On any given week in church we face the question of whether or not it does anybody any good for us to be here. You might not have asked that question, but a lot of other people have. And the question of whether or not it does anybody any good to be here might hinge on whether or not the scriptures have anything useful to say to us. And that question might hinge on whether or not the Gospel or any other reading assigned on a given day had anything to do with “demons.” And I would contend that the “demons” question (which is inextricably linked to the “unclean spirits” question) would tend, for most modern audiences to militate against the possibility that there is a message of tremendous usefulness at hand, and thefore also to chafe against the possibility that coming to church on a day like today will do you any good.
Last week, St. Mark told us about a man with an unclean spirit. And this week, after telling us that Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law of a fever, our patron tells us that Jesus “cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.” Generally speaking talk of demons and unclean spirits in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry takes place within the first half or so of the narrative. When they do come up, it happens in two ways. Either Jesus is casting out demons and unclean spirits, or he is being accused of being possessed by a demon. But the appearance and topic of or concern with demons disappears from the latter half or so of the Gospel narratives, by my observation, anyway. It’s as though dealing with demons and unclean spirits is something Jesus had to attend to in order to get on with the rest of his work and ministry. But once it’s done, it’s done. I point this pattern out because I want people to take Jesus seriously. And I fear that modern people who encounter demons and unclean spirits at the first part of the Jesus story will consign this narrative to the realm of fantasy literature, which is where demons are generally and frequently to be found in our own day.
Living in a city that is teeming with “eds and meds,” there’s almost no point in trying to address the question of whether or not Jesus actually healed people with his touch and his command. It goes without saying that such details will be characterized as fantasy (or as delusional) by many. I’m willing to leave the matter of Jesus healing in the “miracles” file, and come back to it some other time. But I think we do have to work work through the demons. And I suspect that the most common way to do that is to say that the demons and the unclean spirits are metaphors for conditions for which today we have clinical diagnoses.
Now, demons, as a metaphor, are a useful thing, even today. The idea that some of us (maybe most or all of us) have “demons,” in quotes, that we have to deal with is not unhelpful, and probably not untrue, as long as the “demons” remain in quotation marks. Try to get an appointment with a therapist these days, and you will discover that a lot of people are working through their stuff, a good deal of which might be described as “demons” (in quotes), at least on a bad day. Therapists are in high demand these days, as people try to work through all kinds of stuff… clinically. And this is as it should be.
That stuff might come from abuse you suffered as a child, or as an adult. It might be related to addiction that you have addressed, or that still needs addressing. It might stem from your childhood or your family of origin, or it might be the result of your brain chemistry. It might be something that medication can help you with, or it might be something for which the meds just don’t seem to do much good. The stuff you deal with as your demons might be an irrational fear. Or it might be some lingering issue from a relationship that didn’t work out as you’d hoped it would. Your demons might manifest themselves in compulsive behavior, or depression, or manic episodes. Or they might hiss and spit at you through your grief for a loved one whom you’ve lost. Maybe your demon’s name is spelled with an ADHD. Or maybe it’s known to you in bouts of anxiety. They could come as a result of a lost pregnancy, or a child who is lost to you in one of several painful ways that children are taken from us. Your demons could be a matter of spiritual malaise, or inattentiveness, and could well reside within your heart and not your head. Your demons could be the result of a failure to forgive, or to accept forgiveness, or to seek forgiveness in the first place. Or your demons could have resulted in a self-loathing that nobody knows about, but you, and that you feel every time you look into the mirror.
Now, it’s not my intention to dismiss demons as nothing but a metaphor for untreated mental health issues. Nor is it my intention to convince you that demons are real. It is my intention to try to convince you that we still have something to learn from the scriptures, even though their world-view is different from our own. And it is my intention to try to convince you that Jesus’ ministry, his healing touch, and his command over every aspect of the created order - which could include demons and unclean spirits, for all I know - is real, because that created order also includes you and me.
So I think it’s interesting that Jesus deals with the demons and the unclean sprits early in his ministry. He deals with the demons first. This week and and last week’s passages of Mark’s Gospel are still in the first chapter. And remember, the demons will disappear from the narrative before long. St. Mark is deliberate in his choice of words, and he is not naive. He knows the difference between “healing” - which is what Jesus does for the sick - and “casting out” - which is what Jesus does with the demons. There is a difference between sickness and demons, and they require different solutions. Interestingly, in St. Mark’s Gospel, Jesus continues to heal people miraculously long after the last mention of him casting out demons.
