coming to church. And then this supremely good, charismatic rabbi from Nazareth is dramatically confronted by an evil spirit. Jesus meets the challenge by casting out the demon and thus setting the stage for a ministry that would confront all that is not of God, a ministry that would usher in a new age of the Kingdom of God. Evil is not a word to be taken lightly. We tend to domesticate it periodically as in the Boston Red Sox reference to the New York Yankees as “The Evil Empire.” The Red Sox until recently were forever haunted by the ghost of Babe Ruth. We certainly tend to domesticate the Devil by naming sports teams after him. And although I would take issue with the wisdom of the assertion that Iran and North Korea are part of an “Axis of Evil,” nonetheless it touches on the issue of evil’s reality when we think about the potential for actually using nuclear weapons. I would add editorially that the United States, Russia, Pakistan, and others have the same capability which suggests that evil is an equal-opportunity annoyer. Even as a deterrent can anyone’s nuclear weapons further lasting prospects for peace and goodness and compassion? Just an editorial comment… Jesus had an uncanny ability to recognize that which was not of God, to recognize not just the most obvious and scariest of evil’s faces, but also hardness of heart, hypocrisy, self-absorption, self-aggrandizement. Jesus had a vision of goodness that was, if I can use this word in this context, militant. God’s goodness and God’s love are in direct competition with so much of what we see around us, with so much of what has historically plagued humankind’s wellbeing, of so much that would tear down whatever structures or even impulses we might build and exercise as children of God. Is it too much of a stretch to name the greed which has fueled the current economic disaster as “evil”? This country is suffering deeply and dramatically because of the cumulative effect, the cascading effect, the domino effect of unrestrained (dare I say unregulated) self interest. I’m under no illusion that however well-motivated any president or government can be, that greed won’t continue to plague the human heart, but recovery from its latest effect will surely require some form of national intervention in addition to a change of heart to do the right thing with or without any specific legislation. It occurred to me, for instance, to wonder if it might have occurred to Merrill Lynch that $4.5 billion in bonuses could have saved 100,000 jobs at $45,000 for one year? And is it too much of a stretch to name our rampant disregard for the wellbeing of the earth and its atmosphere as “evil”? Shortsightedness, hubris, and ignorance all have the potential to make life as we know it on this planet unrecognizable in 50, 60, 70 years from now. Some have suggested that the best thing that could happen to the earth would be to eliminate humankind and let God enjoy the rest of what God has created. However, I suspect God wants us to repent and return to God’s intention that we be good stewards of what we’ve been given. I could go on, but this current economic disaster caused by human greed and the rapidly deteriorating global ecology are enough “evil” for one sermon, and, frankly, it’s as scary as it gets. But let’s remember that Jesus cast out that demon from the man who was possessed. Let’s remember that you and I call ourselves members of the body of Christ, and, as his disciples, are called to do likewise. You and I because we want to associate ourselves with Jesus can cast out demons all the time. John Challenger said several weeks ago that we can talk to one another, we can network with one another, we can help one another if I’ve got a job and you don’t, or if you’ve got a job and I’d like to pick your brain about that. We do that because we love one another and because as we serve one another we are serving Jesus. Charlotte McGee suggested that one way we can participate in the vision of her “Green Team” would be to opt for an electronic Parish Paper if we have that capability. In fact, her editorial in the most recent issue of the Parish Paper is printed in green just so we get the idea. And again, we want to do that specifically as a community of faith because God has created what we have and it needs to be treasured. These are ways we can cast out unclean spirits, these are ways we can believe and act as Christians. Those prospects are scary, but because Jesus did it we at least have to try. |
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