Yogi Berra Spirituality: Life is 90% mental and spiritual; the other half is physical

4 Epiphany B  January 28, 2018
Deut. 18:15-20  Ps. 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13   Mark 1:21-28

Lectionary Link

One of the Cosmic themes of the Bible is the battle of good versus evil, and the protagonists are God versus the Devil.  This battle is waged and recorded in the salvation history of the Bible.  It is expanded to tell about Lucifer as a prideful fallen angel, who then is able to become the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  He tricks Adam and Eve to take two small bites for a man and a woman but one giant leap for all of humanity in the eviction from Paradise forever for them and for all of us.

And so disharmony ensued within the conditions of freedom as evil seemed to reign and the devilish forces continuously disrupted harmony from being the rule of the diverse orchestra of everything in creation.

Adam and Eve were not the champion heroes against the serpent; who would be that hero?  Patriarchs, Moses, David, the prophets, and other leaders arose to teach and promote order for a world that suffered from disharmony.  How could harmony be restored?

The general failure at achieving harmony through all of the godly manifestations of ministry in Israel created the longing for a hybrid hero; someone like David but greater than David.  When God's people spent so many years in exile and under occupation, the intensity of the expectation for this Messianic hero grew.

And how did the early church understand Jesus of Nazareth to be such a Messianic hero?

St. Paul wrote that struggle was not with flesh and blood.   It was not a matter of having armies and weapons of war.  St. Paul said the struggle was with the principalities and powers of darkness in high places.  In other words, the battle was an interior one.  Life begins with winning the battle in spirit and in the mind.

Do you remember the mathematics of the famous Yankee player and manager Yogi Berra?  He said, "Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical."

What Yogi was trying to say with his funny math is that it is mind over body; it is learning how to be interiorly at peace and in order so that one can with self control and finesse make one's bodily life perform what needs to be performed.

How did the Gospel writer relate the ministry of Jesus to this belief that life is 90 percent psychological and spiritual?

The exorcism accounts indicates that an encounter with the Risen Christ through power of the Holy Spirit is an inside job.  The deep prayer of the Psalmist is the deep prayer of everyone and not just of the severely disturbed: "Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me."  

The stories of exorcisms are accounts of Jesus as a people whisperer, whispering people to having a clean and renewed heart and spirit.

What a terrible designation to have, to be said to have an "unclean spirit."  That's saying you are rotten to the core and not worthy to be among people.

Jesus is the Mr. Clean of the spirit.  He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.  He is the anointed one, because he is the one who anoints us with Holy Spirit to clean our inner lives and allow us the freedom of self control.

And with self control we can practice the love of God and the true practice of fellowship in loving our neighbors as ourselves.

Let us seek Jesus, the people whisperer today.  Let us allow him to baptize us with God's spirit to help us win the interior battle against all of those principalities and powers of selfish darkness.

And let us be commissioned by the People Whisperer, to go forth and whisper people living in fear and anxiety into the peace and calm of Christ.  Amen.