A sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
6th June 2021
Michael binding Satan, William Blake, 1805
Mark 3.13-35
Listen to this sermon here:
Jesus, it seems, attracted all the wrong people!
They
had been flocking to him from the far north and the far south,
from the Jewish heartlands of Judea and Jerusalem
and from the margins beyond the Jordan (3.8)
They had come seeking healing (3.10) and exorcism (3.11)
They were the disenfranchised masses,
the poor, the unemployed
the displaced, the sick,
and the unclean
And
in today’s passage from Mark’s gospel
we encounter Jesus the exorcist
casting demons out of people
and causing a storm as he does so.
Now,
I don’t know what images run through your mind
when you hear the language of exorcism and exorcists?
Possibly you may think of the cult classic horror film The Exorcist
from the early 1970s
Or maybe you think of the charismatic preacher on the God channel
casting demons out of people left, right and centre
to the applause of an appreciative congregation?
There
is no doubt that in many ways,
those who consider ourselves
to be liberal minded and sensible Christians
often find it much easier to stay away from stories of exorcism.
At
best we find them mildly embarrassing,
and at worst they are manipulative, abusive, and dangerous.
So
what are we to do with the fact
that exorcism was a central aspect of Jesus’ ministry?
Do
we simply disregard these stories
as pre-psychological myths?
Or
is there some way in which we can encounter Jesus the exorcist
in a meaningful way in our oh-so rational
and post-enlightenment world?
I
have been greatly helped in my thinking through of these issues
by the work of Ched Myers,
and I recommend his writing
if you find the approach I’m taking this morning helpful.
(This sermon draws considerably on Myers, ‘Say to This Mountain’, pp. 31-38)
So
let’s take a look at what’s going on here in the text of Mark’s gospel.
Here
we see Jesus in a struggle with unclean spirits,
specifically over the power to ‘name’ him.
Though
his disciples often appear confused about who he is
the demonic forces he encounters know exactly,
and seem to believe that they can bring him under their control
by announcing to the public who he is.
So
Jesus is seen routinely forbidding
unclean spirits from making him known (3.12)
At
issue in Jesus’ confrontations with these unclean spirits
is the question of who has the power to frame reality.
As
George Orwell so vividly demonstrated in his dystopian novel 1984,
the authority to name, or describe, reality unchallenged,
becomes the power to frame reality
to create the reality that is being described.
The
central characters Winston and Julia
attempt to speak a different reality into being,
and discover to their cost that the Orwellian state
cannot permit such alternative realities
to be spoken into existence.
The
same story is played out around the globe in our world today,
as states find ways, both brutal and subtle,
of silencing dissenting voices;
as they maintain their power
by speaking their own vision of the world into being.
The
reality that is remembered
is the reality that is spoken the strongest,
and the most effective spin always seems to carry the day.
In
Jesus’ own time, the Roman propaganda machine
worked hand in hand with the military regime
to enforce the ‘Roman’ view of the world.
The
Jewish state had largely capitulated to the Roman worldview,
guarding with care their few hard-won concessions,
such as the famous exemption from worshipping the emperor as a God.
So
when Jesus started rocking the boat,
challenging the authority of both the Roman overlords
and the Jewish political powers,
he, like many a potential revolutionary before him,
needed to be named, dominated, and silenced.
According
to Mark,
Jesus’ practice of exorcism was first and foremost
a practice of unmasking the truth of a situation.
And
as such, exorcism: the naming of evil,
and the consequent challenging of its power,
remains fundamental to any movement of liberation
whether that be personal or political.
This
is why fearless and independent
journalism matters so much,
and it is why any aspiring dictator will always take control of the press.
If
you have no-one naming the evil in the land,
you have less power to do anything about it.
A conspiracy of silence is the forerunner to a conspiracy of capitulation.
The
person who claims that there are no demons,
and that exorcism is unnecessary,
has allowed themselves to be blinded and silenced
by the very powers that Jesus sought to challenge.
