18. October 2024
Trinity 12
Mark 7:31-37

Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him. And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.

In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.

One of the delightful (and scary) things about studying the Bible itself, rather than defaulting to only bits and pieces, is that you encounter a God who is wild and a people who know it. Of course, this is why most Christians default to bland devotions and skip over all the less savory stuff. We get Jesus as a trimmed-down moral teacher and friend to sinners, but far less about Jesus “doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.” (Acts 10.38). Many just don’t want to think about the supernatural stuff, or see it all as entirely symbolic. But if you’re willing to get into the weird stuff, you’ll find out that God the Holy Trinity is far more interesting than you think, and your fellow believers are more willing to see, hear, and pray to the wild, untamed God. 

Jesus was a healer and an exorcist. It’s not a subtext; it’s front and center. Exorcism literally kicks off his ministry (Mark 1.32-34). From Jesus’ temptations in the desert, it’s war between Christ and the Devil played out in market squares and villages and wherever Christ heals. And when the Devil roosts in the heart of Judas, it looks like game over. Out there on Skull Hill, people saw the King of the Jews die. Satan won. But rocks get rolled away, Sunday comes, and the most astonishing move in the history of creation: the mind-melting, soul-joying return of the Lord of Hosts.

While Christ didn’t much encourage rebellion against the Romans, he was in an all-out assault against that which was adversarial to his Father. These days, we often think we are too sophisticated to engage in healing and exorcisms. Those things belong to another age; take that attitude outside the first world and see what you find. Our brothers and sisters in foreign lands, even Lutheran ones, acknowledge and exorcise demons daily. 

It’s also worth noting that healings and exorcisms are bad for the economy, that there’s often a riot afterward, and that those riots originate in cash loss. An example is when Paul exorcises a fortune teller making a good living for her owner: “When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, ‘These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.’ The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully” (Acts 16:20-23).

Later, when word gets out about Paul’s abilities and how hard it can be to exorcize successfully without the name of Jesus, many Ephesian witches elect to convert and burn their magical paraphernalia. The calculated worth of the bonfire was fifty thousand drachmae, which in modern terms comes to around $7 million USD. Christianity disturbs the market square. It wasn’t good for business. But, in a theme I keep returning to, evil doesn’t always appear in such dramatic form. Remember 1 John 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” Have we tested the spirits of our age? Or do we blithely shuffle along? Rather than confront the evil demonic thoughts, words, and actions of our culture, we leave them for fear of upsetting things, making people uncomfortable, or, most horrific, convicting and indicting of sin.

I’m wondering if one of the most dangerous attributes of the modern church is passivity. I’m wondering, and asking, do we even have the courage anymore to make some raw cries? Can we call in the crows to fly over the plowed fields, the beating palms to cry out for Samson? Where are the rough voices and shouting women that cry out against the blinding of Samson? When will we take up their cry – take away those knives! Please, God, help, men are coming to blind Samson. I think the sedating level of physical and mental comfort some of us live in can dull raw cries against evil.

In its bland but insidious manner of life, we may barely spot it. We move from the high demonic drama of the child sacrificing Moloch to the subtle, deadening deprivation of the society that provoked it. A pincer move of evil. One bell rings louder, but it takes two to complete the demonic travesty.

So, we could make some raw cries of lamenting prayer, “Lord, have mercy! Slay these, your enemies!” We could be as wise as serpents, as peaceful as doves, calling a thing what it is. We have to keep our wits about us and have a sense of the waters we are swimming in, which brings me to a phrase both loved and hated in equal measure: spiritual warfare. It can be either pertinent or monstrous, depending on the context. 

“Spiritual warfare” can have folks glancing uneasily around at the shadows. That vast presences are arrayed around us that we cannot see, having it out for the good of our souls. I think that’s entirely possible. But the Bible sometimes associates spiritual warfare with political struggle (see Colossians and Ephesians), not just the more etheric variety. It’s a combination of not entirely social justice issues, not wholly combat in (mostly) invisible realms. For some, it’s easier to pick one over the other, but it seems we need both. If it’s all social justice, it’s all horizontal concerns; if it’s all prayer, it’s all vertical. I imagine we would need a crossroads of both.

Jesus meets us at the crossroads, countercultural to the world. The pattern of the world is often power grabs, wealth building, and influence peddling. And then Jesus starts telling us that anyone who wants to be first must be the very last and the servant of all, that He came not to be served but to serve, you know, “Blessed are the meek.” It’s this kind of thinking that keeps people away from Him. It’s too exacting, too weirdly dangerous. From the world’s perspective, this is outlaw talk. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not workable. The world doesn’t really operate like that.

And so, despite the wonder of the earth and the grace many Christians try to cleave to, there are levels of suffering and darkness so grotesque it leaves us speechless and sometimes broken. The man from Galilee saw this reality and fought against it every chance He had. Christ says resist. Jesus pushes against two particular enchantments: passivity and disconnection. They are royal roads for the Old Deceiver. The blissfully ignorant and the ones filled with existential dread, one feeding the other. Instead, we are called to rage against the dying of the Light. Stand up for beauty. Cling to the truth.

This is weird stuff because Jesus is weird. He’s not a cut-and-paste, trimmed-down moral teacher. He’s a friend to sinners who always does good and heals all under the devil’s power because he’s God. Jesus takes on all the burden of life in this world in a catastrophically beautiful act of love, crucified for you. He gets involved in angelic troublemaking and subverts the world with His love. And to you, this may sound woo-woo, but it’s all we’ve got. It’s this strange radical Son of God that shows up for you, Jesus healing you so that you can hear him, loosing your tongue so you can utter a raw cry, restoring your sight so that you may see in the dark.

Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guards your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School – Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin