5 Pentecost, Cp7, June 19, 2016
1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a Psalm 22:18-27
Gal. 3:23-29 Luke
8:26-39
If there's something strange In
your neighborhood Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters. If there's something weird.
And it don't look good. Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters.
Ghostbusters, 2016 arrives soon, and it is a new historical moment in the shattering of the glass ceiling; women have now achieved the leading roles as ghostbusters. Congratulation women, you've come a long way, baby.
I mention this as a prelude to a sermon about Jesus as the ghostbuster and the people whisperer in the Gospel.
Why would I make light of the subject? Ghostbusting always has a wider social and cultural context. In America, we designate that which does not have simple scientific cause and effect answers as the category of the strange and the weird or we give a scientific sounding name for the weird, the para-normal or the para-psychological.
Hollywood has become one of the defining features of the American ethos. And we know what Hollywood does with the weird. Hollywood expands the weird to its logically absurd expressions for our entertainment and we deal with weird as either the presentation shocking horror or we make fun of it with humorous presentations, such as the Ghostbusters movies. Our presentations reveal that we have the habit of "whistling" in the dark about weird and strange subjects. We think that Hollywood can present anything under the guise of free speech and such virtual reality is sold to us as being "cathartic" or as a kind of vicarious experience of possible events, without them ever becoming actual events. The problem today is that too many "virtual" events are becoming actual and as Orlando and other events occur we might wonder if life is imitating our art too often. In the virtual world of movies and video games, murder and killing happen more often and more easily than in actual life. The relationship between actual guns and virtual guns is not a subject that is allowed much discussion since we have come under the control of the irrational and weird and strange demons of our own American ethos. We have loved our gun slinging Western heroes of the James Brothers, Butch and Sundance and Wyatt Earp. Guns have defined the American Western ethos. The use of the gun was the law, the judge, the jury and the capital punishment in one event. Would that the American demons of gun violence be able to be transferred, not to some poor pigs, perhaps to some cockroaches and sent to their end in the sea.
The exorcisms of Jesus found in the three synoptic Gospels, not the Gospel of John reside in a wider context and one should not just isolate a prevalent medical practice of the time by certain gifted practitioners. The exorcisms of Jesus existed within certain community practices of public health. The Purity Codes of Judaism served as a public health system. Human conditions were classified and various sorts of treatments and public health policies were prescribed. When a child or adult is totally out of control and impulse control is gone and when erratic behaviors do not conform to rules and laws of the particular tribe or group, the group has to deal with protections of its members. The priests and intelligentsia have to give the populace answers about the weird and strange human behaviors which do not express the good health and salvation of the community.
The definition of a human condition with mysterious etiology also had a cosmic and universal dimension in the time of Jesus. One of the preludes for the exorcisms stories of Jesus is from St. Paul who actually came after Jesus but wrote before the Gospels were written. Paul wrote that "we do not struggle with flesh and blood," that is, we can't find commonsense scientific empirical answers to the strange and the weird. Rather, we are in a cosmic battle against the invisible hierarchies of principalities and powers in "high places," the place above the visible order. And we need the good angels in the high places to help us in the fight against the fallen and bad angels of the high places who have been allowed the freedom to infiltrate the inner-psyches of people to compel them in chaotic and harmful behaviors.
The Hebraic notion of "obe" or familiar spirits and fallen angels became in New Testament Greek, daimon. Daimon was not always a negative word in Greek language, because Socrates was said to have a "Daimon" or Guardian Angel Guide who spoke to him. In New Testament Greek, "daimon" became demon, but it was also synonymous with the term "unclean" spirit. Unclean was a category of diagnosis within the Purity of Code of Judaism. Conditions of life were divided into Categories of being Clean or Unclean, Pure or Defiled. That which was unclean had to be segregated from religious society whose goal was to live in a state of ritual purity. People who were unclean had to be quarantined from ritually pure society until they could be restored to the state of ritual purity, or declared by the religious public health authorities as being "cleansed."
Let us also remember that in the New Testament, the human body is regarded to be a dwelling place or a temple. Jesus cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem of people who were making it a den of thieves. It was the understand that the Risen Christ through the Holy Spirit could cleanse each human body temple and could fulfill the cry of the Psalmist, "Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me."