In
today’s passage, we find the stakes being raised
in terms of Jesus’ confrontations with power structures
that oppress and diminish humanity.
As
Jesus returns home, he’s engulfed by the crowds
who have been following him around.
As
those who live in and around London,
many of us will be no strangers to large crowds.
We
know that on occasions being caught up in a crowd,
particularly one made up of diverse and desperate people
can be a terrifying experience.
Well,
Jesus’ family start to fear for his safety and sanity,
and try to get him to distance himself from the crowds
who are flocking to him.
To
make matters worse, the scribes from Jerusalem
are launching a counter-offensive,
as they are starting to realise that this upstart preacher from Nazareth
is drawing to himself exactly the kind of people
that revolutions are made of.
The
composition of our passage this morning
is what, in technical Biblical Studies language,
we call a ‘sandwich’.
Actually, we also call it an ‘intercalation’,
but ‘sandwich’ will do for now
What
this means is that Mark starts a story,
which is the first piece of bread.
He then inserts the filling,
which is a different story,
before topping it off with the second piece of bread
by finishing the first story.
He
does this in a number of places in his gospel,
and it’s always an invitation for the reader
to read the two stories together,
to see how they shed light on each other.
In
this passage today, the two slices of bread
are a story about Jesus’ family trying to get hold of him,
while the filling is a story about the Jerusalem scribes
coming to ‘get’ him.
In
these two strands,
we find the two ancient pillars of social authority:
the clan and the state,
working together to domesticate someone
who has started acting in ways
that are challenging to the status quo.
In
the ancient Mediterranean world,
the kinship, or family, system
rigidly determined a person’s personality and identity:
It controlled everything from their job prospects,
to their social status.
We
hear a lot of talk these days about social mobility,
or the lack of it, in our society;
and politicians of every stripe are quick to claim that their ideology
will allow children of humble origins
to climb to the top of society with ease.
And
yet still we have a university system
dominated at its upper levels by those
whose parents were rich enough to pay for their private education.
with
65% of the Boris Johnson’s cabinet being privately educated,
and half of them having attended either Oxford or Cambridge.
Despite
the claimed best efforts of politicians,
family background counts for a lot,
especially when that background is reinforced
by a national ideology deeply permeated by a class ethos
which is inherently conservative with a small c.
As
Ed Miliband once memorably put it:
‘It’s harder to climb the ladder
when the rungs are further apart.’
So
when someone comes along,
as Jesus did in the first century,
challenging the status quo,
family systems and state structures fall into an easy alliance
to act together to preserve normality, and restrict mobility.
From
the parent who tells their child
not to get ideas above their station,
to the careers advisor
who suggests jobs in line with perceived social status,
the barriers to mobility take shape
both within and without a person’s family structure.
And
sure enough, Jesus’ family sought to reign him in;
no doubt, they claimed, for his own protection
but of course also for the sake of their reputation.
It’s
interesting to note that were doing this
even before his clash with the scribal investigators,
but once it became clear that Jesus had attracted
the wrong kind of attention from the authorities,
his family redoubled their efforts to restrain him.
However,
and perhaps contrary to what we might expect,
in v.32 we find Jesus and the crowd
sitting together inside the home,
while his family are gathered outside!
And
as is always the case in Mark’s gospel,
things like this don’t happen by accident.
He
is showing us that Jesus understood full well
that in order to weave an alternative social fabric,
the most basic conventions and constraints of the family system
must be questioned;
so when Jesus is told that his family are asking for him,
he replies ‘who are my mother and my brother?’ (3.32)
before concluding that his true family
are ‘whoever does the will of God’ (3.35).
His
biological family are outside,
and those who follow him are now the insiders.
The power structure of the family home
has been disrupted.
And it is clear that Jesus will not be defined
by the expectations and conventions of his birth and family.
Meanwhile
the official investigators from the capital
start echoing the family’s accusations, if not their concern.
