“And he cured many who were sick with
various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons
to speak, because they knew him.” From the Gospel for today, the Gospel of
Mark, chapter 1, verse 34.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus
Sancti. Amen.
The whole of the first chapter of Mark’s
Gospel is a presentation of the authority of Jesus, of the authority of his
teaching, and his authority over demons, or unclean spirits. However we name
them, they are important to the story. The people of the time that the Gospel
was written believed in them without question; people in our time may or may
not believe in them, but their roles in the story have something to tell us
about Jesus in any case.
At the very beginning of the Gospel, in
verse 1, well before the beginning of today’s reading, Mark writes, “The
beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark is the only
Evangelist to title his book Gospel, or Good News. Even the very form of the
book itself is new; the combination of teaching, miracles, and biography of a
sort, is a new thing in the ancient world. Everything about Mark’s book is new,
from its name to its contents to its structure to its purpose. This newness emphasizes
the newness, the uniqueness of its main character, whom Mark gives the title
Son of God. Mark repeats it when he records that God himself gives Jesus this
title, later in the chapter, in verse 11.
Further in the chapter, Mark writes, “They
went to Capernaum…he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at
his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the
scribes;” again the emphasis on the authority of Jesus, and his uniqueness. Even
the unclean spirit which possesses a man in the synagogue knows who Jesus is,
and addresses him as “the Holy One of God.” Jesus rebukes the spirit, which
leaves the man, and the people say, “What is this? A new teaching --- with
authority. He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
This brings us to today’s reading, which
continues the themes which Mark has presented so far, and adds something new. Jesus
cures Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever. It is perhaps disconcerting to a modern
person to hear that the first thing she does after Jesus “lifts her up” is to
begin to serve them, that is, to wait on them. It is best not to take this too
literally; the deeper point is that Simon’s mother-in-law has been restored to
health, and to full participation in family and society. This reinforces Mark’s
point that Jesus’s work is, among other things, the restoration of spiritual
and physical health in everyone whom he encounters. There is no particular
argument being made here about the role of women. And as a side note, which I
hope won’t distract us, it is worth remembering that this text shows that Simon
is married. But I’ll save remarks about the marital status of the disciples for
another homily!
“They brought to him all who were sick or
possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he
cured many…and cast out many demons.” This is quite a scene! Imagine the crowd,
the eagerness, the need, the hope! Imagine the excitement, the awe even, as
Jesus exercises his authority and diseases are healed and demons are driven
out. It is worth noting what has attracted the crowd: the chance for healing.
It is Jesus’s power over the unclean spirits that has got everyone’s attention.
Remember what the people said in the synagogue at Capernaum; “He commands even
the unclean spirits, and they obey him! At once his fame began to spread.” It
is not his teaching, at this point, which attracts the crowd; it is his
authority over the unclean spirits.
“And he would not permit the demons to
speak, because they knew him.” The demons know who Jesus is, when humans do
not. The demons know spiritual authority when they see it, and they aren’t
reluctant to say so, as we heard earlier in the chapter, when unclean spirits
proclaim Jesus to be the Holy One of God. Jesus is not going to let them do
this again. Some scholars have said that this means that Jesus doesn’t intend
to claim that he is the Messiah. This is untrue. Jesus never denied the title
of Messiah or Son of God when he heard them. So, why is he holding back the
demons now?
He is holding them back because it is
premature to allow his Messiahship to be proclaimed. At this time, people in
Capernaum and all through Galilee associate Jesus with miraculous cures and
power over demons. Not with anything else, especially not with his teaching,
which, since we’re only at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, has been summed up
in one sentence only, in verse 15: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of
God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” But Mark makes it
clear that what is attracting the crowds is the miracle-working, not the
teaching. The teaching, if I’m reading the text correctly, has made hardly a
dent in the minds of Jesus’s hearers. He needs to do something about this, if
he isn’t to be overwhelmed by his celebrity as a miracle-worker.
“In the morning, while it was still very
dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” I don’t
know how Jesus gets away without being noticed, since the house is surrounded
by everyone in the city. But get away he does. I would like to know about the
content of Jesus’s prayer, but, since the Evangelist says nothing about it, we
are left with the bare statement that Jesus prays in solitude. And the solitude
is a clue. Jesus extracts himself from the crowd looking for miracles, for
signs and wonders, and places himself in God’s presence in solitude and
silence. The teaching here is that the source, the basis of Jesus’s teaching
and his authority is his closeness to God in solitude. He doesn’t allow himself
to be distracted by mass spectacle and wonder-working. He doesn’t allow Simon
and his companions to drag him back to the crowd. This is a teaching for the
disciples: large-scale wonder-working is
not the main point of Jesus’s work, or their work either.
Jesus says, “Let us go on to the
neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is
what I came out to do.” The message is the teaching of the kingdom, so briefly
announced at the beginning of the Gospel, and nearly overtaken by the desire of
the crowds for cures and demon-expulsion. The demons aren’t left behind though,
as Mark says, “he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message…and casting
out demons.” The message comes first. The casting out of demons is a sign of
the power of the message. The message is never subordinated to anything else.
Religion is often at risk of being turned
into magic, into a collection of quick supernatural fixes for real this-world
problems. The crowd in today’s Gospel wants to keep the message down to this
level, so to speak, to effect magical cures and not much more. But there is
more, and Jesus wants us to see the bigger picture of which the cures and so on
are only parts, only signs of a larger reality which Jesus calls the Kingdom.
Jesus is calling us to put spectacle and wonder-working in their place, as
signs of the fulfilment of time, and the coming of the Kingdom.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
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