Fourth Sunday after Epipany, Year B, January 28, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of peace, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

In our reading from Deuteronomy this morning, we hear a portion of Torah teaching about maintaining the welfare of the community. It comes after this instruction, “If there is among you anyone in need within the land that you inhabit, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand…give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so…open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor.” It’s worth remembering that compassion is one of the hallmark values of Deuteronomy. [1] Compassion is an ordering principle for Torah.

Moses gives assurance to folks that the Holy One raises up prophets for the community in every generation. He says, “Pay attention to them because this is what you asked for.” I love the line “If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, I will die.” I don’t think we need to take that literally any more than we should take verse 15 literally when it says that someone who offers prophesy in the name of other gods or says what has not been commanded will die. Indeed, the next two verses say, “You may wonder, ‘How can we recognize a word that the Lord has not spoken?’ If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; do not be afraid of him.” Do not be afraid, just do the next right thing yourselves.

In commentary on this passage, former Chief Rabbi of the UK, Jonathan Sacks, explains that Biblical prophecy is not the same as prediction. Because of free will, human future cannot be reliably predicted. Rabbi Sacks teaches: “A [biblical] prophet does not foretell. He [or she] warns. A prophet does not speak to predict future catastrophe but rather to avert it… The real test of prophecy is not bad news but good [news]. Calamity, catastrophe, disaster prove nothing… It is only by the realization of a positive vision that prophecy is put to the test. So it was with Israel’s prophets…They warned of the dangers that lay ahead. But they were also, without exception, agents of hope. They could see beyond the catastrophe to the consolation. That is the test of a true prophet.” [2] Look for and listen to prophets who see beyond the catastrophe to the consolation of returning to right relationship with one another and with the Divine.

In our Epistle, Paul (a true prophet) was writing to the gathered community in Corinth to address a conflict about ethical behavior when it came to eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Apparently some people were using the power of their intellectual reasoning or theological knowledge to trip up people who were not as educated. Paul was cautioning them not to let their exousia – their strength, liberty, authority, hurt others. For Paul, love, not knowledge, must be the ordering principle, the ultimate authority. Individual adjustments in behavior must be made to benefit the communal body, with love, for love. Do you know the wisdom saying (often mistakenly attributed to the Buddha): before speaking in a community, one should ascertain whether the information about to be shared is true, beneficial, and kind? It’s a good rule of thumb.

This exousia that Paul is talking about is also at the heart of our Gospel lesson from Mark. Exousia, translated as authority, also means liberty or strength. Jesus taught with it – with a kind of power or freedom that those employed as religious scholars did not have, in Mark’s opinion. It’s possible to read this as descriptive and not derogatory language against the scribes. But it’s generally understood as a potshot at the religious scholars of the day. Mark had disparaging things to say about religious leaders dozens of times. It signaled an internal conflict that would eventually grow into violent Christian anti-Semitism. I don’t want to linger there, and yet I cannot let it go without comment when the Ark is in my peripheral view. We Episcopalians actually are quite like the scribes. Scholarship matters to us. Tradition matters to us. Laws matter to us. Scripture matters to us. Let’s not trash talk scribes in any age.

Jesus’ first work of wonder (some would say a miracle), according to Mark, took place on the Sabbath in the assembly or synagogue, when a contaminated spirit in a guy started shouting at Jesus. The polluted spirit in the guy asked Jesus, “have you come to destroy us?” And Jesus warned the unclean spirit – the demon – to be silent and come out of the man. In other words, yes, if destroy means clean up, Jesus had come to clean up the mess of unclean spirits. What Jesus told the unclean spirit is “shut up and get out of him!” Jesus did not say, “be silent” to the demon. Jesus did not say, “let’s talk.” Jesus said, literally, “put a muzzle on it” to the polluted spirit that was occupying or pre-occupying a man in the Sabbath gathering of the faith community in Capernaum. Notably, Jesus didn’t make the man leave. He just warned the demon to shut up so that the man could be restored to community.