Can we now appreciate the context of this people whispering, ghost busting account of Jesus of Nazareth? Jesus is presented as the hero of the invisible world. He wins the battle with the principalities and powers of darkness and evil in invisible and heavenly places. The unclean spirits, the legion of unclean spirits in the poor demoniac spoke to Jesus and asked to be put within the designated unclean animal, the swine. And the unclean swine possessed by demons rush into the water of their destruction. This story is more about the cosmic mysticism of Paul and the early church than it is about a literal event in the life of Jesus. The stories of Jesus are teaching tools to present the mystical practice of the early churches.
What did the early church believe? They believed like Elijah, that in a world of threatening earthquakes, thunder, lighting and fire, that the troubled soul could be whispered and calmed by the sheer silence of God found as the author of peace in one's heart.
How can we find meaning from our biblical readings in our life today? You and I know that the most important thing in our lives is to learn how to relate what is happening inside of us to what is happening outside of us. But we also know that what happens outside of us can mark and scar our interior worlds, especially when we are very young. Post-traumatic stress behaviors can happen in the lives of people in varying intensities and manifestations depending upon the original trauma. We know that our interior lives can be threatened by chaotic forces which can cause acting out behaviors which are not healthy for personal or public health.
The problem in our world is that there are too many people who have had events and people causing trauma in their lives and there has not been enough effective people whisperer to bring peace to the hearts of people when they have needed it.
In our world of competition, war, and inadequate resources of care, the events of trauma have created too many acting out behaviors to the point of threatening our public health. More than ever we need people who seek in their lives to become whispered by the love, grace and acceptance of Jesus. We need people who are learning the art of people whispering so as to be an army of healers to learn to bring the sheer silence of God's peaceful presence to the interior lives of people so that they can attain the kind of self-control which expresses personal and community health.
Hollywood humor and Hollywood horror and virtual violence are perhaps evidence that we are baffled by the monsters of trauma that are threatening our world and our society. We desperately need strategies of bringing peace to our interior worlds which have been scarred by too much trauma as to create the compelling demonic forces driving harmful behaviors.
Let us pray that our hearts will be cleansed; let us pray for renewed spirits until we become those who can be people whisperers in a world which desperately needs the unclean spirits tamed of the tendency toward unworthy behaviors.
The mysticism of St. Paul involves a life of prayer and meditation because each of us needs to learn how to win interior battles and attain the sheer and profound peace of God within ourselves. When we can come to this interior peace, we can bring peace in our words and deeds as we join the Risen Christ to be people whisperers in our world.
Ghostbusting is not really Hollywood humor; it is receiving the deep peace of God within ourselves and then bringing it to others in our world. Amen.
Ghostbusters, 2016 arrives soon, and it is a new historical moment in the shattering of the glass ceiling; women have now achieved the leading roles as ghostbusters. Congratulation women, you've come a long way, baby.
I mention this as a prelude to a sermon about Jesus as the ghostbuster and the people whisperer in the Gospel.
Why would I make light of the subject? Ghostbusting always has a wider social and cultural context. In America, we designate that which does not have simple scientific cause and effect answers as the category of the strange and the weird or we give a scientific sounding name for the weird, the para-normal or the para-psychological.
Hollywood has become one of the defining features of the American ethos. And we know what Hollywood does with the weird. Hollywood expands the weird to its logically absurd expressions for our entertainment and we deal with weird as either the presentation shocking horror or we make fun of it with humorous presentations, such as the Ghostbusters movies. Our presentations reveal that we have the habit of "whistling" in the dark about weird and strange subjects. We think that Hollywood can present anything under the guise of free speech and such virtual reality is sold to us as being "cathartic" or as a kind of vicarious experience of possible events, without them ever becoming actual events. The problem today is that too many "virtual" events are becoming actual and as Orlando and other events occur we might wonder if life is imitating our art too often. In the virtual world of movies and video games, murder and killing happen more often and more easily than in actual life. The relationship between actual guns and virtual guns is not a subject that is allowed much discussion since we have come under the control of the irrational and weird and strange demons of our own American ethos. We have loved our gun slinging Western heroes of the James Brothers, Butch and Sundance and Wyatt Earp. Guns have defined the American Western ethos. The use of the gun was the law, the judge, the jury and the capital punishment in one event. Would that the American demons of gun violence be able to be transferred, not to some poor pigs, perhaps to some cockroaches and sent to their end in the sea.
The exorcisms of Jesus found in the three synoptic Gospels, not the Gospel of John reside in a wider context and one should not just isolate a prevalent medical practice of the time by certain gifted practitioners. The exorcisms of Jesus existed within certain community practices of public health. The Purity Codes of Judaism served as a public health system. Human conditions were classified and various sorts of treatments and public health policies were prescribed. When a child or adult is totally out of control and impulse control is gone and when erratic behaviors do not conform to rules and laws of the particular tribe or group, the group has to deal with protections of its members. The priests and intelligentsia have to give the populace answers about the weird and strange human behaviors which do not express the good health and salvation of the community.
