Scriptures:
I Samuel 17:32-49 2 Corinthians 6:1-13 Mark 4:35-5:20
Any Harry Potter fans, or parents of Harry Potter fans, in
the house? I actually haven’t read the
books nor seen the movies – sorry. But
from what I gather, there’s a bad-guy character in the Potter books – Voldemort
– whose evil is thought to be so powerful that nobody is willing even to utter
his name. The characters in the Harry
Potter movies refer to Voldemort as “the dark lord” or “he who must not be
named” – I guess the thought is that if you say Voldemort’s name, he’ll show
up, and that’s not something you’d want. I’d like us to tuck that idea of Voldemort –
he who must not be named – into the back of your mind, as the idea – not the
character – will come up later in the sermon.
In our reading from Mark’s gospel, Jesus has just finished
up what amounted to his first preaching and healing tour in Galilee. The
tour has been a mixed bag, with highs and low – Jesus had cured a leper, cast
out an unclean spirit from a man, chosen his twelve disciples, healed a man
with a withered hand, taught in his hometown synagogue, had been chased by his
family, who thought he’d gone out of his mind, had been accused of being
demon-possessed by some religious leaders from Jerusalem who happened to be in
town, and despite the opposition had attracted such a crowd that he had to go
out in a boat on the lake to teach to avoid being trampled by the crowds. He
taught in parables, and explained the parables to his disciples.
If I’d done all of that, I’d probably tell my disciples that
it was high time for a nap – but instead Jesus not only wants to keep going,
but wants to expand and extend his tour – perhaps like a rock star who
continually wants to add additional stops onto the tour. Mark tells us that, when evening came, Jesus
said, “Let us go across to the other side.” We’re told that “they” – presumably the
disciples and whoever owned the boat – “took Jesus in the boat, just as he was”
– with no time or opportunity to bathe, Jesus was probably sweaty and smelly
and exhausted, and indeed we’re told in just a bit that Jesus went to the back
of the boat to catch a nap.
Jesus had said, “Let us go across to the other side” – but
what was on the other side of the lake?
More specifically, who lived on the other side of the lake? The simple answer is “on the other side are
other people”. And they were definitely
“other” – predominantly Gentile rather than Jewish. Up to this point, Jesus’ ministry has been
primarily among other Jews. How would these
Gentiles on the other side of the lake respond to Jesus and the disciples. Would Jesus and his disciples be welcome
there? Relations between Jews and
Gentiles were strained at best. If this scene
were taking place in a Star Wars movie, this is about the time when Harrison
Ford would be saying, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
And, as they set out, right on cue, gale force winds whip
up, and the storm surge causes huge waves of water to slam into the boat. If things keep going as they are, the little
boat’s going to go down, all hands lost.
And so they wake up Jesus, who had been curled up on a cushion in the
back of the boat. “We’re about to go
under, Jesus! Teacher, don’t you care that we’re dying here?” We’re told that Jesus woke up, rebuked the
wind, said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still” – and all became calm. “Why are you afraid?” Jesus asks the
disciples. “Have you still no
faith?” And we’re told that the
disciples were amazed that even the wind and waves obeyed Jesus.
That’s where this week’s reading was supposed to end, but
for this sermon I’m continuing on to include the story of what happened once
Jesus got to the other side of the lake.
Remember my questions about the kind of welcome Jesus and his followers
might get on the other side of the lake.
As it turns out, the welcoming committee is…..a demon-possessed man who
lived among the tombs. We’re told that
the man had such strength that he could not be put in restraints – he just
pulled them apart – and that he lived among the tombs or on the mountains, and
day and night he howled and tried to bruise himself with stones – these days,
we would call him a cutter, one who, when feeling overwhelmed, tries to cut
himself. The man runs up to Jesus, bows
before Jesus, and yells, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most
High God. I beg you by God, don’t torment me.” And Jesus asked the demon, “What is your
name?” The man replied, “My name is
Legion, for we are many.” The demons
asked Jesus permission to enter a nearby herd of swine, which permission Jesus
granted, and the herd of pigs stampeded off a cliff and drowned in the lake. If the legion of demons were able to do that
to a herd of pigs, we can perhaps imagine the self-destructive urges that the
man must have felt when under their control, and what a struggle it had been
just for him to have survived. The swineherds reported what happened to the
townspeople, and they townspeople came and saw the formerly-possessed man
“clothed and in his right mind”, and that the pigs had stampeded and
drowned. The townspeople begged Jesus
and his followers to go somewhere else.