Mark wants us to know there was something about Jesus’ teaching that was powerful, authoritative and liberating — thrilling to some folks and disturbing to others –healing for some and threatening to others. Exousia is most often associated with casting out demons in Mark’s Gospel. (The idea of demons had emerged in 3^rd century BCE Jewish literature as a way to explain the experience of evil. [3]) You know, in Mark, demons always know that Jesus is the Holy One of God – the disciples don’t seem to get it, but the demons always do. In fact, in Mark, one real sign of the effectiveness of Jesus’ ministry is when oppressive forces start screaming bloody murder. And Jesus demonstrated surprising authority (power or license) over those oppressive forces that backed people into narrow places, that pushed people down, that put the squeeze on, that limited life and freedom, and alienated people from each other and from their true selves. Jesus wasn’t only proclaiming release – he was enacting it, demonstrating that compassion is an ordering principle for Gospel.

I bet many of us believe in the demonic when it’s defined as what alienates people from each other and from their true selves. We probably all agree that human growth and freedom is not what it ought to be! So I wonder, how do we get what terrifies us or shames us into alienation, into division and estrangement, out of our heads, and out of our communal psyches? I don’t want to suggest that we should all become Jerks for Jesus, shouting “shut up and get out!” But I often wonder if, in our disdain of other over-confident, overly pious Christians, we become under-confident, under-reverent about our own God-given authority and power to set others free.

What if we stopped shrinking from or tolerating those unclean spirits – those oppressive forces — those demons – that terrify us or shame us into alienation, separation and estrangement? What if we could get clearer that forces that alienate and diminish the integrity and dignity of human beings, are decidedly unwelcome? Forces like enmity, cruelty, jealousy, greed, disregard, domination, shame, the list goes on and on. By contrast, exousia comes from truth telling, accountability, the assertion of human integrity and dignity, giving and receiving love, even in the midst of struggle. Asserting exousia recalls the spirit back to its divine task, which is to serve the well-being of the world. I want us to continue to expand our capacity for assertive and non-violent responses to the unclean or diseased spirits that shout in our own heads, in our homes, in our parish, on the street – wherever?

Because next Sunday Emmanuel Church will hold our Annual Meeting, I have been swimming in the annual report contributions from all parts of our life together as a parish – thirty-two of them to be exact. There are draft copies available for you in the main lobby. I encourage you to read it if you can. (It will also be available on our website by this Wednesday.) I hope you’ll be as amazed and inspired as I am by the depth and reach of the ministry of this parish, which serves the needs of the wider community every day around the clock. I made a little list of the reasons that 1500 or so people come through our doors each week: to pray for help, to pray in thanks, and to pray in wonder; to listen, to speak, to sing, to play; to be quiet and to make noise (sometimes a lot of noise); to cook, to serve, to eat, to eliminate; to heal, to sleep, to get woke; to remember, to forget, to meet; to offer assistance and receive assistance; to get their hands dirty and to get clean; to practice; to try again and again; to engage, to rest from engaging; to work, to have fun; to set free and to get free; to deliver and to be delivered; to warm up, to cool off; to create and recreate. What every single person has in common, as far as I can tell, is a deep desire to be believed and to be beloved, which requires a great deal of compassion from everyone involved.

Fortunately, compassion is cultivated and harvested here, and that is something we have in common with Capernaum – the home base of Jesus’ ministry. Our English rendering of Capernaum completely obscures its meaning. Capernaum is a compound of two words – Kfar (which means village) and Nahum (which means compassion or comfort). Kfar Nahum means Village of Compassion. And get this: according to archaeologists, 1^st century Capernaum was a village of about 1500 people. Emmanuel Church is a village of compassion about the same size.

Our appointed collects and hymns today plead for peace. Our cantata hopes for protection. But I want us to be clear that peace and protection of Jesus don’t come by simply silencing loud or otherwise disturbing voices. Peace and protection come by just distribution of resources, and the just distribution of resources comes from treating one another with kindness and restoring community in ever widening circles. I urge you to find ways to work for peace and protection by engaging as fully as you can in this or any other community where compassion is grown; where compassion is the ordering principle.

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