The definition of a human condition with mysterious etiology also had a cosmic and universal dimension in the time of Jesus. One of the preludes for the exorcisms stories of Jesus is from St. Paul who actually came after Jesus but wrote before the Gospels were written. Paul wrote that "we do not struggle with flesh and blood," that is, we can't find commonsense scientific empirical answers to the strange and the weird. Rather, we are in a cosmic battle against the invisible hierarchies of principalities and powers in "high places," the place above the visible order. And we need the good angels in the high places to help us in the fight against the fallen and bad angels of the high places who have been allowed the freedom to infiltrate the inner-psyches of people to compel them in chaotic and harmful behaviors.
The Hebraic notion of "obe" or familiar spirits and fallen angels became in New Testament Greek, daimon. Daimon was not always a negative word in Greek language, because Socrates was said to have a "Daimon" or Guardian Angel Guide who spoke to him. In New Testament Greek, "daimon" became demon, but it was also synonymous with the term "unclean" spirit. Unclean was a category of diagnosis within the Purity of Code of Judaism. Conditions of life were divided into Categories of being Clean or Unclean, Pure or Defiled. That which was unclean had to be segregated from religious society whose goal was to live in a state of ritual purity. People who were unclean had to be quarantined from ritually pure society until they could be restored to the state of ritual purity, or declared by the religious public health authorities as being "cleansed."
Let us also remember that in the New Testament, the human body is regarded to be a dwelling place or a temple. Jesus cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem of people who were making it a den of thieves. It was the understand that the Risen Christ through the Holy Spirit could cleanse each human body temple and could fulfill the cry of the Psalmist, "Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me."
Can we now appreciate the context of this people whispering, ghost busting account of Jesus of Nazareth? Jesus is presented as the hero of the invisible world. He wins the battle with the principalities and powers of darkness and evil in invisible and heavenly places. The unclean spirits, the legion of unclean spirits in the poor demoniac spoke to Jesus and asked to be put within the designated unclean animal, the swine. And the unclean swine possessed by demons rush into the water of their destruction. This story is more about the cosmic mysticism of Paul and the early church than it is about a literal event in the life of Jesus. The stories of Jesus are teaching tools to present the mystical practice of the early churches.
What did the early church believe? They believed like Elijah, that in a world of threatening earthquakes, thunder, lighting and fire, that the troubled soul could be whispered and calmed by the sheer silence of God found as the author of peace in one's heart.
How can we find meaning from our biblical readings in our life today? You and I know that the most important thing in our lives is to learn how to relate what is happening inside of us to what is happening outside of us. But we also know that what happens outside of us can mark and scar our interior worlds, especially when we are very young. Post-traumatic stress behaviors can happen in the lives of people in varying intensities and manifestations depending upon the original trauma. We know that our interior lives can be threatened by chaotic forces which can cause acting out behaviors which are not healthy for personal or public health.
The problem in our world is that there are too many people who have had events and people causing trauma in their lives and there has not been enough effective people whisperer to bring peace to the hearts of people when they have needed it.
In our world of competition, war, and inadequate resources of care, the events of trauma have created too many acting out behaviors to the point of threatening our public health. More than ever we need people who seek in their lives to become whispered by the love, grace and acceptance of Jesus. We need people who are learning the art of people whispering so as to be an army of healers to learn to bring the sheer silence of God's peaceful presence to the interior lives of people so that they can attain the kind of self-control which expresses personal and community health.
Hollywood humor and Hollywood horror and virtual violence are perhaps evidence that we are baffled by the monsters of trauma that are threatening our world and our society. We desperately need strategies of bringing peace to our interior worlds which have been scarred by too much trauma as to create the compelling demonic forces driving harmful behaviors.
Let us pray that our hearts will be cleansed; let us pray for renewed spirits until we become those who can be people whisperers in a world which desperately needs the unclean spirits tamed of the tendency toward unworthy behaviors.
The mysticism of St. Paul involves a life of prayer and meditation because each of us needs to learn how to win interior battles and attain the sheer and profound peace of God within ourselves. When we can come to this interior peace, we can bring peace in our words and deeds as we join the Risen Christ to be people whisperers in our world.
Ghostbusting is not really Hollywood humor; it is receiving the deep peace of God within ourselves and then bringing it to others in our world. Amen.