The formerly-possessed man wanted to stay with Jesus, but Jesus told him
to go home to his friends and tell how much God had done for him, and what
mercy God had shown. This is unusual –
often in Mark’s gospel, after healing somebody, Jesus says, “Don’t tell
anyone.” But this time, Jesus said, “Go,
tell” – and the man went all through the region telling what Jesus had done for
him.
Pay attention to the reaction of the townspeople – because
it’s odd. Of course, the swineherds are
upset over the loss of their herd, over their financial loss. But wouldn’t they be happy that the man was
no longer under demonic control?
Apparently not. It seems that,
as disruptive as the man was, the townspeople had achieved a kind of settlement
with him, a kind of equilibrium – “You go out and live among the tombs and make
noise and cut yourself with rocks, and we’ll warn our children and each other
to stay away from you, and nobody will get hurt. Well, at least none of us will get hurt –
you’ll hurt yourself, but we can’t do anything about that.” They
had things all worked out, and then along comes Jesus to upset the
applecart. Before, they could ignore
the man – indeed, it would seem they cared more about their pigs than they
cared about this man. Now they actually
had to deal with the man in his right mind.
What would that be like? What words
might the man have to say to them? No
wonder they wanted to ride Jesus out of town on a rail. And stepping back a little further, what was
the bit about Jesus asking the demon to say its name? - “Howdy there, demon, my name is Jesus.
What’s your name?” Apparently Jesus
needed to name the demon in order to cast it out.
In a sense, you could say that today’s reading gives us two
back-to-back exorcisms – the casting out of the disturbing forces of nature that
caused the storm, and the casting out of the unclean spirit from the man who
lived among the tombs. It’s almost as if
even nature itself was conspiring to keep Jesus from making that trip to the
other side of the shore, conspiring to keep Jesus from healing the man who had
been tormented for so long. Mark wants
us to know that Jesus has the power to calm the wind and waves on the sea, and
to bring peace to our hearts and souls in the midst of torments.
This sermon turned out very different from what I’d
originally intended, because of the events of Wednesday night this week in
South Carolina. Of course, at Emanuel
Church here, we had our Wednesday night Bible study and praise service. There were six of us here, and we studied
Acts chapter 14, in which Paul and Barnabas heal a man, at first are greeted as
gods, but soon after Paul winds up being stoned almost to death. (It’s been an occupational hazard of pastors ever
since, for people either to treat them as miracle-workers or to try to stone
them.) We studied the word, and we
prayed, and I really struggled playing some unfamiliar hymns on my guitar – I
went acoustic on Wednesday, thank goodness – but I think we had a good time in
God’s presence.
When I woke up Thursday morning, I learned what happened that
night in Charleston, South Carolina, at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal
Church. And what happened on Wednesday
night in Charleston, South Carolina is that Satan visited Emanuel AME. While the six of us here at Emanuel
Bridesburg were reading the Word and sharing and praying and singing, twelve
members of Emanuel AME, a black congregation, were doing the same – until a
stranger who had visited the church that night, a 21 year old young man named
Dylann Storm Roof, who had sat and listened quietly to the Bible study for
almost an hour, pulled out a gun and began shooting. As he pulled the trigger, Mr. Roof, a white
man, told those in the room, “I have to do it.
You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” Nine of those present were killed. One little girl who was injured played dead,
and thus saved her own life. The gunman
told one of the survivors, “I’m not going to kill you, I’m going to spare you,
so you can tell them what happened.”