The
family are saying to themselves, and to anyone else who will listen,
that Jesus ‘has gone out of his mind’ (3.21);
whereas the scribes say something much more sinister,
claiming ‘he is possessed’ (3.22)
Both
the private sphere of the family,
and the public sphere of the state,
are here collaborating to silence Jesus, to put him back in his box,
and overall to maintain the status quo.
The
scribes then upped the ante even further,
by suggesting that Jesus is actually in the service
of none other than Beelzebub, the ‘prince of demons’!
It
is the predictable strategy of threatened political leaders the world over:
Neutralise the opposition
by identifying them with the mythic arch-demon.
And
it is a tactic we are all too familiar with in our world also.
George
Orwell captures this wonderfully in his book 1984.
In the world of 1984, the world is
divided into three power blocks,
and at any given time two are at war with the third.
It’s just that the ally and the enemy change places from time to time.
But
the significant thing
is that when they change places,
history is rewritten:
- Today’s ally has always been the ally,
and today’s enemy has always been the enemy.
And
those who threaten the current status quo
are neutralised by being aligned with the enemy.
Whether
it’s hunting for Red’s under the bed,
or labelling conscientious objectors as Nazi sympathisers,
or assuming that everyone who is non-white is a potential terrorist,
we still, in our society,
have strong social systems to prevent social mobility
between the advantaged and the disadvantaged.
And
yet Jesus invited the misfit crowd
into his home.
And
his deviant practice of exorcism
was part of this big picture
as he sought to free people from the demonic structures
which distorted their humanity
and kept them bound in their place.
And
so the state and the clan collaborated
in defence of the status quo
to label him either as a lunatic or a traitor.
Jesus
masterfully turned the scribes words back upon them
by suggesting that they were themselves the ones
who were acting in the service of a satanic system,
which it becomes clear is the temple regime itself.
The
dwelling place of God
which should have been a place of liberation,
had become a tool of oppression,
and as such had become itself satanic.
And
it is in this context that Jesus tells his parable
of the Strong Man
Mark 3:27 no one can enter a strong man's house and
plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the
house can be plundered.
In
this parable, Jesus makes his subversive intentions clear,
likening his mission to that of the thief.
Jesus
is making it clear that his ministry of exorcism,
of overthrowing the demonic hold
that the systems of family and the state
have over people’s lives
is him breaking into Satan’s house
tying him up,
and releasing those held there.
Of
course, later in the gospel
Jesus quite literally breaks into the house of Satan
when he enters the temple in Jerusalem
to cast out the thieves who had taken residence there.
However
unsettling this metaphor may seem,
of the ministry of Jesus as a thief, breaking and entering,
the tradition of the coming of Jesus as being ‘like a thief in the night’
was one of the most enduring in the early church.
(Mt 24.43; 1 Thess 5.2, 4; 2 Pet 3.10; Rev 3.3, 16.15)
The
answer to Jesus’ question
of whether Satan can cast out Satan now becomes clear:
Jesus, the one falsely accused of acting on Satan’s behalf,
intends to overthrow the strong man
of the Jewish Scribal establishment,
which has become a satanic system
binding people in oppression.
As
the prophet Isaiah says:
‘The captives of the strong man will be liberated,
the prey of the tyrant will be liberated’ (Isa 49.25)
Jesus
ends the debate with the scribes
by issuing a blanket pardon
forgiving all people of the sins and blasphemies
spoken and enacted whilst under the oppression
of the satanic regime.
The
only people excluded from this pardon
are those who demonise acts of healing and justice.
Too
many people have been paralysed by fear
that they have committed the so-called ‘unforgiveable sin’,
and too many church leaders have used the threat of this
to prop up their dominating ministries of oppression.
So
what is the ‘unforgiveable sin’,
what is the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ that Jesus speaks of?
Juan
Luis Segundo says, in his book ‘Capitalism versus Socialism’, that
‘The real sin against the Holy Spirit
is [the refusal to joyfully recognise] some concrete liberation
that is taking place before one’s very eyes’
Those
who deny the liberating work of Jesus,
who continue to dominate, oppress, exclude, distort, and demean,
are in fact seen to be working against the kingdom of God,
and will discover that they have placed themselves
in opposition to all that Jesus stands for.
