They went to Capernaum;
and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were
astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not
as the scribes.
Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean
spirit, and he cried out,
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you
come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
But Jesus rebuked him, saying,
“Be silent, and come out of him!”
And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a
loud voice, came out of him.
They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one
another,
“What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands
even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding
region of Galilee.
*****************************************************************************************************
It is so bad, I have learned to warn people before I go to
sleep. New roommates, church mission trips, camping with friends, etc. they
never seem to understand the gravity of my sleep talk until I am being a
complete and total, well another word for it is, nightmare. In middle-school, I
would unknowingly, tell my friends, who were up late talking, “You can finish
in the morning.” One night in college I chewed out my freshman year roommate and
came home to an apology letter written on the door’s white board to which my
response was, “Oh no, what did I say this time.” When I lived in Yosemite, my roommate worked for the coffee shop which
meant she woke up and had to get ready before the sun, in the last week of our
summer I found out I had been yelling at her every morning. The stories go on
and on, it is like I have a demon in me in my sleep, which is hard to wake me
out of.
I had another roommate in college, that didn't talk but
slept-walked. About once a week she would wake up and start getting ready for
her five am crew practice at midnight. Those of us who were still up would have
to convince Anna not to wake up Fredyne her teammate and then get Anna back to
bed. Anne, knowing her sleep oddities better than I, had explained to just tell
her to go back to bed, “because, if say, wake up, I will, and I will be really
disoriented.”
I think of the man with the unclean spirit like a
combination of Anna and I, all our worst sleeping in one. Me saying things
like, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy
us?” and Anna, sleepwalking somewhere where she shouldn’t be, like the
synagogue, or like the time she actually made it to practice across campus,
including a major road, and woke up there because the gym doors were locked.
Jesus, instead of telling the man, “Go back to sleep,” had said the
disorienting words, “Be silent. Come out of him,” or “Wake up,” and Anna and I
would have found ourselves wondering what had I said to prompt a white board
apology, and what time had she walked to practice to find the doors locked. Our
thoughts immediately go to how we had messed up. But Jesus here isn’t focused
on what had happened, what I had said, or how Anna crossed the road, or what
the man possessed by the unclean spirit had done. Jesus is focused on teaching,
and renewal.
He says, “Be silent,” which can actually mean to muzzle, he
says, “Come out of him!” and both of these are actions, actions which point
forward, not behind, actions which show grace not punishment, and I wonder how
many times, when we have done something unclean, that Jesus is not focused on
what we did, but instead gives gracious authority to overcome that which posses
us. A simple example from my own life is the number of times, after eating out,
or eating an entire bag of goldfish, my absolute weakness, I think, ‘I will
begin to make healthier choices tomorrow and then I proceed to blow off being
healthy the rest of the day.’ Likewise, in seminary, we had coozies, that read,
“When sinning, sin boldly,” the church version of, “Go big or Go home.” But, I
think of Jesus in this passage giving the example that one mistake, or many,
like seven servings worth in a bag of Goldfish, doesn’t define us, doesn’t define
our day, that even after three, or four servings, we don’t have to say, “Well,
I might as well finish the bag, so tomorrow I can start over.” Jesus says, “Be
silent. Come out of him,” or in my case, ‘Begin again now. You are not merely
what you eat. You are who I have called you to be.’ Its grace Jesus shows, and
I think grace being paramount goes for a lot of things.
I have read, in Gottman’s scientific psychological studies,
that the most detrimental thing for a marriage is resentment, which truly is
the opposite of grace. That doesn’t mean not to be mad, or disappointed, or
even hurt, but that if a relationship is to last it cannot last with a list of
wrongdoings. Interestingly enough, the piece of advice new brides and grooms
are most commonly told, is not to go to bed on your anger. This colloquial
wisdom may have some significant basis. Likewise, there is research that says
that couples who last are those who are able to remember who they are together
during a fight, be it a smile out of tears, asking for a hug after being yelled
at, or the ability to make someone laugh in the middle of a disagreement. It
isn’t that they don’t fight, it isn't that they never say an unclean thing to
one another, it’s that they do, but that even as they do, they remember, that
they love one another and want to make the relationship work. I think of Jesus
like this, continually focused on now, using his authority not to punish, but
to offer grace. It’s not easy, but it certainly is admirable, its why the
people at the synagogue were amazed at his teaching, and frankly, its why
anyone ever lasted as my roommate. Its grace to seek to see people, and to see
ourselves, as who we were called to be, rather than the list of our mistakes,
of times we slept-walked, or polished off a bag of Goldfish, or said an unkind
thing. Its grace, which can command the unclean spirit, and leave us
amazed.
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