Remember that at the beginning I talked about Voldemort of
the Harry Potter movies, the Dark Lord, he who must not be named, let he appear
and overwhelm us with his evil powers. Remember
also, by contrast, that when Jesus cast out the demon, he asked the demon its
name before casting it out. Our human
tendency is not to want to name the demons that haunt and torment our society,
our country, our city, even our neighborhood.
We don’t want to point out the elephant in the living room, don’t want
to name the demon, lest it overpower us.
And yet, the example of Jesus tells us that only by naming the evil in
our midst, only by naming the demons, can we begin the process of casting them
out. And so I’m going to do some naming.
First of all, the victims.
They were all black; they were beloved children of God; and they had
names, and they had lives.
·
The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, age 41, senior
pastor of Emanuel AME, and also a state senator.
·
The Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, age 45,
also a pastor at Emanuel AME, as well as a speech therapist and girls track
coach at the local high school.
·
The Rev. Daniel Simmons, age 74. He was pastor of a nearby church. Rev. Simmons survived the initial gunshots
but died on the table at the hospital operating room.
·
Myra Thompson, age 56, wife of the pastor of a
nearby Episcopal church.
·
Cynthia Hurd, age 54, a librarian who managed
the St. Andrews Regional Library.
·
Tywanza Sanders, age 26, the youngest of those
killed. He had just earned a degree in
business administration and worked in retail.
·
Ethel Lance, age 70, the church’s custodian, and
a grandmother.
·
Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance’s 87 year old cousin,
a longtime church member.
·
Depayne Middleton Doctor, age 49, a member of
the choir and mother of four who had recently started a job as admissions director
at the Charleston campus of Southern Wesleyan University.
What motivated Dylann Roof to snuff out these lives? What is the name of the demon that took over
the life of Dylann Roof? – and I have no hesitancy whatever in stating that
Dylann Roof was controlled by forces of evil beyond himself. Mr. Roof’s life had been drifting – evidently
he repeated 9th grade, and then dropped out of school, spending most
of his days since dropping out keeping to himself and playing on the computer. He’d
recently had some minor brushes with the law, for trespassing and drug
possession. Some on Fox News stated that
Dylann Roof was motivated by a hatred of Christians – but while those killed
were indeed Christians, I don’t think Mr. Roof was saying that Christians were
raping our women and taking over our country….so that’s a case of Fox News
misinterpreting the news, misnaming the demon.
Some speculate that Dylann Roof was mentally ill, but at this point,
there’s no evidence of any particular clinical mental disorder. Some point to the easy availability of guns –
Dylann’s father had bought him a 45 caliber pistol for his birthday. Thanks dad.
One wonders what Dylann’s father is feeling this father’s day.
And then there’s Dylann’s racism and views of white
supremacy, which he wore proudly and openly, with a Confederate States of
America license plate on his car and wearing patches with the flags of
apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia on his jacket. These were views that he had increasingly
expressed in recent months to his few friends, that the races should be
separated and segregated – even though on Facebook he himself had both black
and white Facebook friends. And these
are views he expressed to those he shot.
He wanted to start a race war.
And racism and white supremacy, hatred and fear of non-whites, are
ultimately the names of the demons that brought Dylann Roof to church that
night, to bring murder into the house of the Lord.
How did the demon of racism come to take over his life? How does a 21-year-old kid even come to think
about places like apartheid South Africa and of all places, Rhodesia? In one of his teachings, Jesus said that if a
demon is cast out of a man, it wanders for a time in desert places, seeking
rest but finding none, but eventually will return to the place from which it
had been cast out, and if that place is unoccupied, the demon will find seven
spirits that are even worse and return to occupy the man, and the man’s
condition will be worse than ever.