As I’ve said before, I don’t really know what to make of the Gospel accounts of demons and unclean spirits. I think I am comfortable with Shakespeare’s insight that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy, and so I am willing to take the scriptures on their own terms, and really try to look and see if there is anything for us to glean from even the parts we seem ready and able to do without. And I see two possibilities about how we might regard the demons and the unclean sprits, one of which, is, I think, more useful than the other.
The first and less useful possibility, is that whatever demons are, if they have any reality beyond the power of metaphor, Jesus dealt with them way back then, and that was that. That was then, but this is now. Did he destroy the demons altogether? Had a few errant demons escaped whatever dimension they should have remained in, but Jesus sent them packing, and now they are contained again? I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter to me. What I know is that even within the context of the Gospels, once the demons are gone, they are gone; and they don’t have any more bearing on what happens or what Jesus accomplishes, so that’s that.
The second possibility admittedly may well rest on seeing the demons as a kind of metaphor, but I almost never met a metaphor that I didn’t like, so I’m comfortable with this approach. The second possibility is that it is important that we see that indeed, most of us have demons to contend with, in the metaphorical sense. You can think of them as demons or unclean spirits - either will do. We can even deal with them clinically, and maybe we should do just that, since we do not seem to live in an age of miracles, these days. Yes, many of us should be dealing clinically with whatever we think our demons are. Because, yes, most of us have demons to contend with. Hence, the difficulty of finding a therapist at the moment. And Jesus knows that most of us have demons to contend with, and he knows that it has always been thus.
Jesus has a non-clinical approach to our demons, that, nevertheless, could inform the clinical approach we take to dealing with our demons. It is so obvious that it seems silly that we don’t more readily identify this aspect of what it means for Jesus to cast out demons. And it addresses a very important insight that all of us must come to when we want to confront our own demons. In fact, it is at the very heart of what we have to come to know and believe if we are to make any headway in dealing with our own demons. And this insight has very important implications.
This is what Jesus is showing us when he casts out demons. He is showing us that we are not our demons. You are not your demons; and your demons are not you. Your demons do not define you, they are not truly a part of you, and they were never meant to be, and they can be cast out, destroyed, and consigned to your past, and to your memory. They do not need to control your life.
Here’s the implication of this understanding of the demons, and why all mention of the demons disappears as the narrative of Jesus’ ministry progresses. Jesus did not come to us to deal with demons. The demons already know who he is, and maybe it’s even a little tiresome for Jesus to have to contend with demons, when the reason he came to us is for us!
Whatever your demons are, your demons are not you. You are not the abuse, or the addiction, or the brain chemistry. You are not nothing but your childhood, or the effects of your family of origin, or your meds, or that persistent fear, or the compulsive behavior, the depression, or the manic episode. You are not your ADHD. You are not your grief. You are not your children. You are not your spiritual malaise, or the forgiveness that you need to seek or to offer. You are not whatever lives inside of you that hates yourself. Whether demons be real or a metaphor for what haunts you - you are not your demons.
And Jesus came into the world for you, to minister to you, to heal and soothe and save you. Jesus came into the world because we did not know him yet. The demons already knew him, and he reminded them of who they were dealing with. And by halfway through his story, the demons are gone, cast out, destroyed! And without the demons to deal with, Jesus could get on with his ministry to the people he came for: you and me!
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I don’t really know what to make of the Gospel accounts of demons and unclean spirits. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy, and so I am willing to take the scriptures on their own terms. Mostly, I am willing to regard the demons and the unclean spirits on the terms with which Jesus regarded them: as obstacles to clear away so that he could get on with loving his people, so that he could get on with loving you and me!
On any given week in church we face the question of whether or not it does anybody any good for us to be here. You might not have asked that question, but a lot of other people have. If you are confused by the demons and the unclean spirits you hear about in the scriptures, and if they pose a barrier to your faith, or your confidence in the Gospel, let me try to reassure you that it does us a lot of good to be in church if we want to grow in love. Because the Lord of Love is the One who has the power to clear away every obstacle to love, every real, or imagined, or clinical demon or condition that could prevent us from getting to him, or that could prevent him from getting to us.
Did you hear what he said to his disciples when they came to find him and tell him that everyone was looking for him? “Let us go,” he said, “so that I may proclaim the message… for that is what I came out to do.”
The message is love. The message is that God loves you and God forgives you, and God wants you to love yourself and forgive yourself. The message is that God will cast out every demon who stands in his way and in your way, so that you can get to Jesus, and so he can get to you. Because God is love. Christ is love. Jesus is love. And you are meant for love. And love is meant for you!
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
4 February 2024
Saint Mark’s Church, Locust Street, Philadelphia
