EPIPHANY 4B - Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28 -

1 February 2009 - A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

Honesty, Hope and Healing

Jesus had just recruited his first four disciples, all fishermen, only a few days before. Now it was the sabbath, and he entered the synagogue in Capernaum, and - for the first time ever - taught the people. Imagine you are there for a moment.

You are a faithful Jew in the region of Galilee. Capernaum is your hometown, and you show up every Saturday - partly because you have been taught to obey the Fourth Commandment, partly because you know it’s important to worship and sing to the Lord God, partly to stay connected to those in your faith community, partly to hear what the rabbi has to say, partly... well, who knows what the other “partly’s” are?

And suddenly this new rabbi begins to teach. Perhaps you’ve heard of him, in that he’s from the Galilee, too. Jesus, son of Joseph the carpenter, and his mother, Mary. There were some rumors and innuendo going around during the time of his birth, as you recall. But you’d never heard he was a rabbi. And now the local rabbi is letting him expound on the scriptures? What is going on here? And then, as he begins to teach, you think to yourself, “Oh, my! Dear Father in heaven, what have we got here? I have never heard anyone explain the scriptures like this!” We all start to look around at each other, and we notice that everyone has the same expression on their faces. And it’s a look like “Whoa, where did this come from?” And then he went back to his seat with all of us, near the back, and we were astounded.

And just as he sat down, as if that wasn’t enough surprise and commotion for one service, there was this louder commotion that began. Old crazy Reuben [my chosen name for him] showed up, like he sometimes did. You never knew when or where Reuben might show up. We had all known Reuben for years, and he was certifiable. He heard voices, and he begged, for there was certainly no way he could ever hold onto a job. Sometimes Reuben made a little more sense than others, but usually not. He often referred to “us” when he was talking about himself.

And suddenly I heard Reuben’s distinctive voice, which never sounded like a real human voice, and he cried out some words that startled all of us, and made us all stand right up. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” (How did Reuben know who Jesus was? He rarely knew what year it was!) “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are - the Holy One of God.”

Jesus just looked at him calmly, seemed to know what the deal was with Reuben right away, then rebuked him with a clear but not-overly-loud voice. As I recall, he just said, “Be silent, and come out of him!”

And then there was this loud, God-awful scream, and Reuben started going into convulsions, and it was like all the things that had been tormenting Reuben for so many years just flew out of his body, and were gone. Reuben lay limp on the floor for a moment, and then started to get up. He sat there, near the back of the synagogue, with his knees raised a bit, and an arm around each leg. And then he just looked up at Jesus, and all of us, and a big grin came over his face, and he thanked Jesus, and his voice was totally different, and he looked totally different, and he stood up. And all the people who had gathered around him parted to either side as he made his way right out of the synagogue, and out onto the street.

Jesus left right after he did.

And the rest of us stood there, looking at each other like we had before - for the second time that morning. A look like, “Whoa, what just happened here? Where did this come from? A new teaching - with authority! And he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him!” And then we walked out of the synagogue, and everyone was telling everyone they saw - the slackers who hadn’t come to synagogue that morning - what had happened.

OUR DEMONS

How would you and I react if something like this happened right here - right now - during our worship at St. Ambrose? Right here in the middle of our Episcopal worship, where everything is supposed to be “proper and in good order”?

Can we relate to this story?

Well, if we don’t think we can relate at first hearing, perhaps we should listen more closely, and think about it some more.

Don’t all of us who show up here on Sunday morning have wounds, even demons? We might try to cover them up, and the truth is - we do cover them up as best we can. For usually, they’re not nearly as obvious as old Reuben’s were.

I have at least two major demons that I’m aware of, demons that haunt me and hold me back from being who God calls me to be. Not demons in the sense that I’m possessed. But they’ve got quite a hold of me, nevertheless. They may not be as strong as they used to be, but they still get a hold of me sometimes, and it’s not pretty.

The first demon is my “I’m not enough” demon. 99 people could respond positively to me, and one person doesn’t. One person says something to me that stings, or - even more tenuous than that - just doesn’t quite give me the emotional response that I was looking for. And what am I mulling over at the end of the day? The reaction of that one person. Because it feeds my “I’m not enough” demon. A demon that is very, very old, and never, ever helpful.

My second demon is sort of an offshoot or child of my first demon. It’s my “too attached to what people think, too worried about how someone will react” demon. I’m learning, finally, that people are people, and they will have their reactions, and some might not like or approve of things I say or decisions I make. I am praying, with God’s help, to learn how to develop the spiritual practice of detachment. But sometimes my “too attached to what people think” demon still rears up its ugly, old head. It is a demon that is very, very old, and never, ever helpful.

I saw a taped interview of Ted Haggard with Oprah Winfrey this past week. Ted talked about a demon that he had. But as I listened to him talk to Oprah, it occurred to me that he might have been confused about what his demon was. He thought his demon was his attraction that he kept feeling toward other men. But what he kept saying to Oprah went something like this. “I wanted to be the ideal. The ideal husband, the ideal father, the ideal Christian and spiritual leader.” Ted Haggard’s demon, it seems to me, had a lot more to do with trying to put on a certain image - living a lie, if you will, because he wouldn’t allow himself to speak the truth about who he was, and what he struggled with.

