Mark 1:21-28

 FOURTH SUNDAY ORDINARY TIME 

Mark 1:21-28

A good Sunday for everyone. 

In last week's Gospel, we heard the announcement with which Jesus began his public life. He said, "The kingdom of God is here, be converted and believe in the gospel.” It means the old world, the one of injustice, violence, and abuse had ended, and the new world had begun. And two pairs of brothers who were fishing companions on the Lake of Galilee, all four from of the city of Bethsaida, which is at the northern end of the lake, said Yes to Jesus. They believed in him, left the boat, net, and father, and followed him. 

The idea of the kingdom of God that they had in mind was far from clear; however, they endorsed him and followed him. To those who had trusted him, Jesus entrusted them with fishing for people, to bring them out of the old world and into the kingdom of God. Today these four, along with Jesus, spend the first day together. 

Let's hear where this day begins and what happens: 

"In those days, they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath, he entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” 

As the Sabbath began, the small group of Jesus and the first four disciples began to move. Where are they going? They were going to carry out their mission which was to fish for people, to bring them out of the old world and bring them into the new world in the kingdom of God, and we would imagine that they should begin to cast their nets where people are immersed in the waters of evil up to their necks, where the tax collectors and sinners, women with dubious lives, the corrupt, those who resort to violence, and those who use weapons. 

These are the people who should be caught first. Instead, they will cast their nets into the sacred place in the synagogue, where people pray and listen to God's word, the place frequented by good people. How to understand that they go fishing first of all there, in the synagogue? Because the first liberation that Jesus wants to obtain is to take people out of a religious institution that instills a misguided relationship with God. 

In the catechesis that the rabbis gave in the synagogue God was depicted as the lawgiver, the one who gave the good and beautiful commandments, then watches and rewards those who observe them and severely punishes those who transgress them, perhaps by sending calamities, diseases, and pestilences. Jesus wants to free people from this catechesis; unless they remove this image of God it is impossible to get involved in the newness of the kingdom of God. 

This is why Jesus begins in the synagogue, from the sacred place. Indeed, in the Gospel, according to Mark, we find Jesus three times in the synagogues, and when he enters conflicts always break out. Today we will see Jesus collide with the forces of evil that dehumanize a man inside the synagogue. Sometime later, in the synagogue of Capernaum, Jesus healed a man with a paralyzed hand. And, in the synagogue, the Pharisees will react: 'This man does not observe the Sabbath because the tradition we teach demands that no one be healed on the Sabbath because the important thing is to observe the order not to work on the Sabbath.' And Jesus wants to take people out of this religious tradition that is in contradiction with the only thing that God is interested in, love for the person. The third time he enters the synagogue, it will be in Nazareth, where Jesus will be expelled because the people there are tied to their traditional belief in religion and do not let themselves be freed. 

Who were the people who taught this catechesis in the synagogues? They were the scribes, the rabbis. This rabbinical institution had developed in Babylon during the exile when the priests had lost importance because there was no longer a temple to offer sacrifices; and the synagogues where the exiled people gathered to listen to the reading of the sacred text were born; and those who read and then explained that text were the scribes. Even though the exile ended, and the temple was reconstructed, the rabbis always had great importance because they were the reference point of the people; were those who instilled catechesis, and their word was accepted as the word of God. And they devoted their whole lives to the study of God's word, and when they reached the age of 45, that is, when they were old, they received the imposition of hands that communicated the spirit of Moses. 

Here is the reason for their prestige. The problem is that these rabbis interpreted the word of God according to their convictions, their ideas, and distorted the meaning of this word. Jeremiah had already said: 'By your interpretations, you rabbis reduce the law of the Lord to a lie.' 

The message for us is very current. We participate in the life of the Christian community, we listen to the catechesis, but let's try to ask ourselves, don't we also need to let ourselves be taken out of certain religious convictions, let our minds and hearts be cleansed of a certain image of God which is still pagan, which is not the face of God that we see shining in the face of Jesus? And until we go out of this catechesis that we have let into us, but which is not evangelical, we will never allow ourselves to be fully involved in the proposal of Jesus's new world. 

When Jesus begins to speak in the synagogue, everyone is amazed at his teaching because he taught with authority. What does it mean to teach with authority? Simple and sincere people immediately recognize that in a certain message, the word of God is present; people recognized the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord, and the same thing happened in that synagogue, and they noticed the difference between the rabbis' catechesis and the newness of the word of God. 

The word of Jesus is provocative and stimulating; it does not leave things as they are. On the other hand, the word of the rabbis left everything quiet, did not bother anyone and you can immediately see the result, the difference between the two catechizes. When Jesus begins to speak in the synagogue, something extraordinary happens; the effects of his word and his message provoke prodigies. 

