A sermon on Mark 1: 29-39 by Alison Sampson

The stories about Jesus healing people and exorcising demons have often struck me as terribly unfair. When Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick in bed with a piddling little fever, Jesus came and made her well; but when my mother lay sick in bed paralysed from the neck down, hundreds of people prayed for her – and she never got better at all. Mark tells us that people flocked to Jesus, and he healed many who were sick and cast out many demons, and at times I’ve looked around and wondered why it doesn’t seem to happen now. Are we living in the wrong era? Do we lack faith? Whatever happened to healings and exorcisms?

I think the problem lies in what we mean by ‘healing’ and ‘exorcism’. It is not that they don’t happen now, but that our ideas of ‘sick’ and ‘demon possessed’ are often not what Mark or Jesus were on about. Take the story of Simon’s mother-in-law. The story tells us that she was sick with fever. Jesus took her by the hand; the fever left her; and she began to serve them. Now, this word ‘serve’ is interesting. The Greek word is ‘diakoneo’. Diakoneo. Does it remind you of anything? How about ‘deacon’? When it’s used in other places – in other words, when referring to men – English Bibles usually translate it as ‘minister’; when it refers to women, they usually translate it as ‘serve’. But there is no reason to translate it differently when it describes the work of a woman or a man. It’s the same word. And so we should say that when the fever left Simon’s mother-in-law, she began to minister to them.

When we do this, how we hear the story changes. Instead of getting up to make a cup of tea for everyone, Simon’s mother-in-law gets up to engage in her work as host and minister. The story wasn’t about how Jesus’ magic touch is as good as Panadol. It was about how healing returns us to community and frees us to serve God. He wasn’t some super-doctor curing fever, or leprosy, or blindness. Instead, his healing enabled people to step up to ministry.

But what about the exorcisms? Are they about curing schizophrenia and other mental illnesses? Or is something else going on there, too?

To better understand the demon stories, we should take a look at one of the longer ones. You may recall the time when Jesus went to the land of the Gerasenes, and encountered a man living among the tombs. The man was possessed by an unclean spirit. He screamed and howled and constantly bruised himself against the stones. When Jesus asked the name of the unclean spirit, it replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ Then the Legion begged Jesus not to send them out of the country. And so Jesus allowed the unclean spirits to enter a herd of pigs, and the pigs, some 2,000 in number, went on a stampede and drowned themselves in the sea.

A little background is helpful here. Jesus walked a land which was controlled by the Romans. For over 400 years, Legion X was stationed there to keep the locals under control; and one of the emblems of this legion was a boar, that is, a wild pig. This symbol was carved into buildings around Jerusalem and engraved onto the coins used throughout the countryside. Take a moment to think about it. What animal do Jews believe is unclean? What might it be like to have your buildings and your legal tender marked by the image of an unclean animal?

The Legion was there to subdue dissent and keep the population under control. It did this by violence, by the threat of violence, and by humiliation. Women could be raped, and nothing would be done about it. Men could be ordered to drop what they were doing and carry a soldier’s pack or perform some other dirty work. Beatings by soldiers were common. People were co-opted into becoming collaborators and turncoats; they learned to mistrust each other. Their religion was made an object of ridicule, and their culture, indeed their very lives, were under threat. And so, just as in every place where a military invader controls a local population, the Legion profoundly affected people’s bodies, minds and spirits.

In this context, then, what would it mean for a man to be freed of the Legion, and for the Legion to hurl itself into the sea? What would it mean for a man to be liberated from the violent controlling forces, from the fear, from the toxic mistrust of others, from the humiliation of his religion and culture that the Legion brought with it?

Well, the story tells us. The possessed man asked to be with Jesus, and so Jesus commissioned him to go and proclaim the good news. Which he did, and everyone was amazed. The exorcism drew the man out of the city of the dead and sent him into the city of the living, where he could tell everyone what Jesus had done for him. In response to his new-found freedom he went into the midst of things, and helped spread the good news. And so, like the physical healings, the exorcisms turned people towards God and freed them for ministry and service.

Mark tells many stories about the sick and the demon-possessed. They crowd around Jesus in houses and on hilltops; they are in the synagogues; they are hurrying down the street. Like the Legion, they are everywhere.

When Jesus heals and exorcises them, something further stands out: his teaching. Last week, we heard that Jesus entered the synagogue at Capernaum and taught there. His teaching was so powerful that a man with an unclean spirit was healed, and the unclean spirit left him. Tonight we heard that he travelled throughout Galilee, teaching and casting out demons. Later in the gospel, he commissioned his disciples to do the same.

This tells us that the very teachings of Jesus are healing. When people listen to his words, and write them on their hearts, they are liberated from their sickness and their demons, and freed to become participants in his work and ministry.

And this is good news for us. Because even though those of us who are ill are not automatically shunned as unclean, and even though our neighbourhoods are not patrolled by gun-toting soldiers, all of us are affected by the ills of our society and the demons of our culture. And they are Legion.

You only need to glance at the papers to see some of our society’s fears and driving forces. The myth of security through superannuation. The compulsion to acquire ever more consumer goods. The urge to be successful in work, and liked on Facebook. The demons of nationalism and border control. The fear of our neighbours in our streets, our cities, and our corner of the globe. The absolute denial of death.

Lent will soon be upon us. This is a time of the church year when we are especially encouraged to take stock, to recognise the sicknesses which warp us and the demons which colonise our hearts and our minds. It can be a time of naming, and renouncing, the Legion, so that we become free to minister to one another, and to proclaim the good news in our words and our lives.

And so this Lent, take heart. We do not need to live in chains; we do not need to live among the dead; we do not need to be paralysed by fear or despair. The sicknesses and demons are not the last word. Jesus, God-liberates, is more powerful than them all. When we turn our lives towards Jesus and listen to his teachings, we will find healing; and with that healing will come our ministry. Ω