Loading...I’m not a huge fan of big budget movies, especially when they are doomsday kind of movies –
Independence Day or War of the Worlds or Armageddon or the like.
For one thing, all the explosions and violence....
But, also, it seems to me that movies and shows of that genre like to build up and increase fear rather than diminish it.
Let’s be honest, there are many things that we fear:
Things that go bump in the night
Increase of taxes
Being infected with Coronavirus
Ecological disasters – can we say “fire season”?
Insurrection
A loss of what feels normal and natural to us
Strangers
Death
Unbelief
It’s enough to send us down a rabbit hole!
One day, soon after stepping out on his own and gathering followers,
Jesus went to a synagogue for worship/community.
He started teaching
with authority
the kind of authority that was not like the regular teachers’.
Hmmmmm, puzzling and curious.....
While there, another worshiper,
a man who might have been seen as an interloper
because he was possessed by an unclean spirit,
who was there at the synagogue also,
cried out loudly, “Ack! What are you doing here, Jesus of Nazareth?!?”
Except, it wasn’t really the man who cried out, but the demons within him.
That’s kind of jarring for us to hear
demons possessing a man.
We think of horror movies,
or uneducated ways of thinking of mental illness,
or old timey religious teaching.
Yet, there it is.
The demons possessing the man – multiple demons, please note –
recognize Jesus as holy and want to know why he wants to bother them.
After all, they are perfectly content to possess this man
even if he’s in bad shape.
They don’t mind if they are wreaking havoc on his life
and destroying him.
But, Jesus does.
Jesus tells the demons to come out of the man.
Jesus not only heals the man of the demons trying to destroy his life,
but, Jesus also makes it possible for the man be in community again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, we need Jesus now, don’t we?!?
“Coronavirus! Come out of the people!”
“Physical distancing! Be rebuked!”
We may not talk about demons possessing people anymore,
but maybe there are demons which possess us as a community,
as a nation,
as members of the human race.
There are demons, or demonic forces, at work around us.
No, not necessarily the little imps that sit on your shoulder!
But, forces around us that draw us -- entice us –
away from God and God’s love for and faith in us.
There are definitely others,
and you may struggle with some of those hard feelings of loss or despair.
Racism, poverty, violence in neighborhoods or at home or at school,
religious and ideological intolerance,
sexism, war, greed, militarism, homophobia,
conspiracy theories which have gained traction,
out-of-control capitalism, extreme individualism. To name just a few.
“But Jesus rebuked the demons, saying, “Be silent! Come out of them!!”
This is indeed a life giving teaching – with authority!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fear and anxiety,
however they might manifest in your life,
are powerful forces.
But, they are not the most powerful.
They are fallible. They fall apart. They lose power. They collapse.
When you are caught up in them, it doesn’t seem like they are collapsing, loosing power, falling apart, or fallible!
I get that.
Yet, you are not alone in the midst of their possession of you.
It may seem so, especially in a time of pandemic and physical distancing
and maybe even isolation.
You are not alone because there IS community.
WE are all called to be community together.
This is God’s invitation, nay, command each of us –
show up for one another! Love one another.
Embody God’s compassion for the world.
You are not alone because you are connected to God
who loves you fiercely and passionately.
You are not alone because you have a way to deepen that connection to God in prayer, meditation, silence, and time with God.
A word about prayer, shared by scholar and Pastor Osvaldo Vena,
‘Prayer is not a pious resignation to God’s will, or an exercise that puts our minds at each, but rather, to quote another preacher,
“that intensely personal struggle within each disciple, and among us collectively, to resist the despair and distractions that cause us to practice unbelief, to abandon or avoid the way of Jesus.”
In other words, Pr. Vena says,
it is the struggle to believe that change can really happen,
[that] a better world is possible.’
So, you are not alone because
your prayers connect you to God and to one another
and empower you to both resist the forces of evil
and to act for hope, joy, and compassion in the world.
You are not alone because--
Here is Jesus, with authority and a Word of life and healing for you:
“Be silent!” he says to the demons, “Come out of them!”
This power, and authority, and compassion, and life,
is for you. Now and every day.
