Some thoughts on Mark 1:21-28

He wasn’t even in his hometown, but it was the Sabbath, so he went to the synagogue and taught. Now the synagogue was not the Temple in Jerusalem, where God was thought to actually dwell, but rather it was the local place where you went to pray and study the sacred Scripture—the Torah. While they were consecrated spaces, it was not necessary to go to a synagogue to worship God, because as long as you could get ten adult males to assemble in one place you could worship God communally. Some prayers required communal worship.

So here’s Jesus going into the synagogue in Capernaum not as a passive listener and learner, but as a full participant to teach. And while he was doing so (apparently quite well, because Mark tells us the people were astounded, something happens that’s so important we should all sit up and take notice, because it’s an important lesson for those of us who enter the Christian equivalent of the synagogue on the Sabbath. After all, as Christians, we are to follow the path of Jesus and try hard to model his behavior.

Mark tells us that there was a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue. And that really got me thinking, “Really? Only one?” What is an unclean spirit? How would I recognize it? What would I do if I encountered it?

Jesus distinguished between the spirit and the man. He didn’t throw the person out; he rebuked the spirit, telling it to leave the man alone. And it did. I imagine that the synagogue was not too unlike its spiritual descendent, the church. So we can only speculate—did the guy with the unclean spirit attend regularly? Did people shrink away if they saw him coming and talk about him when they thought he could not hear?

The unclean spirits of today surely announce themselves to us, but they speak with contemporary behavior and in words we should be able to recognize. The unclean spirits speak with words of discord or pettiness or even hate. And the more often we hear the words the more anesthetized we are to their effects, and instead of rebuking those spirits in Jesus’ name, we keep silent.

Unclean spirits work kind of like viruses looking for a host, which they can infect with fear because fear paralyzes while the unclean spirits settle in. We all can recognize fear pretty well. It has an unmistakable look—even a smell about it. But the cause of the fear is often cryptic.

The authority of Jesus resides in his very nature: God incarnate in human form. We too carry the authority of Jesus; he gave it to us when he left this Earth, as he had to do because he had taken human form. We are mortal, and the mortal part of Jesus had to die because that is the nature of our human form.

We all are part of the Body of Christ; not the mortal body but the divine incarnation, and that means that we carry the authority to rebuke the unclean spirit, but it has to be done the way Jesus did it—recognizing that the man who was held captive by the unclean spirit was himself a beloved child of God. As members of Christ’s one holy, catholic and apostolic church, we are responsible for tending the body of Christ—all of us. That is why Jesus walked among us; to teach us reverently accept the responsibility for one another that had so long been abnegated by the repeated requests for God to send someone else to save God’s people. Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit because he knew that the authority of God ultimately prevails. And he also knew that sometimes the assembly doesn’t even recognize the destructive consequence of allowing unclean spirits to run amok.

So in the tradition of taking the logs out from our own eyes before trying to remove the speck from our neighbor’s eye, what can we do to make sure we aren’t ourselves the bearers of unclean spirits? First, remember this if you remember nothing else: God is love, not judgment. If we find ourselves more judgmental than loving, something is very wrong. Next, when you are irritated or afraid or otherwise uncomfortable with someone, instead of assuming it’s because of something you can attribute to them, first examine your own heart to make sure you are clear about whether you project the love of God to the people around you. Believe that as a member of the Body of Christ, you have more power that you can possibly imagine through the love of God. You are not paralyzed—it’s a Jesus movement. Love is more than a feeling it’s made manifest in action.

There is not a single person who God does not love, and we can struggle towards loving in likewise manner. And the best way to make it to that goal is to rebuke our own unclean spirits, leaving the assembly…our beloved church free to become the Kindom of God, where all really are welcome.

Sometimes, it’s really challenging to make good decisions when summoned to live into the future—to get on with the next thing that lies on the path before us. It can feel as though a course of action is clear, but often … not so much. Many times, I’ve been paralyzed by what I think of as caution. Sometimes it’s because I have too little information to make a good decision, and other times, it’s because I have too much information. Indecision can come about because we are overthinking a problem, or because we are not thinking much at all. It might even be because our hearts have become too tender, and fear keeps us from deciding to move forward.

