Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, January 28, 2024
Deuteronomy 18:15-20+Psalm 111+1 Corinthians 8:21-28+Mark 1:21-28
There is a meme that pops up online every so often that shows thousands of books scattered across a roadway accompanied by these words:
A truck loaded with thousands of copies of Roget's Thesaurus crashed yesterday losing its entire load. Witnesses were stunned, startled, aghast, taken aback, stupefied, confused, shocked, rattled, paralyzed, dazed, bewildered, mixed up, surprised, awed, dumbfounded, nonplussed, flabbergasted, astounded, amazed, confounded, astonished, overwhelmed, horrified, numbed, speechless, and perplexed.[1]
In our brief reading from Mark this morning, we read that the people were both astonished and amazed by Jesus. I suppose they may also have been agog, awestruck, shocked, stunned, bamboozled, floored, startled, and stupefied.
Amazed and astonished are used several times in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
When was the last time you were astonished or amazed?
I'll give you a moment because I thought about this long and hard this week. Walking into the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul or being able to see outside at 2:00 in the morning in Fairbanks might qualify. Looking at images sent back from deep space by the Webb telescope is another. I think the only times I have been even close to being astonished and amazed by a person is when I read that swimmer Katie Ledecky holds 18 of the top 20 times in the 1500 freestyle or I watch gymnast Simone Biles hurtling over a vault.
I wonder if we have lost our ability to be astonished and amazed. Humankind's ability to go higher, faster, longer, and more flawlessly has perhaps robbed us of the ability to be amazed and astonished at something done by someone else.
If we could take ourselves back in time to 1st century Capernaum, it would be a different story. Capernaum was a small fishing village of about 1,500 residents on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. Tradition says that this is Peter's hometown, and since Jesus has just called Peter and his brother Andrew, it makes sense that they would make their way there.
It was not unusual for someone who had studied scripture to be invited to take up the Torah scroll and read and teach. So that Jesus did this is not so notable.
What is notable is that astonishment and amazement that followed, not just among the listeners but also the scribes and that demonic spirit.
Now, when I prepare a sermon, I pray for the Spirit’s guidance to make the readings meaningful, to attach them to something that is relevant to this congregation and what's going on in your lives and in the world. But my overarching mission as a preacher of the gospel is to open the texts in a way that helps you understand what it means - what it looks like - to live a faithful life as a follower of Jesus, and hopefully this inspires you to go and be that in this hurting world.
Jesus's purpose was not simply to tell the people how to live a better life or to keep the law. His purpose was "to liberate Israel from the forces of evil."[2] While we don't know what he read to them as he began to teach in the synagogue in Capernaum, in Luke, he picked up the Isaiah scroll in the Nazareth synagogue and said:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ (Luke 4:18-19)
Jesus is the anointed one who brings good news where good news is a scarce commodity, who upends the carceral state, who has the power to heal and free. The message is that the restoration of humankind to God and one another - that is his project, that is the year of the Lord's favor.
And that is why this unclean spirit objects.
We don't talk about demonic forces so much in this 21st century world. Surely there is a rational explanation for everything, right?
Yet even if there are explanations for everything, evil persists. Pain and sorrow and captivity and war persist. And the unclean spirits want it to stay that way. Those who want to hold on to power and privilege and prestige will have those things pried out of their cold, dead hands.
The scribes taught people to attend to the letter of the law.
Jesus taught them to attend to the breadth and depth of the law.
And that is why they were amazed and astounded.
This good news was their ticket to freedom.
This Good News is our ticket to freedom, but we have to understand that our liberation from whatever it is that binds us is intertwined with the oppression and suffering of our neighbors - the ones across the street and the ones across the globe.
Like the angel said to those shepherds on the hillside that we heard about just a few weeks ago:
‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11)
All the people. Those who are driven by evil know this to be true and will do everything in their power to neutralize the good. We need to do everything in our power to assure the love wins.
I challenge you to be amazed and astonished at the difference we can make, each one of us doing what we can do in our little patch of God's vineyard. The naysayers will try to shout us down and shut us out. But nothing that lies ahead of us is stronger than the power of God behind us.
As it says in Ephesians
Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely
more than we can ask or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20)
[1] https://br.ifunny.co/picture/a-truck-loaded-with-thousands-of-copies-of-roget-s-zW7jN81q8
[2] https://open.substack.com/pub/abmcg/p/the-banality-of-evil-capernaum-and?r=e0uiv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web