Irony is defined as “a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects.” Or, as Alanis Morrisette sang, “it’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.” By that reckoning, the church these days, which is someplace where we hear stories of a man who is possessed by an “unclean spirit” seems to many people to be a drawer full of ten thousand spoons when all that’s needed is a knife.
There’s plenty of irony in the strange little account of the man with an unclean spirit that we heard from the Gospel today.
No sooner has Jesus called his first, unsuspecting followers, than the next thing you know they run into this man with an unclean spirit. The man confronts Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James, and John right there in the synagogue. I don’t want to say that I know what it feels like to be Jesus, but I know what this feels like: the guy is screaming at them, right there in the synagogue. And it’s a funny thing about the question that he’s yelling: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”
Now, this question is ironic in a couple of different ways. First, it’s ironic, because it is also essentially the same question that sincere inquirers after faith are asking. This is not, strictly speaking, a question that belongs to the demonic, the possessed, the troubled, and those whose spirits are “unclean”. It’s a question that Peter, and Andrew, and James, and John might have asked themselves. Indeed, it’s puzzling that they didn’t; they just dropped their nets and followed Jesus, without ever asking what he’s got to do with them.
Secondly, it’s ironic because another version of that same question is likely to cross the mind of any modern person hearing about a man who has an “unclean spirit.” What, we might well ask, has he to do with us? How can this little episode, right at the beginning of the account of Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s Gospel, have anything meaningful to do with you and me, who are most likely dubious about the category of “unclean spirits” to say the least?
But let’s take the text on its own terms for a minute. Sometimes in the Gospels we come across these unclean spirits, sometimes they’re demons, who strangely use plural personal pronouns, as is the case in this instance: “what have you to do with us?”
I find myself wondering, for whom else was this unclean spirit speaking? There’s no indication that this is some affected appropriation of the royal “we.” So two things are possible.
First, it’s possible that the man was possessed by multiple spirits. And elsewhere in the Gospels this possibility is suggested again, but it’s not clear that that’s the case here.
The second possibility is that the unclean spirit was speaking for other unclean spirits with whom it was in contact. It’s as though, in first century Palestine, there might have been a kind of invisible (and wireless) network of communication through which the unclean spirits could keep in touch. It’s a little ironic that all those centuries ago there might have been a kind of unclean social media, at least in the spiritual realm.
And if that’s the case - if it’s possible that the unclean spirits had some kind of app they used to keep in touch with one another - then it’s interesting to see how this unclean spirit responded to Jesus. “Have you come to destroy us?” the unclean spirit asked.
Now, you would think that unclean spirits probably would be paranoid, wouldn’t you? But just because they’re paranoid doesn’t mean that Jesus isn’t out to get them. He is!
But there remains a highly curious feature of the unclean spirit - one that does not fit with my expectations at all, since I would expect such a spirit to be representative of what’s called elsewhere in the New Testament, “the spirit of falsehood.” And this surprising capacity of the unclean spirit becomes apparent in the next thing it says to Jesus, “I know who you are,” the spirit says. I know who you are. This is ironic: that the unclean spirit knows who Jesus is before even his own followers do.
What happens next is truly ironic, since, stunningly, the unclean spirit speaks the truth, plainly and clearly. It’s a revelation that would have been highly confusing for Peter, and Andrew, and James, and John, who, themselves, do not really know yet who Jesus is. Ironically, the unclean spirit knows. And this knowledge was perhaps gained because the unclean spirit had access to the spiritual rumor mill that operates on a different plane, one to which Peter, Andrew, James, and John had no access.
“I know who you are,” said the spirit, and then, spills the beans: “the Holy One of God.”
A contemporary reading of this passage should, I think, confront the modern person with still more layers of irony. First there was the irony of the question, “What have you to do with us?” And now there is more irony. Because, of course, we modern people naturally assume that our knowledge and insight is far superior to that of any first century person’s, that our worldview is more refined, and our thought is more sophisticated, we are better informed by a staggering measure. Yes, that’s right; I hear you thinking, we are smarter and more knowledgeable than first century yokels who believed in unclean spirits. And yet, we have constructed vast networks of invisible, wireless communication, on which all this knowledge and sophisticated thought might flourish and make us better people. It is not populated by spirits of any kind, but only by digital information. Ironically, with all this knowledge, all this connectivity, all this power, we cannot discern the truth. Indeed, falsehood abounds.
It has been astonishing to me to learn in recent weeks, just exactly what kinds of things people believe, that they have read on the Internet. It might be comical, if the implications of the conspiracy theories that people are feeding to one another were not so profound. Compared to the kinds of rumors (things that people claim to have “heard” on the Internet) that animated the assault on the Capitol a few weeks ago, as well as other episodes of political unrest, a mere “unclean spirit” seems kind of quaint.
Of concern to me is the matter of truth. And I’m struck by this encounter with the man who had the unclean spirit, because it includes this bold proclamation of what I take to be the truth: that Jesus is the Holy One of God. And I am a little flummoxed by the irony of it all, because the truth comes from a source that I would have otherwise considered highly unreliable.
Jesus, himself, responds to this troubling reality when he rebukes the unclean spirit. “Be silent!” he says. Jesus had just begun to form his little community. Peter and Andrew and James and John, were just getting to know him; they had dropped everything, almost inexplicably, to follow him. They were not ready for irony. They were not ready to process the whole truth of who he is. And Jesus certainly didn’t want them to hear it for the first time from an unclean spirit. It’s just a little too ironic. What surer way to taint information than to disseminate it from the lips of an unclean spirit? And Jesus does not want his name or the truth of his identity so much as uttered by the voices on the social network of the unclean spirits.
Irony, as the song said, is “like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.” Isn’t it ironic?
And the testimony of an unclean spirit amounts to so many spoons in a world that needs a knife.
And so Jesus does not stop with silencing the unclean spirit, he also commands it to “come out” of the man and free him.
Clearly, the unclean spirit does not want to go (they never do), as evidenced by the convulsions and shouts or protest that the spirit makes on its way out. But the spirit is no match for Jesus, and never was.
And as the spirit leaves the man, so too, does the irony of the entire situation, as the people see and proclaim that Jesus teaches with authority.
Ironically, we live in a world that often no longer regards Jesus’ teachings as having much authority at all, and sees the Gospel as little more than ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife. So many have lost track of any good answer to the question, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” They think that this question is but one of the ten thousand spoons in this world that really needs a knife
Which is why it was good that Peter, and Andrew, and James, and John were all there in the midst of all that irony. For we are the inheritors of their witness. They learned, by walking and talking and eating and drinking with Jesus, by working with Jesus with their hands.
It may have seemed ironic to them when they realized that what they first heard from the lips of an unclean spirit was true - that Jesus is the Holy One of God. Yes, it may have seemed ironic, but eventually they could see it for what it is: Good News!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
31 January 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
Alanis Morrisette’s song “Ironic” was released in Feb, 1996. It is often pointed out that her examples of irony, are not actually very good examples of a strict definition of the term. This critique, itself, seems kind of ironic. A reference to an Alanis Morrisette song in a sermon seems kind of ironic, too, doesn’t it?