Friday, January 30, 2009

Friday, January 30, 2009

Today’s text

Mark 1:21-27

They went as far as Capernaum, and at once on the Sabbath he went into the synagogue and began to teach. And his teaching made a deep impression on them because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority. And at once in their synagogue there was a man with an unclean spirit, and he shouted, 'What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God.' But Jesus rebuked it saying, 'Be quiet! Come out of him!' And the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions and with a loud cry went out of him.

Reflection

You do not stand far off, Jesus. You get involved in the mess of living to heal and bless.

The presence of the possessed man made the synagogue unclean, impure, and the way to deal with impurity was to flee, to turn ones eyes away. Do not look. Do not touch. Stand clear.

If you do not, you become unclean, unacceptable to others, to God, to proper society.

But you do not stand clear, Jesus. The demon taunts you, telling you that you, indeed, are holy, pure, given to God, so you cannot have anything to do with the man. To do so is to become defiled.

In fear of becoming an outcast, this is just what many do.

But to this you say the magic words, ‘Shut up:’

Be quiet and come out of him, you say, for such thinking is far from the truth of God, who comes not to reinforce the codes of holiness that lift some but exclude the many. It is compassion not concern with personal protection of ones purity, ones’ ‘rightness,’ that concerns you, Jesus.

And to this way, beyond concern for the cleanliness of our own hands, that you invite us, leading us straight into the mess, there to know and serve the true holiness that is your compassion.

So lead us beyond such self-concern to the places where we may most know you, in the mess where you cast out the demons that hold our souls in fear that the purity of compassion may be born.

Pr. David L. Miller