+ In the Love of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the mid-1990’s St. Gregory’s went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and one of our stops was the Capernaum, which is called in Hebrew, Kafar Nahum― the village of Nahum. (Nahum is also the name of one of the Old Testament prophets.)
Capernaum was the home of St. Peter’s mother-in-law, and Jesus and his disciples made their headquarters there. We saw the foundations of her house, preserved under a magnificent church.
We also saw the ruins of the fourth century White Synagogue, so-called because it was built with white limestone blocks from quarries several miles away. And beneath the ruins of the White Synagogue, we could see the foundations of the first-century synagogue where this morning’s Gospel took place. Unlike the White Synagogue, the synagogue Jesus entered was built with Capernaum’s indigenous black volcanic stone.
So Jesus enters this synagogue on the Sabbath, and he is invited to teach. And they were astounded at his teaching, because “he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”
Scribes were teachers of the law, and like rabbis today, they never taught on their own authority; instead, they cited other scribes― just as today rabbis cite other rabbis to support their teaching. But Jesus speaks as one having authority, and the readers of Mark’s Gospel know where Jesus’ authority comes from― he is the Beloved Son empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Suddenly a man with an unclean spirit cries out. Notice that this man wasn’t a stranger who entered the synagogue― he was one of them, and had been there all along.
There’s a post going around Facebook these days with a quote from Stephen King, the famous writer of horror stories: “Monsters are real. Ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.”
The monster― the unclean spirit― in this man was winning, and so he cries out “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”
The answer to the unclean spirit’s question is “Yes.” Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit to liberate and save us from, as our Baptism service puts it, “Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God” (The Book of Common Prayer, page 302).
And now, in this morning’s Gospel, Jesus shows his authority to teach by showing his power to liberate and save this man from the unclean spirit― the monster― who was living inside him.
Fortunately, we rarely if ever encounter this kind of unclean spirit, this kind of monster. But there may be lesser monsters lurking within us, as we see in this morning’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. But first, a little background.
In the ancient world, almost all the meat that was available in restaurants and markets had previously been sacrificed to idols in the temples. What’s more, only the wealthy― the 1% of the ancient world (!)― could afford to eat meat in their homes, while the only time the 99% ever got to eat meat was during pagan worship services when the meat was sacrificed to idols.
So imagine the situation at St. Paul’s Church in Corinth. A handful of parishioners were wealthy and ate meat regularly. Other parishioners were Jews, and the second of their Ten Commandments forbade idol worship. And the newest parishioners were poor converts from paganism, whose only association with meat was in pagan sacrifices to idols.
So Paul is writing to the “know-it-all” monsters living in some of his parishioners and who think that the other parishioners should just get over their superstitions and qualms about eating meat. And so Paul writes:
“Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that― and now Paul quotes the know-it-alls― ‘all of us possess knowledge.’” However, Paul admonishes them, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
Now as a matter of fact, Paul agrees with the puffed-up “know-it-alls” theologically:
“Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘no idol in the world really exists,’ and that ‘there is no God but one.’ (And here we hear echoes of the Shema, the Jewish creed, “Here O Israel, the Lord your God is one.”) Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth— as in fact there are many gods and many lords— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” (And this reminds us of the Nicene Creed, in which we say of Jesus Christ that “through him all things were made.”)
But although Paul agrees with the know-it-alls theologically, he disagrees with them pastorally because the puffed-up monsters within them aren’t acting with love:
“It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ‘Food will not bring us close to God.’ We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols?”
And now Paul shows the fundamental reason why love must come before everything else in the life of a congregation:
“So by your knowledge those weak believers”― the literal translation is “weak brother or sister― “for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against [your brothers and sisters], and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.”
St. Gregory’s and every Congregation and every Christian Community is founded on this great spiritual truth: that each one of us is a brother or sister for whom Christ died.
Let us pray:
“Lord Jesus, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit, that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your name. Amen” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 101).
