Dealing With Our Demons

Mark 1:21-28

February 1, 2015

So what is a unclean spirit doing in a place of worship?

A church, a synagogue?

Demons aren’t allowed in places like this. Right?

I bet those people that went to that synagogue were mortified.

They have, Jesus, this guest preacher in.

He obviously knows what he’s doing.

A very prestigious person.

And that man with the unclean spirit starts yelling at him.

I mean they probably have learned to ignore the man,

and act like he wasn’t there but to have him yell

The Possessed Man in the Synagogue
James Tissot, 1886

at the visitor like that!

That’s not the image that we want

in our place of worship, right?

In a church, everyone is nice and respectful.

everyone is kind and patient. 

Reasonable and balanced.

We wouldn’t let an unclean spirit 

roam around the church.

We’re better that that.

It sounds silly, but that’s kind of how

people of God have acted

for the last few thousand years.

From the Pharisees to the church ladies.

We’ve tried to act like we’re different in here than out there.

While we’re in church, we’ve tried to

trying to quell every kind of normal thing

that would happen out there-

No coughing, no talking, no crying,

no screaming, no bodily functions.

And definitely not a place to share our

sorrow or pain, fears, and shortcomings.

I remember vividly, at five years old,

my grandmother trying to make me sit perfectly still through church.

Honestly, she scolded me for just fidgeting in my seat.

Up until that point, I had never given the indication

that I would sit still for anything else,

but we were in church. So her expectation went way high.

It’s almost as if the culture of church

makes us want to check our humanity at the door.

We have done our best to act like we’re

set apart from the rest of the world.

Like somehow as believers, we’re not as human as everyone else.

Like somehow we don’t need Jesus.

I wonder how long that man with the unclean spirit

had been coming to the synagogue.
How many outbursts, how much discomfort,

how much sorrow and pain he had to endure alone

as people pretended it wasn’t happening.

How many times did people look away,

roll their eyes, and ignore him -

Before Jesus came in and did something about it.

When I was about 13,

I pretty much stopped going to church

like a lot of people do at that age.

And I used the same excuse that many people use.
The church was too hypocritical.

People were not living out what was being taught.

There was gossip, and bad behavior, lying,

people hurting other people’s feelings,

leaving people out, just like there was in the real world.

I started to become a little self-righteous

(13 is about when people start to become a little self righteous.)

I convinced myself that I would never do that sort of thing.

But I did come back to church.

And looking back,

I have certainly not been perfect.

I have had my moments of unclean spirits,

I have been hypocritical just like everyone else has.

If I could talk to the 13 year old me,

I would tell her that I was thinking about the church all wrong.

(She wouldn’t listen, of course, but I would still tell her.)

The church is not meant to be a place separate

from the rest of the world.

Sanitized from bad activity, pure and clean.

The church is just like the world, demons and all.

In the church, we learn how to recognize demons,

other people’s and our own,

and we learn how to confront them and work on them

with the power and compassion and love of God.

 We don’t come to church just to worship God.

We come to church to be in community with other believers.

We come here to interact with others, to make decisions,

to disagree, to be in conflict, to manipulate,

to slip up and be short with one another –

To have our demons exposed in front of the congregation

and then to experience the power, forgiveness,

grace and mercy of God, through the community.

We are as human as the rest of the world.

And places of worship are supposed to be

the places where we can bring the worst of our humanity

and have Jesus meet us.

It’s the place where we can repent and forgive.

Where our darkness can meet the light of God.

Walking in the light,

doesn’t mean being perfect, or better than others.

It actually means realizing we are not light ourselves.

Letting God’s light rest on us.

And letting that light change and transform us.

Like in that synagogue

this is the place where Jesus meets us,

confronts our demons and transforms us.

And when our demons are confronted by the light of Christ,

in truth, love, mercy and forgiveness,

that is when we are truly changed and set free.