We will hear in today's Gospel passage the story of healing brought about by Jesus in the synagogue, and we will read this episode as a parable. Jesus wants us to understand what is going on in the world when he arrives, when his Gospel arrives, prodigious things always happen. Let us listen: 

"In that synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; 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!’ Jesus rebuked him and said, ‘Quiet! Come out of him!’ The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.” 

In their synagogue is a man possessed by the unclean spirit. We say, 'in their synagogue’ because this sacred place had been possessed by the scribes, the rabbis who, instead of teaching the word of God in an authentic way instilled traditions invented by humans. 

What is this unclean spirit that this possessed person possesses? In Jesus' time, people did not have the scientific knowledge we have today. Certain diseases, even for them, were just diseases. If someone fell out of a tree and was paralyzed, they did not interpret that there were evil spirits or demons. If, on the contrary, it was a matter of psychic or psychiatric illnesses, such as epilepsy, neurosis, schizophrenia, persistent sicknesses due to sunstroke; they said it was a bad spirit that led people to perform actions that were not in tune with the behavior of a healthy person. 

And what did they do to cure them? In all religions, since ancient times, they resorted to the practice of exorcism, rites, gestures that bordered on magic, pronounced secret formulas, and invoked the names of famous people. The exorcisms of Jesus are completely different from those of the world and its environment. Jesus never uses superstitious gestures or magic formulas; he announces a word that cures people. 

But why does Jesus also speak of evil spirits being cast out? It is not to say that devils exist; he uses the language of his people, adapts himself to the ordinary mentality and faces the disease using the cultural categories of their time; he speaks, as they all did, of evil spirits and demons; in fact, the evangelist Luke tells us that when Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law, he threatens the fever. This does not mean that he considers fever a demon; it is simply the common language all used, and Jesus uses it. 

The reality is that the word of Jesus heals and humanizes the person. It is an impure spirit that possesses this man. When we say 'spirit,' we mean a force, an energy that moves and this energy can carry the person toward life or death; if it leads him toward life, it is a force that helps him make beautiful, humanizing gestures; so, they said it was a pure spirit of life from God. When, instead, this force present in the person made him perform gestures that dehumanized him, it was said that it was a spirit of death, an impure spirit. 

In the synagogue, this man is possessed by a force of death. He does not seem to have entered when the liturgy had already begun; he appears to be seated calmly inside the synagogue, not bothering anyone, quietly there; and explodes when Jesus begins to announce his word, when Jesus begins to teach. Why does this person react in this way? 

This person had always and only heard the catechesis of the rabbis in the synagogues, so he remained calm and was not disturbed by their catechesis, but when someone comes along who talks about God in a different way than the rabbis, who teaches the word of God authentically, not according to tradition, then the devil within him explodes. 

To understand it is enough to think about what we can verify today. He who has internalized the image of God as righteousness, since childhood, who has always heard only this preaching, remains calm until someone comes along who speaks a new language, and then he feels a demon inside him that makes him scream and wants to defend what he has always internalized in his convictions stubbornly. He does not know, but he is possessed by a demon that makes him protect this diabolic and false image of God. It is not he who speaks; it is the devil within him. Or, if one has always heard sermons where the death penalty and even wars were justified, and then someone in the name of the Gospel starts to speak a different language, who has always heard an ancient catechesis reacts immediately, reacts to protect the traditional mentality. Or, again, who has grown up with an image of a pyramid-shaped Church, hierarchical... during the Council, this pyramidal image was turned upside down. The Church is God's people and among God's people. God's people are those who maintain unity in this community. 

So, those who had always heard the old traditional image, when they hear something new a demon within them leads them to protect the traditional catechesis. Let's be careful; they can be people who go to Church, who belong to devout groups and then, yet they may be possessed by these demons. If we do not allow ourselves to be freed from these demons some superstitious and exorcist gestures would not set us free either, but the word of the Gospel, the word of Christ, can liberate us. Let us bear in mind that these evil spirits tend to protect themselves. 

And, in fact, what does this possessed one say? "You have come to ruin us.” And he's speaking in the plural because these demons are numerous; many are these demonic forces that lead you to non-life and prevent you from living a true and fully human life. Let us try to think about the force that leads people to moral debauchery, to the loss of perhaps the most sacred values, or the impulses to hatred and violence; they are the sinister forces of death. Let's think about the impulse that drives people to tie their life to possessions, money, or the desire to dominate, to think about enjoying life, and that's it. 