Oprah had two of his grown children in the audience. They were only interviewed by Oprah for a short while. But what both of them had to say was telling. His daughter said something like, “I could never, ever identify with my father before his fall from grace. I couldn’t relate to him at all.” She said, “I couldn’t relate to him until the scandal erupted, because then - finally - he was real. He was honest. He wasn’t perfect. He was vulnerable, and told us the truth.”

His son said that when the scandal happened, there was anger and sadness, but there was also relief. Why? Because there was finally a real, honest person they could relate to. They finally had a father, and not just some movie-star-preacher-dad, who was so distant and unreal that they couldn’t and didn’t have a relationship with him.

ALLOWING THE DEMONS TO SPEAK THE TRUTH

There is something very curious in this story of Jesus healing old Reuben. I wonder if you caught it. Who spoke the truth - in this case, about Jesus? That’s right. The demons did. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? [The truth is, he had, and he did.] I know who you are, the Holy One of God. [Right again.]”

One of the questions for you and me today is this: Will we learn from our wounds and our demons? Will we allow them to speak the truth, so that we can face the truth that we need to face, and not pretend that we are something that we’re not, just for appearances sake?

I don’t want to sugar-coat this. There is deep pain involved in facing our pain, our wounds, and even our demons. But you know what? When we don’t face our demons - what Carl Jung and many others since him have referred to as the shadow - then our shadow has a way of leaking out all over the place.

Oh, yes - it shows up in different ways.

It shows up in arrogance, in thinking we are God’s unique and special gift to the world.

It shows up in narcissism - “No, no - it could never be my fault. It must be yours.”

It shows up in becoming a permanent victim, who is always blaming someone else for his/her problems.

It shows up in rage and resentment and bitterness.

It shows up in drinking too much, or in doing drugs, or in clandestine meetings with male prostitutes.

But mostly it shows up in lying - in lying to God, to others, and - just as damaging - to ourselves.

CHURCH AS A SAFE CULTURE FOR TRUTH-TELLING

This is why it is so important that the church become a safe place, a place where people can tell the truth, and hear the truth spoken in love. Church needs to be a place where we can admit the truth about ourselves individually, and admit whatever the truth is about all of us - as a corporate body.

It’s not a coincidence that Reuben walked into the synagogue that day when Jesus was there. He knew, on one level or another, that his demons were killing him, and that there was someone inside who could help him face those demons, and do something about them.

The Lord doesn’t so much destroy our demons. You noticed it says, “They came out of him.” That’s not exactly the same thing as being destroyed. The Lord, with all of his power, with all of his honesty, but mostly with all of his compassion, helps us confront our demons and face them, befriend them and make fun at them, even laugh and shake our heads at them - when we realize how silly they are - so that they no longer have any power over us.

It’s like the old song by The Nylons used to say: “Be gone, Prince of Darkness, you have no power here!” The Prince of Darkness has no power once the Light of Christ shines on him. All demons lose their power when the light comes, and the light comes when the truth is spoken.

That is the tie-in with today’s lesson from Deuteronomy. Moses predicted a day when another prophet would come, who would speak the words that God commanded. And Moses added something else, “... any prophet... who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak - that prophet shall die.” (Deuteronomy 18:20)

In other words, lying leads to death. Lying isn’t bad just because it is listed in the Ten Commandments. Lying is bad because it leads to death - the death of the soul, the death of any possible relationship with God, the death of any relationship.

The moment that Ted Haggard told the truth to his family, he had his family right there with him. Isn’t that interesting? Despite the double-life, the hypocrisy, and the deceit, the moment he confessed and told the truth, he had his wife and his children right there with him. Even with all their anger and frustration, he had them back, because he was finally telling the truth. And they could deal with that.

CONCLUSION

In these very difficult economic times, when people lose their jobs, and a lot of their life savings, when people are angry about greedy executives and greedy and stupid financial institutions being bailed out, we need a place where we can speak the truth. We need a place where we can come with our own anger, our own hurts, our own wounds and our own demons, and recognize the truth - that it is never ever the case that it is only the people “out there” who are wrong, it is only the people “out there” who have demons. We need church to be a place where, when the whole world seems to be crashing around you, and you suddenly realize that it is actually your own personal world that is falling apart, you can come and say, “My life is a mess. Can I tell you - can I tell someone here - about what I am going through?” And someone says, “Sure. Go ahead. I’ll listen.”

For when we move to that place where we are speaking the truth again, hope returns. For we suddenly remember that the God of hope has been right here with us all along, and the God of love and everlasting faithfulness is ready to help us cast out our demons and heal our wounds, so that they don’t control our lives anymore.

May we be able to be a church where someone can speak the truth, even when the wheels are falling off. And the rest of us don’t freak out, but instead say, “Welcome. You’ve come to the right place, for the Holy One of God is here, and we know for a fact that He can help you, because He has helped all of us.”