1 Corinthians 8:1-3; Mark 1:21-28; January 28, 2024; Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Let’s begin today with a story. A true story. Years before I met Anya, I was on one of the first ever dating/matching sites. During the days of Napster and MySpace… remember those? It was a joke at the beginning; a friend had set up an account for me without my knowledge and set my location to San Diego. Annoyed at first, I then, days later, saw an AOL mail notification from a pretty attractive person out there, and I thought hey, this ain’t so bad after all.
Fast-forwarding a couple of weeks, I ended up AIM-messaging her back and forth. She was not only pretty, but smart, and a Christian, at that! And so, five months later, I was on a plane out west to meet her. Yes, this is all true. And at first, it was magical — it felt impossibly fantastic, yet also frighteningly real. I mean, for crying out loud, I even took a tour of San Diego State University, considering if I should transfer from Seton Hall. As I said, magical.
Well, the next day, after that tour, I finally met her. In person for the first time. We went out for a date in the gas-light district. Dinner. And it as amazing, so much so that we agreed to a second date the morning after at a bookstore. And there we walked up and down the aisles chatting about this book or that, before finally stopping in front of a towering display of all the recent Harry Potter novels colorfully presented.
Now there were only four novels at that time, but even so, the reception was huge, as was that display. And so, stopped there, with my hand in hers, I asked her what she thought of “The Goblet of Fire.” She turned immediately, snatching her hand away from mine, and looked at me as if I had cursed in her face. She demanded, “how can you read something so un-Christian?” Perplexed, as I thought there were some decent Christian themes therein, I asked her, “uh, what do you mean?” She screamed, “Brian, it’s about magic! And witchcraft! Don’t you know Deuteronomy 18:9-11?” Well, unsure what to say to that, I replied, “ah right, yeah, Deuteronomy 18:9-11…” And then I said, “you know though, my belly sort of hurts,” and as quickly as I could I hailed a taxi back to my hotel and got an early flight out the next morning.
Yep – it was magic that brought me out to her, to San Diego. And it was magic that sent me right back home to New Jersey. The terrible irony.
My friends, we think of magic, usually, as fake. As cheap parlor tricks. Elaborate illusions with impressive sleight-of-hand and misdirection. And within the realm of faith and religion, we often think of magic as phony. As the stuff of charlatans and scammers. As the stuff of wizards and witches. Or, worse, the enemy.
But magic, I think, it gets a bad rap. And has for some time. For magic can take your breath away. I mean have you ever been to Disney World? That’s right… It can stop you in your tracks and alter your perception of reality and what you think is possible. It can even make you wonder, hope, and believe.
And I think it’s for those reasons that magicians, the Magi, are the first to appear at Christ’s miraculous birth, to be in worder, to hope and believe. And I think it’s also why a dove (a magician’s favorite bird no less), comes out of the sky at the time of Jesus’ anointing at his baptism. For magic, at least in its purest sense, is awesome. Awe-some. And in magic’s awesome presence, the world becomes less hard and gray, and more colorful and indeed, more wonderful.
Mary Oliver, that great poet, writes: “Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled – to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world.”
And isn’t that true for us all? And isn’t that part of the joy of our faith? To float a little above this difficult world, dazzled, without the weight of hard facts?
Well, Deuteronomy doesn’t see it that way, and those verses, so quoted back to me by my friend out in San Diego, hammers that home.
When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn to imitate the abhorrent practices of those nations. For instance, no one shall be found among you who practices divination; or who is a soothsayer; an augur; a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults spirits. — Deuteronomy 18:9-11
Casts spells and consults spirts! Sound familiar? Our text from Mark today has Jesus doing just that! Dialoging with unclean spirits, casting spells and exorcising them. Jesus “rebukes” them and tells them “be silent!” Or more exactly in the Greek, “be muzzled!” Be muzzled. And this precise formula, my friends, of rebuking spirits followed by the command to “be muzzled,” was employed by notable pagan magicians in and around Jesus’ time and geography. Imagine that!
Ancient Roman and Jewish historians tell us of miracle-workers like Eleazar, Honi the Circle Maker, and Honi ben Dosa (great names) who all used the exact same words and incantations as Christ when performing similar miracles and signs; like in Eleazar’s case, Josephus tells us that he exorcised unclean spirits in the courts of the emperors (Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian) using literally the same formula. Rebuke and be muzzled.
Jesus then, really, as strange as it sounds, was performing something magical here, just as he does elsewhere when using spit and mud to heal the blind. But unlike the common healer and illusionist, Jesus does so without any intention of turning a buck or calling fame back to himself so to puff himself up – for, be silent he tells others just as he tells the spirits. And so instead of calling attention to himself, Jesus humbly draws attention away from himself, offering praise back to God his father in Heaven.
And yet, it’s in these demonstrations of humble yet miraculous healings that Jesus immediately begins to run afoul of the religious authorities who knew their laws from Deuteronomy all too well.
But you know what makes our text today all the more profound? It’s that this is Jesus’ first recorded miracle, at least according to both Mark and Luke. His first recorded action following his baptism and the calling of his disciples.
Immediately then (Mark’s favorite word: immediately), Jesus signals that he indeed comes with a new authority. And that this new authority won’t be concerned with the rigidity of rules, laws, or regulations, especially if they get in the way of loving and helping others by exorcising their demons.
And we see this time and again throughout the gospel, like in his healing on the Sabbath when the Pharisees warned him not to; and in his challenging of their dietary restrictions, correcting that it’s what comes out that defiles rather than what goes in.
Signs, wonders, magic then… Deuteronomy, Law, or Pharisee… Jesus did it all and whatever else was necessary so to bring hope and healing to this world, to build it up, even at the cost of others tearing his life down.
And though that’s sadly and terribly ironic, I think it’s also pretty awesome.
And allows us all to float a little above this difficult world, dazzled, casting aside the weight of hard facts.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