These demons are the ones that decide their choices. They are not demons with any physical shape. Instead, they are these forces of evil that are present in each person. But stronger than these negative forces is the Spirit of Christ. 

What does Jesus do? He scolds that demon and says, "Shut up, get out of him.” Jesus does not act with magical creations or gestures, simply says, "Shut up, get out," and nothing else. This is an important message for us to know how to deal with these demons that lead us to non-life. I have listed some of them. We don't have to argue with them to see if they are right or wrong because if we let ourselves get involved in a dialogue with these demons, they win; they manage to convince us that we must leave them alone inside us. Jesus cuts to the chase. 

Let's give some examples: the devil who suggests what is beautiful and what is ugly, what is good and what is bad, but not according to the word of God; it is he who tells you what is beautiful, has a thousand allies and tells you to adapt yourself to what everyone else is doing and thinking, that what everyone thinks is right. Letting it speak will bewitch you, as the snake did in the Genesis story. Throw it out immediately, shut it up, tell it 'this is not the house of the unclean spirit, but the house of the spirit of God, that is a person.’ Another example is the demon of pride, which tells you that you must show that you are superior to others and that others are nothing compared to you. They must bow down and show signs of submission to you because you have great skills, and that's right because meritocracy is what counts, so assert yourself. 

If you let this devil speak, you will love it, and it will convince you that this is the way things are, that being a man and a woman means imposing oneself and dominate. It is Satan who speaks, and you don't even know it. Neither did Peter know that it was the devil that spoke within him. He was convinced he was saying the right things; it was the way that all people were thinking, but not God's way of thinking. Let's think about it to identify in our life the moments when an impure spirit moves us. Let us identify these multiple impure spirits, spirits of death. The impure devil of resentment that tells you that if someone has done you an evil thing, he should not get away with it, otherwise, he will not learn. The devil tells you that until you see him suffer as he made you suffer you will be psychologically marked; you must vindicate yourself... otherwise, you will fall into depression. If you don't shut him up immediately as Jesus did, it also suggests murder. Of course, you don't kill them, but you would be happy if a disease took them away. You are not the home for this evil spirit that dehumanizes you ... expel it; if you do not expel it, you return to behavior as old as the animal world. 

The devil is very dangerous. It suggests misconceptions about the world and God. The God who punishes, the God who is offended, the God who becomes a harsh judge, and if you don't apologize, he punishes you. You like this God because he reasons like you. But keep in mind that it is the devil who suggests this false image of God to you. 

When the unclean spirit was threatened by Jesus, he tore him apart and came out screaming. The reaction of this possessed man is violent. He wants to tell us that these unclean spirits do not come out peacefully; they react because they want to perpetuate its dominance. Jesus says this when he is accused of being allied with Beelzebub, the prince of demons; Jesus says that no one can throw a strong man out of the house and seize his goods if he does not tie him up first, otherwise, it can ransack the house. Jesus says that these unclean spirits are powerful, but now one who is stronger has come; it is Christ with his word and his Spirit. 

"The unclean spirit convulsed him.” Let us keep this in mind: when one lets himself be freed from these impure spirits one feels a deep laceration inside because he was very attached to this way of life that was not a fully human form of life, but he becomes attached to this condition, and when the word of God comes, let us bear in mind that the laceration... abandoning certain traditions, certain convictions that are incompatible with the Gospel can also make us suffer. 

Let us now listen to the reaction of those present: 

“All were amazed and asked one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.” 

Those in the synagogue who had witnessed the miracle performed by the word of Jesus were in awe, not the fear of danger; this is the biblical fear that is the wonder, the marvel, the surprise of having witnessed a miracle performed by a word loaded with a power that is not human, which is divine because only divine power can overcome certain demons. 

The message is very relevant for us; it is vital for today. We are in a world where demons reign, that dehumanize, and even in the Church, there are demonic forces that drive the power search, positions of prestige, or economic advantage. Also, in the world: we face hypocrisy and lies in the face of which human forces are powerless. Or when we look at certain structures, certain institutions that seem diabolical, that starve people, entire countries. Or in the face of certain cultures, certain traditions that discriminate against women, discriminate against the weakest. 

These demons seem unassailable because they direct the media and have economic power. They seem invincible. And we try to overcome them with all our human resources. But we cannot do it. We need divine power. And this divine power is present in the Gospel. 

The human person is well made, whatever the culture to which one belongs, we are made for the Gospel, and when one hears the Gospel, it penetrates the heart, and that man, that woman, realizes that Jesus is right because this is a word that comes from God and presents us with the path to becoming true people. 

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.