Like 600,000 – 1.2 million people a former parishioner of mine was struggling.  When the deacons went to her house with a pastoral peer counselor to help her; the stuff was piled up high on every wall, years old newspapers and magazines and garbage bags full of garbage until it was unsafe. There was only one way out of the house with tiny pathways through hallways to the kitchen and bath.  The bathtub was full, unusable.  The deacons gently helped her when she agreed to remove what she identified as garbage and then over time talked with her about a facility that could support her as she aged.  Finally she moved and was thrilled with her new surroundings.   A new reality show on TV has highlighted this malady called hoarding. 

            We all struggle with compulsions and tendencies.   We all have certain behaviors and characteristics that are more or less self-defeating.  Maybe you could think of it this way, we all struggle at some point with things in our lives that are not life giving, that hold us in bondage.  For some of us it’s in the area of relationships, for others perhaps in the area of our physical well-being, for others it may be career related, for others personal habits, like procrastination or disorganization are our downfall.   There are also things like unforgiven actions or personal disappointments, failed expectations by ourselves or those dear to us that hold us captive, resentments that keep us from being our best or from full joy and happiness.   

            Then there are what could be considered more severe conditions that debilitate; diseases like alcoholism and mental illness like hoarding, that wreak havoc on our lives and those around us.  Other conditions that can bind and hold captive are physical and mental disabilities that without the support of loving community can cause persons in such circumstances to feel oppressed and ostracized, to be bound in their own skin, unable to live fully.  Some people might even call these demons.

            Maybe you’ve heard the story of the Native American Chief who was talking with the youth of his tribe who shared his understanding of this human dilemma.  He said, “We all have within us the good wolf and the evil wolf.  The good wolf helps us find ways to be that are life giving and that nurture us. The good wolf has our best interest in mind and guides us to good relationships and activities that will bring benefit to us.  The evil wolf does not have our best interest in mind.  The evil wolf allows us to do things that undermine our wellbeing and relationships.  The evil wolf encourages our darker side, our less productive and less loving side.” 

            A young brave asked the Chief, “Which wolf will win?” 

            The Chief replied, “The wolf that you feed.”

This story in Mark of Jesus healing the man with the unclean spirit is at least about Jesus desire and authority to liberate us from those compulsions and tendencies and habits within us, even those addictions and illnesses  that are not life giving.   Jesus gives us the power to feed the god wolf.

The person who enters the synagogue is completely controlled by the unclean spirit.  He doesn’t even speak.  In that day, this one would have been ostracized, it’s amazing that he even gets that far into the synagogue – where were the guards, anyway?  Anyone who has debilitating illness, physical impairments, behavior that is out of the ordinary, circumstances of their own doing or not, is considered a sinner, a person outside of God’s favor.  They are sent out away from the normal people, where they can’t spread their germs or sin or condition or misbehavior. 

When I was in Liberia in 1996, we went up country to a small village.  In this village there was one woman who had not been able to conceive a child and after several years of trying her husband divorced her.  This situation was enough that she was considered deficient in some way, unclean in the biblical language, and she became unwelcome in the village.  She was forced to live outside in the bush and scavenger for food and warmth.  There were several villagers who took pity on her and would sneak her food but at a great risk to themselves and their own standing in the village.  This situation of being ostracized still exists in the world today. 

Jesus demonstrates authority over this unclean spirit that holds the man captive.  Over and over again in Jesus miracles he cleanses and heals and brings people life by changing their circumstances and bringing them back into health but more importantly restoring them to community. 

Following Jesus is a liberating experience.  Jesus desire is that whatever holds us captive does not have power over us.  In God’s preferred reality, all are free to be who God created them to be.  In the gospel of John, Jesus says, “I came that all may have abundant life.”

But that’s not all Jesus does in this story.  In this story Jesus is in the city of Capernaum, the city being the center of the power (as opposed to the rural areas or villages where the poor lived) and he’s in the synagogue, the location of religious authority.  The crowd is astonished by the contrast between Jesus teachings and the teachings of the scribes. 

The scribes of Jesus day were people who had authority.  They were knowledgeable because they copied the scriptures and other important documents that contained the laws of how society should be governed.  They were the ones who carried on the traditions.  They sought to preserve Judaism against people who would threaten their ways.   Their authority was in terms of what they knew from the past and how they passed it on.  But it appears to be the case that mostly they passed the rules on.  They didn’t have any way of evaluating the laws in terms of whether they were good laws or not.  They simply passed them on.  There was no consideration of how these laws affected the people. 

