When There's Nowhere to Hide - Mark 1:21-28
The thing about the Gospel of Mark is that there’s nowhere to hide. Sometimes a preacher wants to ease into a message with a joke or a relatable anecdote. Often, a preacher wants to highlight an issue that affects the whole community while strategically glossing over her personal struggle with a passage. Usually, a preacher is able to calculate the precise amount of vulnerability that is necessary or appropriate from the pulpit.
Mark has no time for these machinations. For Mark, the fate of the world is on the line and not a single word will be wasted, or offered up for the preacher to rest on. In today’s Gospel, Mark’s Jesus has come into the house of worship and announced that everyone who is focused on their religious tradition, on prayer, study and worship, even those who made a career out of these practices, are completely missing the point. …great.
So! I’m just going to lean in. I’m going to accept that I’m not coming out of this story or this sermon looking good, at all, and just take that idea off the table. We’re going to approach Mark together today without a safety net, without any religious armor, and we’re going to listen for what Mark wants so urgently for us to hear about Christ and about the Kingdom of God.
To emphasize Mark’s urgency, let me offer a comparison. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus first reveals a glimpse of his divine power in chapter four, when the narrator casually mentions that folks in the countryside were coming to Jesus to be healed of their various ailments. There’s no fanfare here, and there aren’t yet any repercussions for Jesus’ actions.
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus also waits until chapter four to reveal any hint of his power. He then angers the leaders in the synagogue with his teaching, and in a mob they drive him out to a cliff with the intention of pushing him over, but the text tells us “he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” There is a sense here that Jesus was able to use supernatural abilities to escape the mob, but again, there’s no fanfare and no response from the people.
John’s Gospel speeds up the revelation of divine power. In chapter two, Jesus changes water into wine at the wedding at Cana. The narrative here is slightly more dramatic and people certainly understand that something incredible has happened. Jesus begins to garner attention not just for his teaching but for what he can do.
But, when it comes to Jesus’ first impression as a divine figure, the other Gospels seem tame next to Mark. We have not yet made it out of chapter one, and Jesus has already cast out demons, in the synagogue, on the Sabbath, and has been named by the evil spirits as the Holy One of God. Mark is in a hurry. For Mark, the cosmic battle of good versus evil is raging as we speak and it will not do to mince words when describing the lengths that our God will go to in order to win it.
Mark talks about God’s power in terms of authority. The word is used often in this Gospel. For Mark, someone has authority when they have the power to influence their environment and the people around them. When we enter the narrative today, we're in a world where the scribes in the synagogue hold the authority. They have earned this power to influence because they are the most educated and the most devout in their religious community.
But from the moment he enters the scene, Jesus is able to accomplish things that the scribes cannot. Jesus can silence and then completely overtake the evil spirit among them. The community’s worldview about power is immediately brought into question, and so is ours. Mark is telling us, in his opening chapter, that our assumptions about who holds authority in the world are sorely misguided.
What does this mean for Episcopalians who love to read and study and worship and raise up leaders who we feel are most worthy of holding spiritual authority. And, thinking back to my commitment to vulnerability today, what does this mean for those of us leaders who have been raised up and made an entire career out of these practices?
In his distinct economy of words, Mark has spoken to this query. In response to Jesus’ surprise exorcism in the synagogue, the disciples and those gathered respond by asking one another, “What is this teaching?” Not, what is this healing, or what is this miracle, or what is the magic nonsense, but what is this teaching? Mark wants us to understand that Jesus’ actions are not just displays of power to wow us and earn our praise and worship. They are lessons, which we can read, mark, learn, inwardly digest - and emulate.
Even though it was the Sabbath, so the time wasn’t right, and even though they were in the synagogue, so the place wasn’t right, and even though he was not a scribe or religious leader, so his credentials weren’t right, Jesus boldly proclaimed the truth in the face of evil.
As human beings, we will usually be the scribes in this story. We will be the people working our tails off to do the right thing at the right time in the right place. To attend all the worship services and pay attention to all the sermons and pray all the right prayers and give our money to all the right causes.
And Jesus will continue to barge in, in chapter one of Mark’s Gospel, and tell us to sit up, look around, and boldly speak the truth to the evil spirits of the world, no matter who we are. We are all, always qualified for this holy task, and we must go about it urgently.
As a priest, a pastor, a preacher, a teacher, I know that I do not take this crucial lesson from Jesus as seriously as I should. I like to keep my head down and hope that my prayers and my worship and my study of the scriptures will be enough to help bring about the Kingdom of God here on earth.
Meanwhile, people with political and religious and social power all around me are making decisions that minimize opportunities for education, healthcare, and returns on labor for the most vulnerable and underprivileged in our society. When a spirit of evil possesses our community, unlike Jesus, I usually stay silent. Like I told you, with Mark, there’s no place to hide.
I know the inner work I have to do in light of today’s Gospel passage. But what about Christ Church as a community of faith? Today is our annual parish meeting. It’s in the canons of the Episcopal Church in Arkansas that all parishes get together as a body once a year and I look forward to this tenet of parish life every January.
It’s time to reminisce, and to dream, to talk about high and holy things like Easter plans and mundane but important things like the budget. But this year, I don’t think we can ignore that Mark is calling us to spend time together examining not only how we pray and worship, but how we speak our bold truth to the evil powers of our world.
It was evident at our parish meeting that Christ Church is a beacon of love and light in the downtown community. We offer literal sanctuary to those in physical and spiritual need, and we work tirelessly to show those around us that our God is a God of compassion and forgiveness.
I look forward in 2024 to seeing how Christ Church will hear Mark’s words and answer the call of Christ to silence and overtake the evil that inhabits the world, because the world surely needs it. We may never feel like it’s the right time or the right place, or that we are best suited for the task, but more than anything, Mark wants us to know that Christ has called us anyway, and there’s no better time than right now. Amen.