The
social context reflected in Mark’s narrative
may be alien in form from our own,
but not in substance.
Our
world is hardly free from systems of domination,
and I would suggest that today the free market
has become the strong man.
Adherence
to its principles is necessary
for any person, community, or nation
that wishes to participate in the global economy.
The
system includes the public and private sector,
domestic bodies and international institutions
such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
commercial banks and pension funds,
advertising agencies and the media,
stock markets and money movers.
This
free-market strong man takes no prisoners
and extracts a terrible price on those who fail him.
The
declining Western economies of recent years
have tasted just a small sample
of the reality faced by those in, for example, sub-Saharan Africa,
where almost half the population lives in absolute poverty.
The
strong man extracts his tribute from the earth,
and his victims are both people and planet,
through the economic slavery of billions,
the depletion of natural resources,
and escalating environmental degradation.
The
strong man rules almost every dimension of our daily life and culture,
and nowhere is he more visible
than in the relentless and deliberate cultivation
of the desire for consumer goods.
Even
when products are superfluous,
wasteful, and destructive of human life,
we are told to buy, buy, buy.
Wealthy
and poor alike
are trapped in a vicious cycle
of increasing frustration
as they search for meaning and identity
in intrinsically meaningless objects.
There’s
a wonderful line in the Lily Allen song ‘The Fear’
in which she is describing a young woman’s desperate search
to construct meaning for her life
through acquiring money and possessions.
Lily
Allen sings, with profound insight:
“ I am a weapon of massive consumption,
from the Jewish heartlands of Judea and Jerusalem
and from the margins beyond the Jordan (3.8)
They had come seeking healing (3.10) and exorcism (3.11)
They were the disenfranchised masses,
the poor, the unemployed
the displaced, the sick,
and the unclean
we encounter Jesus the exorcist
casting demons out of people
and causing a storm as he does so.
when you hear the language of exorcism and exorcists?
Possibly you may think of the cult classic horror film The Exorcist
from the early 1970s
Or maybe you think of the charismatic preacher on the God channel
casting demons out of people left, right and centre
to the applause of an appreciative congregation?
those who consider ourselves
to be liberal minded and sensible Christians
often find it much easier to stay away from stories of exorcism.
and at worst they are manipulative, abusive, and dangerous.
that exorcism was a central aspect of Jesus’ ministry?
as pre-psychological myths?
in a meaningful way in our oh-so rational
and post-enlightenment world?
by the work of Ched Myers,
and I recommend his writing
if you find the approach I’m taking this morning helpful.
(This sermon draws considerably on Myers, ‘Say to This Mountain’, pp. 31-38)
specifically over the power to ‘name’ him.
the demonic forces he encounters know exactly,
and seem to believe that they can bring him under their control
by announcing to the public who he is.
unclean spirits from making him known (3.12)
is the question of who has the power to frame reality.
the authority to name, or describe, reality unchallenged,
becomes the power to frame reality
to create the reality that is being described.
attempt to speak a different reality into being,
and discover to their cost that the Orwellian state
cannot permit such alternative realities
to be spoken into existence.
as states find ways, both brutal and subtle,
of silencing dissenting voices;
as they maintain their power
by speaking their own vision of the world into being.
is the reality that is spoken the strongest,
and the most effective spin always seems to carry the day.
worked hand in hand with the military regime
to enforce the ‘Roman’ view of the world.
guarding with care their few hard-won concessions,
such as the famous exemption from worshipping the emperor as a God.
challenging the authority of both the Roman overlords
and the Jewish political powers,
he, like many a potential revolutionary before him,
needed to be named, dominated, and silenced.
Jesus’ practice of exorcism was first and foremost
a practice of unmasking the truth of a situation.
and the consequent challenging of its power,
remains fundamental to any movement of liberation
whether that be personal or political.
and it is why any aspiring dictator will always take control of the press.
you have less power to do anything about it.
