Soliloquy

The story of the unknown exorcist in Mark 9 is set against a background that is at once informative and cautionary. Someone is casting out demons in the name of Jesus, but is not one who belongs to the new movement. The insiders wanted him to remain an outsider and to cease and desist in doing mighty works in the name of Jesus. Jesus says, do not forbid him. His words indicate clearly that when the name of Jesus is pronounced, by whomever it is pronounced, it accomplishes mighty works, wonders and miracles. The power of the name of Jesus is that in uttering it the divine in all its holiness is invoked, called upon and called forth to become present, here and now, for the accomplishment of the mighty work, the miracle. When the name of Jesus is invoked, the divine arrives simultaneously unveiling its miracles and wonders that have already arrived ahead of it. To use the name of Jesus to heal the sick and cast out demons signifies that this unknown exorcist has taken his stance upon that name and rests upon the power that the name bears with its utterance and invocation. To invoke the divine is to summon it forth from its hiddenness, hidden in the brightness of its own glory and its own light. When the divine stands forth everything comes under its Light and is seen for the first time as it really is. To know what one really is, is to know oneself in its broken and fragmented selfhood. Jesus illustrates this by saying if any part of you, hand, foot, eye, stands out as the symbol and demonstration of your brokenness, excise it. Let that alone remain that announces your health and redemption. One can lose a hand, foot, and eye, and be a mighty work of the divine. Jesus informs us that the story is not about insiders and outsiders. It is cautionary, look to yourself as the place of the manifestation of the divine. It is redemptive, saying that by invoking the name of Jesus the stranger revealed the power of the divine, and where that power is revealed, miracles happen.

Luke 9 contains some harsh words from the Lord. It follows upon the healing of an epileptic boy, the only child of a man who pleaded to the disciples of Jesus to heal the boy, but they could not. Jesus referred to the generation as faithless and perverse, and the disciples could not do miracles in a context of faithlessness and perversity. Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and gave the boy back to his father. It is then that Jesus again predicted that the Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men. The idea here is that Jesus is going to be killed, but the people did not understand, and it is said that understanding was hidden from them. What ties together these two stories is this: by healing the boy and returning him to his father, Jesus restored the unity of the family. The death of Jesus, the taking away of Jesus from his family and from his Father, is preliminary to Jesus returning to the Father to restore the primordial uncreated Unity that was ruptured in the sending forth of the Son. The people seemed to have been recruited involuntarily in this drama of redemption, for their role was necessary for the restoration of the Unity of the divine, and for their own salvation. This was hidden from their understanding. Jesus said, let these words sink into your ears. That is, he wanted them to understand at a deeper level than was their custom. He is saying that the Son of Man will be delivered, and this deliverance was necessary for their deliverance from sin and death. The miracle that preceded this story opens up a place for insight into the misunderstanding that follows. Miracle is the self-presencing of the divine that can only be witnessed through the eyes of faith. That is why the faithless generation could not see it. Miracle is the reintegration of the the divine and the human, the creation of wholeness and unity, the rejection and overturning of brokenness and division. Miracle is the original Word, the Word before all words, that opens up a new world to be grasped by faith, where the joy of redemption resounds in the celebration of healing.

 Herod is presented as perplexed by St. Luke. He is hearing disturbing chatter. John has been raised from the dead, Elijah has returned, one of the ancient prophets has come back. These are all prophets, all related to the prophetic traditions in which Jerusalem is centered, and which continued to be the hope that sustained the faithful. Now, the word on the street, the conversations in the market place, the whispers in places of power, is that prophecy has returned to Jerusalem. If prophecy has indeed returned the voice of the divine is once again heard in the land, and people will flock to the Temple, to stand in the “Courtyard of the Gentiles” which Herod himself had built for the faithful. The return of prophecy would mean that the divine is once more directing the affairs of the faithful, and there was reason to hope for deliverance. Not so Herod. He was sure of one thing, that he had beheaded John, and that John was dead. Herod was sure that prophecy was dead, that the past was dead. He was not perplexed about the past. “Who is this?” he wondered, and so joined the chorus of voices that wondered with him. What manner of man is this that even the wind and the waves obey him? Whose voice can have such immediate effect? Surely, this is not just a prophet! That Herod wondered about the divine is not unnatural, for he lived in the midst of Roman divinities. What is promising in the text is the last line, “He kept on wanting to see him.” Herod tried repeatedly to see Jesus, that’s how motivated he was. He who is the “tetr-arches” (the historical ruler) wanted desperately to see the one who was “en arche,” (the transcendent ruler). Herod’s insight was true, prophecy had ended. His other insight we don’t hear about, that something different has come to pass, and he wanted to confront this difference, to see for himself the divine one. His perplexity lay in this, that the divine is elusive, and eluded him. He who is heavenly power eluded Herod who is earthly power. But Herod kept on trying to see him. There is hope in this.

Family is a construct of life searching for its center. The Gospels contain many stories that remind me of this. There is a special story of the mother and brothers of Jesus coming to see him. The crowds were so large that they could not get to him. His disciples told him that they were there looking for him, and he replied, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” This seems like a harsh word, a rejection of, or a turning away from his own family. When I look at the story more closely, I begin to understand that something new is taking place. The people who are following Jesus have left family and friends behind, as the calling of the disciples indicates. The followers need something that will bind them together into a unity, a whole, and sustain them as if they were a family. Jesus is offering a new way of binding people together into this unity. He is pointing to a new way of creating a community of family and a community of faith. The word of God becomes the center, the place from which the unity and the bonding is developed, and from which the new definition of family is issued. Where the divine stands, there is the point of origin, the place of birth and rebirth, and the place of returning. Where the divine calls the human to stand is the same place. The divine and the human are gathered together as in a crowd, crowding around the center. It is to the center that all questions are addressed, and from which all answers are issued. The divine center, the word made flesh, now defines the human family as it has already defined the human being. Hearing the word of God is taking the word into oneself, and doing it is sending it forth from oneself. The human thus becomes a new center, centralizing the word, the definition, the new order of creation, the new creation, and therefore the new hope of the life to come. To arrive and to stand there is to experience for the first time the Original Unity, to experience a time before Multiplicity, and to experience the divine in the complete fulness of its grace.