Mark 3:13-30 - sermon notes
The community that casts out demons
Unfinished manuscript for this past Sunday’s homily.
In his third stanza of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” Martin Luther characterizes the world as “with devils filled” and says that it “threatens to undo us.” His literal words are wolt uns gar vorschlingen, which have been more literally translated, “desire to utterly devour us.”
But the way in which demons desire is different from the ways in which humans desire.
Humans are embodied. We are created to grow over time, to bear fruit, and to be “finished” and “perfected” in glory. Whereas demons—whom Mark also calls “unclean spirits”—have neither a growth trajectory nor a graciously unfolding destiny.
Humans have desires which we experience over time. Our desires have to do with our capacity to wonder at the nature and meaning of things. To give and to receive. To see the already and to sense the not yet. And to agonize, wait, and pray in the meantime. Either patiently or impatiently.
Demons are like the spiritual version of animals. Demonic activity is often described using animals as symbols or metaphors. Demonized crowds bark, howl, cry, gnash their teeth. Demons don’t have their own desires, but they prey on the desires of mortal humans, lodging themselves, as they can, in our more vulnerable desires: the ones which have been wounded, which require patience or dependence, or which are affected by power dynamics.
Throughout Mark, demons “demonize” human beings. They “seize” them, “throw them down,” they make mouths “foam” and teeth “grind,” and they make them go “rigid.” They “convulse” children, make them “fall” and “roll about.” Their movement is described spatially: they “enter” of their own will, and Jesus tells them to “come out.”
I spoke this past week to a woman who is licensed to practice Healing Prayer, and who emphasizes discerning the demons people rub up against as they go about their lives. I asked her what she notices when she listens to someone tell their family story. She showed me a list of notes she had taken, observations of demonic activity. Here are the things she noticed: manipulation, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, alcoholism, drug addiction, divorce, violence, abuse, illness, deception, fear, bullying, shame, control, rejection, hiding, disunity, distrust, codependency, fear of money, criticism, and condemnation.
As Martin Luther has said, This world, with devils filled, desires to devour us.
Before we look more closely at today’s text, I want to make a couple of introductory comments about demons and “possession.”
First, the term “possession” was made popular by the King James Version, and made even more popular by movies about demons. In verse 22, both in the NIV and in the ESV, the scribes are described as saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul.” But Mark uses a simpler word, and he actually puts the sentence in the opposite order. Mark just says, “He has Beelzebul.”
Second, Christians can have demons, and we can be demonized (that is, oppressed by demons in some way or other), but we can’t be possessed. But rather than preach about that, I’ve asked Jackson to print out a brief biblical explanation of this, in case you’d like to read more.
Third, when the Scriptures want to talk about “possessing,” they use more practical and relevant examples:
In ancient Jewish commentaries on Exodus, they describe Pharaoh as having the chief demon, Mastemah, and being driven to possess the Israelites as slaves.
Saul had a demon, and he tried to seize and destroy David.
Isaiah describes the messiah as breaking the bonds of slavery forged by the demon, Belial.
Luke describes Jesus as proclaiming “release” from these same bonds.
In Galatians, Paul compares the fruit of the Holy Spirit to the demonic works of the flesh, saying: “If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”
If you acknowledge that the world is full of devils; and if you have a developed spiritual sense for the liberating, loosing, healing work of the Holy Spirit on the one hand, and the possessing, binding, violating work of demons; and you think about it, then you can see what the Bible describes and what Martin Luther sees.
The world, with devils filled, desires to devour us. And to the extent that we have demons, we forget our humanity, neglect to set one another free, and habitually possess, devour, and consume one another in the ways that Paul describes.
But this is the world into which the Father sent the Son, and the Son sent the twelve, to preach good news, and to have authority to cast out demons. Today, I want to look briefly at three parts of “casting out demons” in this passage, exploring three questions:
How does Jesus qualify his followers to cast out demons?
What does it look like for a Christian community to commit to do the gospel work of casting out demons?
How does this help us understand the “eternal sin” in v. 29?
How does Jesus qualify his followers to cast out demons?