There were more laws than one could memorize, laws about what to eat and what not to eat, laws about how much was to be paid for the sacrifice for a certain kind of sin and what kind of prayer one must say to address this particular violation. How far one could walk and how many potatoes you could peal on the Sabbath.  The laws were for the sake of the community but they had become a prison.  The spirit of the law was gone and there was no redemption.

When we were growing up Sunday dinner was pot roast.  Now, I love pot roast especially with potatoes and carrots. My mom makes the best.  But it was a kind of rule that you had to have pot roast on Sunday.  I didn’t understand it until one day I heard a woman at church say, “The kids won’t come home for Sunday dinner unless I fix pot roast.”  Some rules have life giving implications – they call children home on one day a week to gather around the family table.  But rules that have died, or worse hold people hostage, are ungodly. 

 

Christian historian Jaroslav Pelikan makes a distinction that I think is helpful here.  He says “Tradition is the living faith of the dead.  Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”  Traditions are life giving and nurture faith; traditionalism is the living holding on to what is comfortable but no longer brings life to the community and perhaps holds us captive.  

You’ve heard about the woman who cut the ham in half for Easter dinner?  Her daughter, an aspiring cook paying close attention asked her, “Mom, why do you cut the ham in half?”  Her mother stopped for a minute and said, “You know, I’m not sure.  Grandma always did.  Go ask her.”  The granddaughter goes to grandma and asks, “Grandma, why do we cut the ham in half?”  Grandma replies, “I don’t know why your mother does, but I did because unless I cut it in half, it wouldn’t fit in my pan.”

The stage is set for the ultimate showdown between the scribes and Jesus.   All of a sudden, there is in the midst of them is one who is possessed.   The unclean spirit  inquires what Jesus is doing there; almost as though he speaks out of the subconscious of the scribes.   “What is all this to you and me?” he seems to be saying.  “Let’s get out of here and go fight in the spiritual realm. Let’s take it outside.  Don’t think that you are going to do anything to upset the status quo among these humans!”   But Jesus stays put.  He calls the unclean spirit out of the man.  Jesus, in contrast, is acknowledging that it is precisely in the middle of the human predicament is where he belongs.   His action is in direct confrontation with the authority of those who make the laws that bind the people.  He is bringing into the center of the power structures his claim that the community of God’s people be the source of liberation and freedom not an institution that ostracizes, alienates and holds people captive. 

As Jesus heals people and invites them to go to the religious leaders for the rituals that will declare them clean, he demonstrates the real issue.  They have built walls around God’s love; they have created barriers to the community and enslaved people with their laws.  They have so many rules that hold so many captive there is no life in them any longer.  Jesus confronts the religious authorities with this reality, calling into question their ability to represent God to the people.  They are cutting ham in half when they have a pan big enough.  They should be cooking pot roast so the kids will come home for dinner. 

Of course, just coming into contact with the people who are ostracized, the widow and prostitutes, the drunkards and gluttons, the tax collectors and beggars, Jesus demonstrates the way it is in God’s reign, the way God intends for it to be.  Jesus shows what it means to be hospitable and inclusive and how that way is against all that is not life giving, all that binds and holds us captive.   And ultimately this behavior, this liberating behavior of creating community that is inclusive will threaten the powers and cost Jesus his life.  We might better beware. 

We are called to the liberating work of Jesus; to give people fish, to teach people to fish and to take down the fence around the lake.  But, when we call on the powers that be to change the laws to include the outsider called the illegal immigrant we are threatening the status quo. When we call on the powers to change the laws so all can have access to health care we threaten the resources of the powerful.  When we call on the powers to recognize relationships between same sex couples that will cost them money or votes, we better watch our back. 

            During this time of interim, one of the tasks is to look at the structures of Edgewood United Church.  There is an opportunity to evaluate the ways we function, rules either implicit or explicit that govern, to see if they are indeed life giving ways.  We should lay everything on the table, ask those with the least to lose if they are indeed life giving structures or if they bind and hold captive. 

Theologian and poet Gerhard Frost in his poem "Loose-Leaf" describes it this way.

“When your options are either
to revise your beliefs
or to reject a person,
look again.

Any formula for living
that is too cramped
for the human situation
cries for rethinking.

Hardcover catechisms
are a contradiction
to our loose-leaf lives.”

             We have been liberated by the one who calls us to follow, not the laws of humankind that can bind us, but the love of the One who created us and desires that we live whole and abundantly.  We have been given the greatest resource in the power of the spirit to create this beloved community, this family of God where all are welcome. We have access to this resource where no matter who you are or where you have been on life’s journey you are welcome here.  This blessed gift is worth sharing with all.  May we have the courage to take a look and see if we are in any way building walls that are barriers, reinforcing structures that hold captive, or if we are creating bridges that are inviting all into God’s love.