The Demons of Our Past

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
February 5, 2012
Communion Meditation
Rev. Mark R. Miller
I Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39
“The Demons of our Past”

            Emergency rooms are full of people who do not have insurance.  And for those who do have insurance, concerns about copays and deductibles have them second guessing the wisdom of actually using their health benefits.  Not only is the safety net broken, but so is the insurance system that is supposed to help protect what is left of the middle class.  Getting sick today is not simply about our individual health.  It is abundantly clear that health and wholeness have socio-economic and political dimensions.  Health and wholeness is a luxury for those who have the means.  This is a system that was all too familiar to those living in the Galilee region.

            Most people worked as day laborers.  Health and wholeness was hard to come by and illness was the constant fear.  If you were sick you couldn’t work.  And if you couldn’t work you wouldn’t eat.  So when Jesus reaches out and brings healing and wholeness he is not simply dealing with the symptoms, but changing the economic situation.  I have come to believe that it may strike us as odd or even offensive that Jesus heals Simon’s mother-in-law so she can serve them, but that view might be the view of those with privilege.  In that culture Jesus brings healing and wholeness to someone that was soon to be seen as just another sick poor person.

            Jesus does not just heal people, but he deals with the demons.  If we ignore the deeper meanings of the demons, then we can ride off on flights of fancy about exorcisms, or we can simply dismiss it as the foolishness of ancient cultures.  Neither interpretation will do.  These passages always invite those who might to go deeper.  For people to hear and receive the message of good news, the old ways of thinking, believing, and acting must be discarded.  The resistance to change was strong in the established religious places.  But they were also deeply rooted in the people around Capernaum and elsewhere. 
            The demons always knew who Jesus was and always knew where new life was blooming.  And they could not have that.  New life, change, an altering of the way things are, will lead even the well-adjusted among us to act in strange and often inappropriate ways.  Until Jesus comes on the scene the places of resistance are less well known.  But, when Jesus begins to preach liberation from those who are captive, something in each of us seizes up and looks for ways to keep things as they are.  This resistance resides in each of us and probably even surprises us when we are required to confront that part of ourselves.  We know who you are Jesus; have you come to destroy us?
            When I was a seminary student I had the privilege of serving on the task force to combat racism in the Greater Atlanta Presbytery.  At one meeting I was listening to this group talk about the struggles they faced in congregations and elsewhere; to the message that diversity was a gift from God.  Another student asked where they found the greatest places of resistance.  The answer caught me off guard.  It wasn’t in the rural areas or in the conservative church.  The greatest places of resistance were in the white liberal churches.  Let me say that again, the places of greatest resistance were in the white liberal churches. 
            The trouble, I was told, is that too often they, or should I say many of us – myself included – believe that we have it all figured out.  We are not like the race baiting politicians.  We are not like those who get excited when one politician after another tries to “put the president in his place,” by interrupting state of the union addresses or pointing a finger in his face.  We are not like those people, so we really aren’t that bad.   But the truth is that the power of race in this country goes well beyond those who used to pander openly to those who wore white sheets – or veiled prophets. 
            The apostle Paul talks about the powers and principalities of this world and for our setting, our location, our country, race is one of those powers.  It goes well beyond good intentions or thoughts.  It is written into the fabric of our housing systems, our school systems, our public planning, and even our criminal justice and prison systems.  It impacts all the places of our lives even if we do not actually notice it.  Add to this the layers of provincialism in our own city that rears its head in all our communities and it makes for a rather pervasive problem about which we are often incapable of even having an honest conversation. 
            Paul also tells us that the calling on his life in Christ was to cross boundaries.  To be like those not like him.  When Paul talks about crossing these boundaries it is his intention to go and to learn and to truly understand so that the message of the gospel would be heard by all.  His goal was not for personal gain or to be down, or to out white the white folks, but so that the message of the gospel might truly be heard by all.  The calling for Christians and particularly followers of Jesus in this place is to find ways to break out of the Saint Louis racial script that keeps of separated and divided and bound. 
            The demons of our past aren’t even in the past.  They change and show up in new ways, but they are still here.  Delmar is no longer the dividing line it once was but its mythic power still holds sway over this town and even in our hearts.  Our calling is to cross the boundaries and to acknowledge the demons in our hearts so that we might find healing and wholeness.  That is the calling of our faith, our community, and our very lives.  The good news is that we are called to this work by the very one who can set us free from ourselves.  Amen!