4 Epiphany B February
1, 2015
Deut. 18:15-20 Ps.
111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Does everyone know what the DSM
is? It is abbreviation for the
Diagnostic and Statistic Manual for Mental Disorders. It is the official classification of Mental
Disorders compiled by the American Psychiatric Association. After various censuses of the mentally ill in
the United States and classification systems, in 1952 the DSM-1 was voted into
existence as a way to standardize within the mental health community the
various designations for mental health disorders so that members of the
community could have a common language of diagnosis to allow standardization in
treatment. One cannot find in the latest
manual, the DSM-5 a condition known as demon possession.
The
DSM was born in the era of modern science and the assumption was that the
methods of the natural sciences could be used in the human sciences of
sociology, anthropology and psychology.
So the DSM is based upon finding "this worldly" answers for
mental disorders as either the result traumatic events in one's developmental
history or as having a genetic or physiological explanation due to the
chemistry of the brain.
We
know that systems of classifications of mental health, physical health and
spiritual health have varied according to the time and place cultures where
behaviors have been observed and classified.
We know that systems of classification have changed because they have
proven to be wrong or prejudiced and just plain wrong.
What if we were to try to reconstruct the operative DSM manual during
the time of Jesus? In his time the
religious authorities were the omni-competent authorities who designated
certain mental conditions as being caused by demon possession or as the results
of unclean spirits. The unclean spirit
designation fit within the purity code of Judaism and in this code all manner
of behaviors, states of being, food, and clothing were given a classification
of being pure or impure, clean or unclean.
To have one's spirit be designated as being unclean was like being a
social leper. Lepers were designated as
unclean and quarantined and to be unclean in one's inside was also a condition
to be quarantined.
How dare this man with an unclean spirit enter the synagogue? Every society is quite uncomfortable with
people who have internal disorders which cause them to act out and make
everyone else frightened and uncomfortable.
Modern societies built asylums, psychiatric care facilities both to
treat and to quarantine those with mental health issues designated as social
problems.
We as readers of the Gospel can misread this Gospel to be mainly about
Jesus as an exorcist as part of his earthly ministry.
We can forget that these Gospels were written many years after the life
of Jesus and they present narratives of the life and ministry of Jesus with a teaching purpose. I find it particularly interesting that the
Gospel stories about unclean spirits and demons often have the possessed
subjects being used for the demons to talk to Jesus and recognize his
authority.
So here's the scenario: Jesus and the early churches lived under the
authority structures of the Caesar and the Roman Empire. Surely, power and authority came from armies
and political power, so how could Christians make the claim that Jesus was in
any way a Messiah, a kingly one like David, or a better version of being Son of
God than the Roman Emperors who were declared by their senates to be sons of
divine beings?
The early church believed and practiced the reality of an interior
kingdom. They believed that the battles
of life had to be won within this interior kingdom and this kingdom was as real
as the external kingdoms of the world.
St. Paul who wrote the definitive theology of the early Christian
church, wrote that we don't fight against flesh and blood. Our beef is not with the Caesar; we are fighting
the inward puppeteers which he called principalities and powers of
darkness. The early church believed in
the power and the strength of these interior puppeteers.
When the theology of Paul came to the presentation of the narrative of
Jesus, Jesus was not presented as a competitor to the Caesar as a king with
armies, Jesus was presented as one who was involved in a greater cosmological
battle. The ministry of Jesus begins
with him encountering the great Interior Puppeteer, Satan, who wanted to pull
the strings and make Jesus act according to his will, but Jesus resisted this
great interior accuser and puppeteer.
And because he did so he began a ministry with this incredible
charismatic authority. So the demons
spoke to Jesus through their possessed subjects as way in literary form to
indicate the ruling authority of Christ within the interior life.
Power is a neutral notion; it becomes understood in the motives which
direct it. Power can be understood as
the coercive power of suppression and oppression. Jesus was said to have power or
authority. The word here for authority Greek
is "exousia." This kind of
authority is the performance of a winsome charisma such that one is persuaded
to submit to the one who manifests such authority.
This is the kind of authority which we like. We do not regard the authority of coercion to
be valid since genuine authority needs to include the free participation. People who act from controlling impulses have
lost their freedom; they can't help themselves.
The whispering authority of someone who loves and cares for us is the
most profound authority of all. We
willingly submit and give ourselves over to the whispering authority of love.
In life sometimes the coercive authority of power is needed to defend the
helpless, but the preferred mode of authority is the whispering loving authority
of someone who gives to us and empowers our freedom to resist interior tyranny
and begin to act as peaceful and loving free agents towards what is excellent
and good.
Today, we live in a world with many expressions of tyrannical and
coercive powers from without. We can
know inward coercive powers of addiction and anxious acting out or fearful
depressions. And so we all need to know
the interior Risen Christ as the one who can whisper us to true freedom. This interior Risen Christ is often best
known when people model whispering behaviors with each other within community
and fellowship as we mutually persuade each other to be the best people we can
be together as the body of Christ. May
God helps us be people who have been whispered towards loving and free
excellence and may we know a calling to be people who whisper other people in
the name and authority of the Risen Christ.
Amen.