A conspiracy of silence is the forerunner to a conspiracy of capitulation.
and that exorcism is unnecessary,
has allowed themselves to be blinded and silenced
by the very powers that Jesus sought to challenge.
in terms of Jesus’ confrontations with power structures
that oppress and diminish humanity.
who have been following him around.
many of us will be no strangers to large crowds.
particularly one made up of diverse and desperate people
can be a terrifying experience.
and try to get him to distance himself from the crowds
who are flocking to him.
are launching a counter-offensive,
as they are starting to realise that this upstart preacher from Nazareth
is drawing to himself exactly the kind of people
that revolutions are made of.
is what, in technical Biblical Studies language,
we call a ‘sandwich’.
Actually, we also call it an ‘intercalation’,
but ‘sandwich’ will do for now
which is the first piece of bread.
He then inserts the filling,
which is a different story,
before topping it off with the second piece of bread
by finishing the first story.
and it’s always an invitation for the reader
to read the two stories together,
to see how they shed light on each other.
are a story about Jesus’ family trying to get hold of him,
while the filling is a story about the Jerusalem scribes
coming to ‘get’ him.
we find the two ancient pillars of social authority:
the clan and the state,
working together to domesticate someone
who has started acting in ways
that are challenging to the status quo.
the kinship, or family, system
rigidly determined a person’s personality and identity:
It controlled everything from their job prospects,
to their social status.
or the lack of it, in our society;
and politicians of every stripe are quick to claim that their ideology
will allow children of humble origins
to climb to the top of society with ease.
dominated at its upper levels by those
whose parents were rich enough to pay for their private education.
and half of them having attended either Oxford or Cambridge.
family background counts for a lot,
especially when that background is reinforced
by a national ideology deeply permeated by a class ethos
which is inherently conservative with a small c.
‘It’s harder to climb the ladder
when the rungs are further apart.’
as Jesus did in the first century,
challenging the status quo,
family systems and state structures fall into an easy alliance
to act together to preserve normality, and restrict mobility.
not to get ideas above their station,
to the careers advisor
who suggests jobs in line with perceived social status,
the barriers to mobility take shape
both within and without a person’s family structure.
no doubt, they claimed, for his own protection
but of course also for the sake of their reputation.
even before his clash with the scribal investigators,
but once it became clear that Jesus had attracted
the wrong kind of attention from the authorities,
his family redoubled their efforts to restrain him.
in v.32 we find Jesus and the crowd
sitting together inside the home,
while his family are gathered outside!
things like this don’t happen by accident.
that in order to weave an alternative social fabric,
the most basic conventions and constraints of the family system
must be questioned;
so when Jesus is told that his family are asking for him,
he replies ‘who are my mother and my brother?’ (3.32)
before concluding that his true family
are ‘whoever does the will of God’ (3.35).
and those who follow him are now the insiders.
The power structure of the family home
has been disrupted.
And it is clear that Jesus will not be defined
by the expectations and conventions of his birth and family.
start echoing the family’s accusations, if not their concern.
that Jesus ‘has gone out of his mind’ (3.21);
whereas the scribes say something much more sinister,
claiming ‘he is possessed’ (3.22)
and the public sphere of the state,
are here collaborating to silence Jesus, to put him back in his box,
and overall to maintain the status quo.
by suggesting that Jesus is actually in the service
of none other than Beelzebub, the ‘prince of demons’!
Neutralise the opposition
by identifying them with the mythic arch-demon.
and at any given time two are at war with the third.
It’s just that the ally and the enemy change places from time to time.
is that when they change places,
history is rewritten:
- Today’s ally has always been the ally,
and today’s enemy has always been the enemy.
are neutralised by being aligned with the enemy.
or labelling conscientious objectors as Nazi sympathisers,
or assuming that everyone who is non-white is a potential terrorist,
we still, in our society,
have strong social systems to prevent social mobility
between the advantaged and the disadvantaged.
into his home.
was part of this big picture
as he sought to free people from the demonic structures
which distorted their humanity
and kept them bound in their place.
in defence of the status quo
to label him either as a lunatic or a traitor.
by suggesting that they were themselves the ones
who were acting in the service of a satanic system,
which it becomes clear is the temple regime itself.
which should have been a place of liberation,
had become a tool of oppression,
and as such had become itself satanic.
of the Strong Man
likening his mission to that of the thief.
of overthrowing the demonic hold
that the systems of family and the state
have over people’s lives
is him breaking into Satan’s house
tying him up,
and releasing those held there.
