Jesus and his followers went to Capernaum. On the Sabbath day he went to the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught like a person who had authority, not like their teachers of the law. Just then, a man was there in the synagogue who had an evil spirit in him. He shouted, "Jesus of Nazareth! What do you want with us? Did you come to destroy us? I know who you are—God’s Holy One!"
Jesus commanded the evil spirit, “Be quiet! Come out of the man!” The evil spirit shook the man violently, gave a loud cry, and then came out of him.
The people were so amazed they asked each other, “What is happening here? This man is teaching something new, and with authority. He even gives commands to evil spirits, and they obey him.” And the news about Jesus spread quickly everywhere in the area of Galilee (Mark 1: 21-28).
When I was talking with a pastor friend of mine last week about the process of spiritual formation and discernment the topic abruptly turned to the problem of evil. “The closer we draw to God,” I told him, “the closer the devil draws to us.”
I was quoting from a conversation with my spiritual director about my call to ministry, and this comment had lingered on my heart for several days. But as soon as I said it out loud to another person—another pastor—I knew I was in for a long discussion. It is not the kind of phrase that would normally come out of our liberal, intellectual, overly-rational theologically educated mouths. We gave up a long time ago on the “blame Satan” ideology with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other tempting us toward a good or evil impulse.
Jesus commanded the evil spirit, “Be quiet! Come out of the man!” The evil spirit shook the man violently, gave a loud cry, and then came out of him.
The people were so amazed they asked each other, “What is happening here? This man is teaching something new, and with authority. He even gives commands to evil spirits, and they obey him.” And the news about Jesus spread quickly everywhere in the area of Galilee (Mark 1: 21-28).
When I was talking with a pastor friend of mine last week about the process of spiritual formation and discernment the topic abruptly turned to the problem of evil. “The closer we draw to God,” I told him, “the closer the devil draws to us.”
I was quoting from a conversation with my spiritual director about my call to ministry, and this comment had lingered on my heart for several days. But as soon as I said it out loud to another person—another pastor—I knew I was in for a long discussion. It is not the kind of phrase that would normally come out of our liberal, intellectual, overly-rational theologically educated mouths. We gave up a long time ago on the “blame Satan” ideology with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other tempting us toward a good or evil impulse.
Or did we?
The problem is that evil really is all around us—not just confined to one shoulder—and we do well to acknowledge this problem with heavy hearts. Whether we mean evil to be a catch-all phrase for poverty and racism and systematic torture or whether we imagine something closer to spiritual warfare and a demonic entity, we cannot deny that evil is all around us, that evil is crushing us, that evil is us. The story of the fallen angel Lucifer may or may not be the most accurate representation of this thing we call evil, but at least it helps us think about the fact that it exists, that God allows it, that God sometimes—too many times, in my estimation—seems overpowered by it. And we do, too.
So imagine what it must have been for an evil spirit possessing this first-century man of Capernaum who comes to the synagogue when Jesus is teaching. This thing we call evil—whatever it was—overwhelming this man, acting with impunity, accustomed to winning, accustomed to delighting in destruction. And here comes Jesus, drawing closer to God, drawing others closer to God, and thereby drawing evil to himself from the very beginning of his ministry. Throughout his entire ministry. At the painful, crucifying end of his ministry.
“What do you want with us?” the evil spirit says. “Have you come to destroy us?”
And of course we want the answer to be yes. We want evil to be destroyed once and for all and for justice and peace to reign forevermore.
But Jesus has not (yet!) destroyed the evil spirit, at least in the lectionary text for this week. It has not gone away forever. He has only cast it out. But it has come out!
And I imagine that the same is true for us—I know the same is true for us—when the evil and the pain and the abuse that still dwells within us and among us is confronted by the living Christ in our midst, teaching and preaching the good news of grace and liberation and healing. The bitterness, the anger, the trauma, the greed, the pride, the persecution, the death, the destruction . . . it is not (yet!) destroyed forever, but it can be released when we see the face of God in front of us, who has promised to be with us through it all, when God sees the pain and bitterness and warfare and greed within us and commands it to come out of us. And it does.
It is not always a quick process, this casting out of the evil that grips us, and it is not always painless. The scars, the anger, the pride, the greed will cry out along the way, even when we invite God to cast it out. But God is casting it out!
And so we draw closer to God, even when we fear evil, even when we fear being cured of evil. Because we also know the end of the story. Evil really has been overcome, once and for all. Easter is a taste of the final reality. Whatever crucifixion we suffer, whatever crucifixion we cause is not the final answer. Resurrection is!
And we can be part of it in this life and the next. Amen.
Gusti Linnea Newquist
(additional lectionary texts: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13)
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