1 February 2009

Epiphany 4B

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

This morning the gospel pictures a rather strange event, the cleansing of a man who had an unclean spirit. An exorcism. Now, the subject of exorcism is the subject of a whole other sermon, and I do not intend to go into that this morning. There would not be enough time to deal with it adequately, so let me just briefly say this about exorcism. In the Episcopal Church, we do have exorcisms, they happen very rarely, but they do occur. The Bishop is the one who gives the authority to have an exorcism, and he does so only after determining that all other resources, physical and mental healthy resources, for example, have been used and not been found to be effective. The church has rites for the expelling of evil spirits and for the protecting of those who have been assaulted by them. More commonly, these days, evil spirits may be a result of something like voodoo or Satan worship. Much more of what used to be thought of as demon possession is now thought of as mental illness or addiction. But, the church still has rites for exorcism because, from time to time, only they will do what needs to be done.

But, for my money, the most important thing in the gospel is that little line at the very end where people looked at what Jesus did and were impressed with what he did, for he acted with authority. He acted with authority.

It is that I want to focus upon this morning. Acting with authority. Authority has a bad name these days. A few years ago, you used to see bumpers, strips which urged people: “Question Authority”. In recent years, even the church has been reticent to use its authority, to speak with authority. This should not be. Authority is a gift from God. You see that all through scriptures: The apostles are given authority to do certain things. The church was given the authority to forgive, in God’s name. We have the authority to gather and say certain words over bread and wine and they become Christ’s body.

Authority is not merely raw power. Authority is power which has been, as the word itself suggests, authorized. Authority is appropriate power.

And authority works, authority is appealing when it is backed up with action. Jesus’ words about the saving power of God were backed up with the action of healing the man through exorcism. All through the gospels, we see Jesus acting — saying words, and then backing them up with action. We see him making ideas incarnate, speaking about healing, reconciliation, new life — and then carrying those ideas into flesh by actually healing people, raising them to new life, and reconciling them with one another. In Jesus, words turn into deeds.

And, isn’t this true about all authority in life. The people we most admire are those whose actions are congruent with their words. People were impressed with Mother Theresa because she not only spoke about God’s unconditional live, but she went out and turned it into action — by picking up the sick and dying on the streets and caring for them. Many people these days are concerned about quality education in public schools. A few months ago, I heard a Midwest governor talking about what he and his administration had done to actually restore public education, raise test scores, and increase graduation rates. He had the personal courage to face down the forces of mediocrity and to translate into action ideas which benefit all children in his state. Words matched with action.

Psychologists refer to this kind of behavior as congruent behavior. Behavior where words are matched with action. No guile, no hypocrisy. Congruent behavior. Words matched with deeds.

And, as the year goes on, notice if you will if this is not a characteristic of Jesus: His words match his actions. In the end, when we get to Holy Week and Easter, we are going to see him turn the greatest idea into the greatest action of all. He will have spent several months talking about our being raised to new life, and then at Easter he will turn it into action.

Back in Christmas, we thought about the implications of the word becoming flesh. Today, we consider the implications of word becoming action. And the implications are pretty long term, indeed. Not only do they square with what we know about the people we most admire, but they remind us that the whole of Jesus’ life is about God’s saving involvement in human history as he turns ideas into actions and words into reality.

So, to God who is the word, Jesus whose words turn into deeds, and the spirit who makes those deeds our own, to that God the Holy Trinity be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.