Dylann Roof’s life was empty – empty, and drifting, and crumbling. He
had no job, no wife or girlfriend – apparently never had – hardly any friends,
and an “on-again/off again” relationship with his parents. And no church connection. Apparently during his lonely hours online he
stumbled onto racist and white supremacist websites. Those websites gave Dylann someone to blame
for his empty, drifting, crumbling life – and the ideas from these websites are
what came to dominate his life, and what came to snuff out the lives of nine
devout Christians who were reading their Bibles and praying, and singing, like
we did here on the same night – and these ideas came to ruin the life of Dylann
Roof himself.
It’s easy to dismiss Dylann Roof as an anomaly, as a lone
nutcase – but the ideas that motivated him, the demons that drove him, are
alive and active in our country. When we
think of terrorists, we think of Muslims, people with towels around their heads
and exotic names and foreign accents – but according to a New York Times survey
of 382 law enforcement agencies nationwide, results of which were published on
Tuesday, the day before the shootings, 74% reported anti-government extremism –
as in milicias, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the like - as one of their
three top threats – particularly so-called “lone wolf” terrorists such as
Dylann Roof. All of this is driven by
anger, and the anger is driven by fear.
We may ask, “Why didn’t God protect the folks at Emanuel AME
on Wednesday night.” Well, we the church
are Christ’s body in the world. We are
Christ’s hands and feet. When we say,
“Why didn’t God protect them”, we forget that we are God’s hands and feet, here
in this world to protect the vulnerable.
So let me turn the question around – as members of Christ’s body, how
did we, the church, let this happen? How
did we, the body of Christ, allow Dylann Roof’s mind to become so twisted with
hate. And what will we do to stop this from happening again, to keep other
minds from being twisted with hate?
One thing we can do – one small thing we can do – one baby
step in the right direction thing we can do - is to reach out of our comfort
zones to make contact with believers of other races. There’s an organization in Philadelphia called
POWER – Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Renew – a coalition
of faith communities that takes in almost four dozen congregations – black,
white, Catholic, Protestant, several Jewish congregations, even a Muslim
congregation. In response to
Wednesday’s shootings, this group sponsored a prayer vigil on Thursday night at
Mother Bethel AME downtown, which I attended.
This group is currently sponsoring a 10-day prayer vigil for education
funding in Harrisburg, the kickoff of which Michael Wilkowski and I attended
yesterday. And I would like Emanuel
Church – our Emanuel Church – to become a member of this coalition of people of
faith in Philadelphia, so that we can make connections with people of faith
across our city that we otherwise will not meet here in Bridesburg, so we can
have a small role in casting out the demons of racism that plague us here in
Philadelphia, here in Bridesburg, where, as in South Carolina, confederate
flags are a familiar sight.
That’s one specific thing we can do, and I actually would
like to have a congregational vote.
Beyond that, remember that acts such as the shootings in South Carolina
are motivated by fear. The powers that
be – those of great power and wealth in our country – encourage fear, because
fear keeps people divided. Divide and
conquer is one of the oldest tactics in the book, and the corporate powers that
be have us working class Americans pretty well divided and conquered, with
blacks and whites are at one another’s throats, let they – lest we - unite in
solidarity to confront the powers that be.
But such fear is not of God. 2
Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but rather a spirit
of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
I John 4 contains these words, “There is no fear in love, but perfect
love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has
not reached perfection in love.” And in
our Gospel reading, as Jesus told his disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Jesus told his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side”
– and that is what I’m asking of us – to go to the other side of our
fears. And, as happened when Jesus
stirred the pot and shook up the equilibrium that had existed, forces of evil
attempted to shut Jesus down – and when we try to cross to the other side of
our fears, we can expect things to get stirred up, can expect to shake, rattle,
and roll - but Jesus prevailed. As
Christians motivated by the love of Christ that casts out fear, we, too, can
prevail over our fears – our fears for the future, our fears of the present,
our regrets about the past. Perfect love
casts out fear. May the perfect love of
Christ exorcise and cast out every demon of fear that would seek to hold us
captive, and may we be liberated as never before to love God with all our
heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors – of all races and sorts and
conditions – as ourselves. Amen.
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