So can you imagine these four fishermen: some itinerant preacher/teacher sees them at work and says, “drop everything and follow me,” and they do it? What made it so easy for them to decide and immediately get up and follow him? Had they been listening to Jesus proclaim the good news of God, and did they already have an inexplicable yearning to follow that charismatic teacher? James and John didn’t even blink—they left their father to carry on the family business with some hired folks and went straight away when Jesus called. Can you imagine doing that? Of course, we don’t know the family situation, and we don’t know their personal situations, but wow—Jesus called and there was no debate. They decided with their feet.

For some of us, we either pretend it’s not God who is actually calling us to service, or we fight God, creating a list of all the reasons why we can’t just follow. We might even run away and hide, more like what happened with the reluctant prophet Jonah. You only heard a little part of the story in today’s reading: the part where he finally agreed to do what God asked. But before that, he was so afraid of answering God’s summons to his destiny, he ran away, trying to escape Yahweh’s command to prophecy judgment to the wayward people of Nineveh.

As you know, he eventually did go to Nineveh and prophesied as God commanded. And as a result, the people repented and God’s mercy and compassion were revealed both to Jonah and to the whole city of Nineveh. Answering God’s call to be his most authentic self was really hard for Jonah. Not at all like the lightning fast response of Simon, Andrew, James and John. Jesus called and they said yes.

What would you have done? Are you more like James and John, or are you more like Jonah? How do you respond when you feel that God is prompting you to move on to something new? Do you have to debate whether or not you should do it? Does your decision depend upon whether or not you believe it’s really God prompting you? Because how does one know?

Perhaps there’s a hint to be found in the rather sparsely detailed account of Jesus calling the fishermen to follow him. Maybe there is no certainty when God calls and the answer is to simply go, maybe the revelation that we need to feel good about decisions that affect our future only comes to us through the faith inherent in following the path that God asks us to walk, one step at a time. Perhaps a dynamic God requires a dynamic response. We can be still and know that God is God, but perhaps we can’t be still to discover who we are to God. It could be that the rightness of following Jesus is only revealed in retrospect, and the truest act of faith is not about belief but about getting up and following.

There is a Latin expression solvitur ambulando. It means, “The solution is in the walking.” Wikipedia says that the application of solvitur ambulando is to solve a problem by practical experiment. Or as the Nike commercial says: “Just do it.” A beloved friend taught this to me a few years ago, and whenever I feel stuck and uncertain, I repeat this phrase, reminding myself to get up and move.

We can’t all be like Simon and Andrew and James and John, but we do have something that Jonah didn’t have. We have a messiah who has promised to be with us always, whether we are stuck in the midst of indecision or walking right behind him. He will not abandon us if we answer his call. Don’t be afraid to try: the solution is in the walking, solvitur ambulando.

Looking and seeing are not the same thing. One important difference is that looking is an open-ended process. You can search, but you may not find, like the often-fruitless search to find the car keys, only to discover they were already in your pocket. We can look, but sometimes not see.

Looking is intentional, and seekers have expectations. One has to be careful, because sometimes those expectations can keep you from seeing. In science and exploration, we call that “model dependent observation.” It’s a fancy way of saying that we see what we expect to see, and can miss what’s hidden in plain sight because it was unexpected. That’s why we have the saying that warns us not to judge a book by its cover. Sometimes it’s how we look that determines whether or not we will ultimately see, and I think that whether or not we can see depends upon how open our hearts or our minds are to accepting the gift of insight.

Every one of the readings we ponder on the second Sunday of Epiphany-tide reminds us of how important it is to see, and not necessarily in the context of visual acuity.

The story of Samuel’s call is a special favorite of mine. An innocent child serving in the temple under the tutelage of the aging prophet Eli, he was sleeping peacefully when God called to him. We are told that Eli’s eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, but this is metaphor. Eli’s eyes and strength were failing because he lost sight of honoring his family’s priestly commitment to God in tolerating the behavior of his wicked sons who, though priests in the Temple were described as scoundrels, stealing sacrifices meant for God and cheating the Israelites. A holy man and prophet warned Eli that he would pay a price for breaking a covenant with God: for refusing to see what was going on under his watch. Meanwhile, young Samuel was growing up and finding favor in God’s eyes because of his innocence and obedience.