Jesus quite literally breaks into the house of Satan
when he enters the temple in Jerusalem
to cast out the thieves who had taken residence there.
of the ministry of Jesus as a thief, breaking and entering,
the tradition of the coming of Jesus as being ‘like a thief in the night’
was one of the most enduring in the early church.
(Mt 24.43; 1 Thess 5.2, 4; 2 Pet 3.10; Rev 3.3, 16.15)
of whether Satan can cast out Satan now becomes clear:
Jesus, the one falsely accused of acting on Satan’s behalf,
intends to overthrow the strong man
of the Jewish Scribal establishment,
which has become a satanic system
binding people in oppression.
‘The captives of the strong man will be liberated,
the prey of the tyrant will be liberated’ (Isa 49.25)
by issuing a blanket pardon
forgiving all people of the sins and blasphemies
spoken and enacted whilst under the oppression
of the satanic regime.
are those who demonise acts of healing and justice.
that they have committed the so-called ‘unforgiveable sin’,
and too many church leaders have used the threat of this
to prop up their dominating ministries of oppression.
what is the ‘sin against the Holy Spirit’ that Jesus speaks of?
‘The real sin against the Holy Spirit
is [the refusal to joyfully recognise] some concrete liberation
that is taking place before one’s very eyes’
who continue to dominate, oppress, exclude, distort, and demean,
are in fact seen to be working against the kingdom of God,
and will discover that they have placed themselves
in opposition to all that Jesus stands for.
may be alien in form from our own,
but not in substance.
and I would suggest that today the free market
has become the strong man.
for any person, community, or nation
that wishes to participate in the global economy.
domestic bodies and international institutions
such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
commercial banks and pension funds,
advertising agencies and the media,
stock markets and money movers.
and extracts a terrible price on those who fail him.
have tasted just a small sample
of the reality faced by those in, for example, sub-Saharan Africa,
where almost half the population lives in absolute poverty.
and his victims are both people and planet,
through the economic slavery of billions,
the depletion of natural resources,
and escalating environmental degradation.
and nowhere is he more visible
than in the relentless and deliberate cultivation
of the desire for consumer goods.
wasteful, and destructive of human life,
we are told to buy, buy, buy.
are trapped in a vicious cycle
of increasing frustration
as they search for meaning and identity
in intrinsically meaningless objects.
in which she is describing a young woman’s desperate search
to construct meaning for her life
through acquiring money and possessions.
“ I am a weapon of massive consumption,
and its not my fault
it’s how I’m programmed to function."
The
strong man acts incessantly in favour of the rich,
while the poor are told they are worthless
unless they own what is just out of reach.
Cheap
and exploitative labour from abroad
feed unemployment and poverty back home,
as the vulnerable are used
to make the vulnerable more vulnerable.
So,
do we have the eyes to see the strong man?
Or are we too much under his influence?
Do
we have the courage to join Jesus in ‘binding’ him?
Or are we cowed by his legitimacy and power?
Will
we join Jesus in his great work of exorcism,
as together we break into the house of the strong man,
bind him, and plunder his treasure?
Do
we desire to set the captives of our global house liberated?
Or are we just… too… comfortable?
it’s how I’m programmed to function."
while the poor are told they are worthless
unless they own what is just out of reach.
feed unemployment and poverty back home,
as the vulnerable are used
to make the vulnerable more vulnerable.
Or are we too much under his influence?
Or are we cowed by his legitimacy and power?
as together we break into the house of the strong man,
bind him, and plunder his treasure?
Or are we just… too… comfortable?
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