Around the year 1150, the theologian Peter Lombard wrote a treatise called The Sentences that offered standardized definitions of theological terms. And in his section on “orders,” or “ordination,” he listed the seven orders of clergy to which Christians were being ordained: the Holy Orders included “priests” and “deacons,” but there were five more “Regular Orders,” including subdeacons (or altar servers), readers, doorkeepers (or ushers), acolytes (or crucifers), and exorcists—people who were specifically called by their community, and trained, and commissioned to cast out demons.
Each of these orders served a liturgical or a ministerial function within their worshiping communities, and each one was rooted in a key Bible passage. The order of “exorcist” is related to this passage in Mark: “he appointed twelve, so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons” (v. 13–14).
One helpful way to think about the ministry of casting out demons is by thinking about the priesthood. In one sense, priesthood is an exclusive order. Arron and I have been officially ordained as priests, and we are the two people in this community who have been licensed and charged to offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. But all of us are called, in a more general sense, to be priests—to offer up praise and thanksgiving, our prayers, and our works of love. And the passages in Scripture about priesthood and offering apply to all of us.
In one sense, “casting out demons” is a unique ministry. Some people are officially trained and licensed as exorcists, and are called upon to conduct formal exorcisms. To discern demons and unclean spirits, to rebuke them, saying “Come out, and Be gone.” But all of you are called, as you grow and mature in the spiritual life, to discern spirits and to cast them out.
And the first step of understanding this is in the first words of today’s gospel lesson: “Jesus went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that,” and this is the first thing, “they might be with him.” Jesus has called you because he desires you, and you have come to him because you have heard him calling you. Jesus doesn’t just call twelve men because he needs help getting his work done—he calls them “so that they might be with him.” But being with him, he is also preparing to send them out both “to preach” and to “have authority to cast out demons.”
There is no replacement for answering Jesus’s invitation to live with him in the Christian community, and this sermon doesn’t count as full and sufficient training for the ministry of casting out demons.
What does it look like for a Christian community to commit to do the gospel work of casting out demons?
Acknowledges the reality, presence, and agency of demons.
Voices and traditions in the American church have tried to ignore the significance of demons.
But other voices and traditions explain problems away by over-attributing them to demonic causes. Depression? That’s a demon. Digestive issues? That’s a demon. You need a blessing.
[Traps: Under- or over-attribution; overconfident attribution. What do we do?]
Pursues healing by pressing into multiple healing arts.
Demonic activity explains parts of our issues, but doesn’t usually explain them entirely. And while pastors, or priests, are trained in some of the healing arts, our pursuit of healing can’t stop with the Church.
Confession: A place to lay our sins out into the open, and to explore the deeper sins that often lurk beneath them.
Therapy: A place to lay out our disorientation and reactive behavior, in order to understand our wounds and our emotional subterrain.
Psychiatry: Diagnoses and addresses the chemical imbalances that make self-regulation an uphill battle, and offers us restored agency.
Spiritual direction and exorcism: Discern both the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the provocations of long-held demons in order to know what to follow and what to cast out by prayer.
Our presenting issues, and even our sins, are so layered and multi-faceted, and we often can’t distinguish what our demons are doing until we’ve examined other layers or faces of the issue.
Cultivates the courage and the love to say “That wasn’t you.”
Casting out demons requires deep patience, deep curiosity, and a deep commitment to forgiveness. Once you have looked past your own behavior and surface motivations and more deeply into your own soul, and your emotional subterrain, the more you’re able to see other people.
That is, to see past their behavior, their choices, and their presenting motivations. Down to the deep stuff that moves them: their insecurity, their past pains, their unacknowledged fears and desires, their long-held demons.
Moves beyond “having empathy” and “showing grace” in pursuit of deep reconciliation.
It’s one thing to forgive someone for hurting you by their behavior, or to “show grace” or “extend generosity” to someone who has lost your trust, but…
How does this help us understand the “eternal sin” in v. 29?
The eternal sin: seeing the sum total of Jesus’s ministry of casting out demons and attributing his power to the powers of darkness, deciding it is part of the problem, over and against God.
Dejection, envy, no faith in God-the-Spirit, anti-liberatory, anti-healing…