Preaching Paths 28 January 2024

Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary

In today’s text (Mk 1:20-28), we find Jesus in Galilee where he has been proclaiming that the eschatological clock has advanced (“the time is fulfilled”) and the hour of confrontation with unholy powers, spiritual and earthly, has come (“the reign of God has come near”).  Now, a dramatic opening scene in a Capernaum synagogue sets the scope and goals of Jesus’ mission and highlights the issue of his authority. At its center is an exorcism. Preachers must decide how they will talk about “evil spirits.” Jesus’ confrontation with these and other powers is basic to Mark’s Christology.

As a visiting instructor at an urban seminary, I had a student who preached on another Markan exorcism (the Gerasene demoniac, ch 5). He began with phrasing both deft and unforgettable: “Jesus gets out of a boat and meets a man gripped by forces beyond his control. Less than two miles from here [he named a notoriously drug-infested intersection], you will meet a man pacing, ranting, gripped by forces beyond his control:” A man in the grip of drug addiction!  Cultures where spirit-possession is an assumed threat are fewer today. Yet we, too, know about powers that possess.

Jesus’ teaching in Capernaum provokes a loud interruption. A man in the synagogue whose body has been overtaken by an “evil spirit” shouts. “They” (multiple spirits?) hurl a defensive challenge: “Leave [us] be! What business do you have with us?” Jesus tells the “spirit/spirits” to “shut up” (literally) and leave. With a convulsive shriek, the occupying presence flees. Yet, the crowd is “amazed,” says Mark, not by the exorcism itself, but by the character of Jesus’ teaching–”new” and “with authority,” not like that of the scribes. Scribes were experts in the broad tradition of rabbinic interpretation. Scribal teaching meant taking up a text and quoting by heart diverse rabbinic opinions on each line of it, seeking its meaning. Today’s expository preaching method borrows from this tradition in pursuing line-by-line, verse-by-verse interpretation, and can be helpful. But Jesus’s listeners witness something arrestingly different: they hear and see God’s reality-shifting power unleashed in word and deed.

If anything, the powerful forces that can take over human lives are more numerous today than ever. Many are of human creation. Fentanyl-laced pills, impossible to distinguish visually from safe ones, can ravage mental judgment and ultimately kill. Sex traffickers lure children into inescapable slavery. Artificial intelligence is capable of creating fake pronouncements—political, military, or medical—that feature genuine authorities and are indistinguishable from authentic alerts. The consequences can be disastrous.  Social media creates seamlessly convincing webs of false “facts,” labelling as fraudulent “conspiracy” propaganda any real events and demonstrable facts that might induce critical, alternative thinking.  Powerful illusions stoke fear and grievance—and unshakable loyalty.

Communities of faith—speaking, praying and acting in the boldness of the Spirit—can challenge mind-and-body capturing webs of power like these. Undoubtedly, we need to analyze these powerful webs of influence to confront them; yet, analyzing readily becomes an end in itself. Our Christologies too often amount to self-serving notions of “belonging to Jesus.” Mark’s is a Christology of real-world deeds and courageous confrontation with powerful forces. This lectionary year, it is Mark’s Jesus we must reckon with. Mark’s Jesus confronts exploitative power in all its forms. Mark’s Jesus still recruits us, here and now, to continue God’s truth-exposing, liberating work.