Sermon for January 31, 2021 Epiphany 4 B House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Mark 1:21-28; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

Last year, for the first time since the 1980s, sales of vinyl records surpassed sales of compact discs. They say no one listens to CDs anymore, except me I guess, because I still like the experience of holding a physical manifestation of the music I listen to. I like to put it in the stereo, turn it on, turn it up, and feel the power of that music rushing from the speakers into the air and through my body--I usually listen to rock or jazz, and I like feeling the spirit of that music as much as hearing it. Maybe this is because I’m old enough to have grown up with a record player in my house. This was before vinyl records became cool again!

And in the summers back then, we’d go up to the family cottage where we had a 13 inch TV that got three channels on a good day. Well, we weren’t there to watch TV anyway, so on a rainy day when we couldn’t play outside, we’d turn to the record collection. Things like Broadway shows, classical, folk, country, we listened to all kinds of things. And my favorite record was the original cast recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific”. I knew the songs before I ever saw the show. And the shortest song on that record--only a minute or so long--was “Carefully Taught”, sung by the character Lieutenant Joe Cable. You can look up this song on Youtube if you’d like to listen (my favorite version is the one by Mandy Patinkin).

In the lead up to this song, as you watch the characters trying to navigate cross-racial romance in the World War 2 era, you see how they come to understand the prejudices they hold, and how they try to deal with that. You wonder, will their prejudice destroy them, or will they find a new mindset and new life? The song is set up by a conversation--is racism born in you, or does it happen after you’re born? And Lt. Cable answers in heartbreaking fashion:

You've got to be taught to hate and fear; You've got to be taught from year to year...

...You've got to be taught before it's too late; Before you are six or seven or eight

To hate all the people your relatives hate; You've got to be carefully taught

I thought of this song as I read today’s gospel lesson, because the racial prejudice that Lt. Cable is singing about is kind of similar to what the man in the synagogue with the unclean spirit was going through in the gospel reading today. A man who, we see in the context of this story, was no different than anyone else in his community--except that he had been filled with a spirit which made him unclean. Being “unclean” in those days meant that the community considered you to have a condition that made you unable to worship God with others.

Whatever it was that plagued this man, this “unclean spirit” that had filled him was something that was pulling him away from knowing the love of God in his life, and from being connected with the love of God to others. Kind of like the way racial prejudice works in today’s world. It was a spirit that pulled apart the community rather than building it up. It was a spirit that did not deny the existence of God, but in being “unclean” it did seek to use its knowledge of God as a closed fist to intimidate and tear down, rather than as an open hand to encourage and reach out and lift up.

This poor guy in the synagogue was an example of what St. Paul wrote in today’s reading from 1 Corinthians 8--”Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” What St. Paul meant by this is not that you should avoid learning or understanding or being educated. Those are all good things--but what he means is to take care in how you use your knowledge. God wants us to put our brain power to use in a way that is loving and helpful for the community as a whole, not in a way that tears down others, or that just benefits me as an individual regardless of how it impacts others. Take care in how you use your knowledge.

As the man in the synagogue fell under the influence of this unclean spirit, he was wielding his knowledge as a closed fist against Jesus and his mission: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Who do you think you are? You want to destroy us, do you? Well, come on and try me! Just try to get rid of me.

Jesus doesn’t take the bait. Secure in his knowledge of God’s love and grace, and of the mission God sent him to fulfill--Jesus puts his knowledge to the purpose of restoring this man so he can be part of the community once again. Jesus does this by telling the unclean spirit to “be silent and come out of him.” Jesus does not cast the man out of the synagogue. The man remains while Jesus casts the unclean spirit out of the man. Jesus recognizes that there’s a difference between who you are as a person, and what you might have done that would make you seem like less of a person.

There’s a difference between who God created you to be, and the bad things that an unclean spirit taught you to do. An “unclean spirit” can reside in any one of us, and most likely has at some point. But it can be silenced and removed when someone extends an open hand to help you regain your balance, and you reach out and grab hold, to learn again of the love and grace of God given to you in Jesus Christ, who went to the cross for our forgiveness, and rose again for our salvation.

There’s a traditional Lutheran phrase of theology: simul justus et pecator. That’s Latin for “simultaneously justified and sinful”--or more poetically: “simultaneously saint and sinner”. Each person is, at the same time, a saint and a sinner. There are good parts to us, and bad parts. This means that we are each capable of inspiring goodness, and of terrifying evil. It means that even though you’re not perfect, with God’s help you do have the ability to learn and grow. While an “unclean spirit” can teach you something destructive, Jesus can replace that by teaching you something life-giving and good that you can give you new life and that can connect you with others.

To go back to the musical “South Pacific”--I think this is a point Rodgers and Hammerstein were making in the lyrics to “Carefully Taught”. If you can be carefully taught a mindset like racism that hurts you and others; if you can be carefully taught an “unclean spirit” of hate and fear that results in prejudice and discrimination and the tearing down and dehumanizing of other people and communities--then likewise, that unclean spirit can be cast out by embracing mercy and love and the common humanity we share with everyone else.

Jesus, with his mercy and love, can build up a new and right Spirit within our hearts, within our communities, and within our society; so that by God’s grace, by listening to one another and working together, we can be carefully taught to feel the Spirit of Jesus, and grow bit by bit into the people God has created us to be. Amen.