Samuel was sleeping right by the Ark of the Covenant, where God was thought to dwell. One night, just before dawn, the Lord called Samuel’s name, and he thought it was Eli calling, because he did not yet know God. Three times God called to him, and when Samuel ran to Eli each time, he began to realize that God was calling to the boy, so he advised him that if it happened again, he should stay where he was and say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” [I Sam 3:10]. And there was indeed a fourth summons in which “the Lord came and stood there.” So Samuel answered as he had been instructed. And it’s too bad our reading didn’t include one more verse, because you would have heard God say to Samuel “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it tingle,” [v. 11]. God was then revealed to Samuel. Now he could recognize God’s voice—he could see.

In the case of Nathanael, it was his friend Philip who wanted to bring him to a deeper knowledge of God. Philip wanted Nathanael to see, but when he said, “Have I got something good for you,” Nathanael was skeptical. He had to be invited to take a look—to meet Jesus, because his model-dependent observation led him to believe that nothing good could come out of Nazareth. But Nathanael was a good man—as Jesus said, a man in whom there was no deceit. And apparently he had an open mind, because when his friend said, “Come and see,” and he did. He talked to Jesus and saw. A humorous part being that Jesus saw him first—before even Philip brought him. Seeing begets seeing because each new insight gives birth to another. Jesus assured the astonished Nathanael that he would see even more. This is the promise of the new covenant that comes with the incarnation of God’s love on Earth. “Come and see,” says Philip to his friend. Says Eli to Samuel, “If he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” Looking is a good first step—being ready to see and know. But whether or not YOU look, God has already searched you out and known you, discerning your thoughts from afar as Psalm 139 so beautifully says. And just as Jesus says to Nathanael, you will see even greater things than a God who knows you and recognizes you standing under a shade tree.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good,” says the psalmist [Ps.34: 8]. See and know. There is plenty of room at this table and all are welcome. Come and see.

Wikipedia defines an epiphany, from the ancient Greek epiphaneia, which has a literal meaning of “manifestation, striking appearance” as an experience of sudden and striking realization. In the case of Jesus, we celebrate the revelation that he was the incarnation of God’s love on Earth. As a culture, we have typically made Epiphany about the arrival of the wise men. They are described as kings in the Bible, and scholars believe that’s so because they are meant to represent the many nations that recognized the sovereignty of this newborn king of heaven. Whether they were magi in the strict sense, who were a priestly mystical Persian religious class or kings in their own right, doesn’t matter as much as the fact that there are what I think of as four important messages to think about regarding humankind’s reaction to the birth of Jesus.

1. The wisest and first person to recognize the significance of God incarnate while Jesus was still in utero was John the Baptist, himself still a fetus. He reacted with the only communication he could while still in the womb—he leapt and let his mama know something had stirred him. So the Holy Spirit filled Elizabeth, his mother, and she cried out recognizing the blessing that was Mary’s baby.
2. The innocent shepherds had a visitation of from an angel who told them about the baby. They believed the angel without question, though of course the multitude of heavenly beings singing “Glory to God” after the pronouncement probably helped convince them. But these innocent people of no social standing went right away to see that God had done something new, and they went without question to figure out what it was and see the baby. They told Mary what the angel had told them and the Bible told us she pondered these things in her heart. She had a lot of thinking to do. Anyway, the shepherds left and then Matthew tells us they were glorifying and praising God for all they had seen and heard.
3. And then the supposedly wise representatives of the power structure of other nations showed up bearing gifts. The rest of the people: the religious authorities of Israel and Judah: it took them a long time to catch up. Theirs was not an epiphany, but rather a slow dawning–
4. The fourth thing you might consider is a question. It’s the what’s-in-it-for-you part: Can you recognize love incarnate when you see it? Is that recognition a powerful and abrupt “aha” or is it the type of realization that takes some time?

Because you see, whether you are a person of wisdom or a person of innocence, or maybe even a person of ignorance for whatever reason, you are invited to look upon the promise of love incarnate in Mary’s baby.

We, as Christians, are all invited to look for the face of Jesus– love incarnate,  in the eyes of our neighbors. When we can see him there, it’s just a short jump to the next step—loving that neighbor.

May God bless you with wisdom and love whoever you are so that you never lose sight of the promise of that baby.