Scriptures: Deuteronomy 18:15-22
I'll bet there are a fair number of you out there who like to perform. Sure, there are those jitters that usually come just before we get ready to go out in front of an audience - what we refer to as "stage fright". But when that spotlight hits you and you know it is up to you to enthrall a group of people there's a rush of adrenalin that makes you feel, "I can really do this". And I also know that there are some of you who don't like the spotlight at all - who would rather be behind the scenes helping to make others look good and not front and center. Spotlights do make us feel somewhat uneasy, don't they, because being in the spotlight means that we are about to be held accountable for what happens next. This realization leads to the other meaning of being "in the spotlight": having what we have done and who we are challenged, as in, say, a police interrogation room - or that feeling of panic and fear that we capture in the phrase "like a deer caught in the headlights". No, being in the spotlight is not always a pleasant experience.
As we follow the gospel of Mark through the lectionary texts, Jesus is now beginning his public ministry. He is very much in the spotlight. He arrives at the synagogue in Capernaum, enters, and begins to teach. Jesus as teacher is an important piece of Mark's portrait of him, and so we, too, respond to the remarkable teaching that Jesus has to offer to us. But the interesting thing in this passage is that Mark is less concerned with what Jesus was teaching than with how he was teaching. He teaches as one who has authority. And so the spotlight is doubly on him.
Perhaps the reason for this emphasis - how rather than what - has to do with the fact that Mark has already reported the whole of Jesus' message, as we said last week: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." We, as Jesus' 21st century readers and followers, have been well prepared - we know what Jesus is all about. But those in that synagogue in Capernaum were not yet so prepared.
Jesus "taught them as one having authority". Mark adds in what almost seems like a snide aside, "and not as one of the scribes". Yet, it was important to make this distinction because of the many false prophets that could lead the people astray. How do we know when a prophet is being a false prophet?
What both this passage from Mark and our other scriptural text from Deuteronomy are suggesting, it seems to me, is that we can only really recognize them after the fact. This is not always easy, although Moses gives us a clue when he says to the Israelites: "You may say to yourself, 'How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?' If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken."
We can certainly recognize this dynamic in what's been happening to the economy in recent times. So many were caught up listening to CEOs promising big annual returns but only if they were paid in stock options. How about those predictions of Dow 30,000 or even Dow 40,000 (has it dipped below 8,000 as yet?). There was that fella who appeared on late night television, Carleton Sheets, who promised that you could get rich buying real estate with no money down ("oh, the real estate boom is never going to bust"). The rule of thumb in reacting to these kinds of prophets is: if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. And the second rule of thumb is: beware of those whose emphasis is on profits instead of being prophets.
At this point in 2009 it's easy enough to see what false prophets these financial wizards were. True prophets have a different bottom line, focusing on more lasting values. But that doesn't necessarily make them any easier to recognize. The Israelites thought they could do an end-run around Moses when he goes up the mountain to talk with God by pressuring Aaron to make a golden calf which they could then worship - but this also turned out to be false prophecy. (Reminded me a bit of the image of those Christians, encouraged by television preachers, who laid their hands on that huge statue of a golden bull down at the foot of Wall Street in New York City and prayed for God to intercede with banks and financial institutions. Guess Lehman Brothers didn't get the message.)
This is why Mark places his emphasis on how Jesus was teaching - that is with authority - and not so much on the content of the message. Content can look pretty good for awhile - until things start going south - but the authenticity with which someone is communicating their message is what makes their turn in the spotlight so significant.
But now a surprising twist comes into the story. While Jesus was teaching there was someone in the synagogue, identified only as "a man with an unclean spirit", who cries 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.'" It's as though you're there in the Adult Study Class, and Kay or Tom or Marjorie is holding forth with an excellent Bible study lesson, and suddenly there's a disruption that you don't quite know how to respond to. Or, those of you who were here two weeks ago may remember the man who came in and stood in the back during announcements and then cried out that he had something for each of us and especially for the minister, and when I suggested he leave it with Jim and we could get it afterwards he turned around and left. I don't know about you, but I often have an uneasy feeling when something like this happens, disrupting the service: are we missing something? might this be an actual prophet and not merely someone who's a bit off his rocker? are we in danger of not responding to the spirit of God in our midst?
And then there's this matter of having "an unclean spirit" inside of one. Our modern scientific mind rebels at this kind of language and at the very notion of a demon inhabiting a human body - "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist" notwithstanding. Several things to be said about this. As John J. Pilch notes: "Our ancestors in faith believed that spirits were more powerful than human beings but less powerful than God." In expelling the demon, Jesus proved that he possessed "powers stronger than those of ordinary human beings." Today, we try to find scientific explanations for what happened. In fact, Pilch suggests that our "Western tendency to rationalize the ancient understanding of spirits is rooted in the fact that Westerners have much more power over their lives and circumstances than the ancients believed they had." However, it may be true that we also know far less than we think we do and understand even less.
Another possibility is that Jesus' authority was so commanding that it revealed someone as unclean who hadn't been known to be unclean before. The authority of Jesus illuminated what had not been recognized. That spotlight on Jesus illuminates, startlingly, his surroundings, and all those around him. The spotlight that is on Jesus also illuminates the whole world as it seeks to align itself with God's will. Intriguingly, while others there in the synagogue had questions about who this man of Nazareth was and what he was telling them, it is the evil spirit within this tortured man who actually recognizes him and calls him out: "the Holy One of God".
We should have deep compassion for this man, as does Jesus. Lawrence Wood describes the encounter in these words: "Then he came upon one of the true unfortunates of the world, a man desperately ill. This poor soul had not asked for his condition. It had just happened to him, and the nature of his illness made it impossible for him to see past it."
As is true throughout his ministry, Jesus sees the depth of the anguish here and speaks to what was deepest within the suffering man. But that unclean spirit isn't going to give up without a challenge, and so it flings back: "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."
Jesus is equal to the challenge as he cries, "Be silent, and come out of him!" There are those Biblical interpreters who think that this rebuke is intended to keep Jesus' true nature from being revealed here at the start of his ministry, and so he is trying to keep this evil spirit from saying more about him as the Son of God. It is ironic, certainly, that the only one in that synagogue who truly knows that this is a prophetic voice with all the authority of God behind him is someone who smacks of the demonic. I prefer, then, to interpret Jesus' rebuke of "Be silent" as a way of saying that our evil impulses will ultimately not have authority over us. As John Ballenger puts it: "This is the authority of Jesus rejecting an attempt to manipulate him - control him - not allowing an unclean spirit to claim any authority itself in its knowledge about Jesus. This is the uncompromised authority of Jesus denying the unclean spirit's authority. 'Be silent!'"
And so the teaching ministry has begun. Those who were there were amazed and called out to others: "What is this? A new teaching - with authority!" Jesus will never again be out of the spotlight because he has begun and continues his ministry with authority - the authority that comes from his relationship with God. Moses' admonition to the Israelites has come to pass: here is "a prophet [who] speaks in the name of the Lord." It still wouldn't be easy. There would still be those who would call him a false prophet - a glutton or a drunkard or a blasphemer. Others would suspend judgment. Twenty-one centuries later we call him the Christ - the Messiah. But it wasn't that obvious at the outset - except to the evil spirit. This, then, is a cautionary tale. We need to be continuously aware of the authority with which Jesus the Christ comes to us - in both his words and his deeds. We are still in the days of Epiphany - the days of "What is this? A new teaching with authority!" The stage has been set, and now it appears that we are the ones who are on stage. We, as readers and hearers of Mark's Gospel, have been carefully prepared. And then the spotlight hits us....
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
February 1, 2009