Sept. 20: the Anonymous Exorcist

"Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us."
"Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward."

The concept of exorcism is beguiling. The passage from this week’s Gospel of Mark reading features the so-called Anonymous Exorcist, also referred to in Luke 9: 49-50. The reader is never given a picture of the exorcist in action. We only learn of him through indirect speech: “Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name . . .” Yet this brief passage raises significant questions, including: what role does exorcism play in the Gospel of Mark? How do the exorcist narratives—there are three more—illuminate Jesus Christ as portrayed by Mark? And finally, on a practical level, what does exorcism entail?

Etymology of the modern-day word “exorcism” is described here:

“. . . driving out (an evil spirit) by prayers, ceremonies . . . from Late Latin exorcizare, from Greek exorkizein, "exorcise, to bind by oath" (ex-, "out of" + horkizein, "to cause" or "to make a person swear, to administer an oath to", from horkos, "oath"; also literally, limitation, binding). As noted above, "oath" is to be found at the etymological heart of exorcise, a term going back to the Greek word exorkizein, meaning "to swear in, to take an oath by, to conjure", and "to exorcise".

In this particular verse, Mark seems to drawing a parallel between Jesus and Moses, as portrayed in the book of Numbers in Hebrew Scripture. After the Israelites complain about life in the wilderness, Moses in turn asks Yahweh for relief. Yahweh’s answer is as follows, asking Moses to gather seventy elders of Israel: “I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you will not bear it all by yourself (11:17). After Yahweh extends the spirit that was give to Moses to the elders, Moses is informed by a young man:

“Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. . . But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them! And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp. (27-30).

When applying this passage to a congregation today, one can make an interpretive move that the editors of the New Oxford Annotated Bible make: “The movement is not to be defensive or controlling” (NT 75). Thus this passage can be read as a strong sign, not only to passively wait for healing to arrive from an outside source, but to actively take initiative. Virtually all we know about the Anonymous Exorcist was that he was not one of the Twelve Disciples, yet he was successful in driving out demons in Jesus’ name. John and his companions do not tell the Exorcist to stop because his work is fraudulous, or ineffective, thus giving their group a bad reputation. They object merely because he is using Christ’s name, yet not “one of us.”

Jesus’ response is to legitimize the Exorcist who he has never met or seen. He describes doing good works as a method for in effect drawing near to him: “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.”

Thus, it is possible to read the Anonymous Exorcist as a model for would-be leaders whose voices have historically not been heard. Both Jesus, and Moses in the parallel passage, rebuke their followers for drawing too tight a fence around their communities of faith. It is also notable that the Exorcist is neither invited, nor forced, to join Jesus and the disciples. The narrative leaves the reader with the view that he continues to do his work offstage, with Jesus’ commendation. The passage can in this regard be read as pointing to different but parallel spiritual paths.

One great source for readers interested in more information about exorcism is Eric Sorenson’s Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity (Mohr Siebeck, 2002).

The author brings a sustained focus on linguistics and historical breadth to this specific study. He contextualizes exorcisms depicted in the New Testament with similar passages in the Hebrew Scriptures--drawing on the traditions of prophets Daniel and Ezekiel in particular--as well as in non-Biblical texts from Mesopotamia and the Greco-Roman world from this time period. He also pays particular attention to the rich and varied Greek and Hebrew words depicting, not just exorcism narratives, but instances in which a figure receives "the spirit of the Lord."

A strength of this book is the extent to which the author reads exorcist narratives side by side, putting them into conversation with each other. Explaining that the Gospel of Mark offers the first existing evidence of exorcism in the Christian tradition, Sorenson how, unlike Luke, Mark uses different verbs for Jesus’ exorcisms that the verbs that describe healing (Sorenson, 135-136). He focuses on three narratives in Mark in which Jesus performs an exorcism: Mark 1:23-28, the man in synagogue (also in Luke); Mark 5:9, the Gerasene demon named Legion; and Mark 9:21, 29, the speechless boy (both in Matthew and Luke.)

Sorenson argues that the exorcism scenes in Mark are not written with the goal of informing others how to repeat them—in other words, they are not “How To” narratives. The words Jesus says are written in the Greek imperative tense (138), but there is no one formula highlighted as singularly effective. Rather, the success of the exorcisms comes from Jesus’ spiritual authority. Sorenson writes,

"In contrast to the Marcan healings which can employ several distinct actions, the exorcisms in Mark are simply wrought, often performed only a command or a rebuke. . . For this reason the Gospel of Mark can be immediately distinguished from the Mesopotamian ritual manuals . . . Further, Mark’s austere descriptions set Jesus’ technique in contrast, perhaps deliberately so, with the elaborate methods known to have existed for other exorcists outside of the New Testament" (Sorenson, 136).

Sorenson also explores similarity between the exorcism and healing narratives, as indicative of divine agency relieving suffering:

“Aggressiveness pervades Jesus’ and the disciples’ interactions with the hostile demonic world. The synoptic authors work on the assumption that exorcism reveals the exorcist as a mediator of divine power that constrains and overthrows and equally aggressive evil that has willfully caused innocent people to suffer” (Sorenson, 138).

The photo credit can be found here, and bibliographical (and ordering) information on Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity can be found here.

The complete lectionary readings for this weeks are Proverbs 31:10-31 or Wisdom of Solomon 1:16-2:1, 12-22; Psalm 1 or Psalm 54; James 3:13 - 4:3, 7-8a; Mark 9:30-37 (optional Hebrew reading: Jeremiah 11:18-20).

--Elizabeth Fels