Encountering Christ in brokenness - Epiphany 4
Mark 1: 21-28
Today’s Gospel reading recounts what happened in the synagogue at Capernaum right at the start of Jesus ministry. We are reading it as part of our Epiphany readings – asking ourselves what this reading teaches us about how to see and experience the things of God.
It’s not a long passage. Jesus goes to the synagogue on the sabbath and is a kind of ‘guest preacher’ from nearby Nazareth. The people are amazed at the way he teaches – with authority – though (frustratingly) Mark does not tell us what he says.
Then a man ‘with an unclean spirit’ shouts out – he recognises Jesus: first as ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ and then as ‘the Holy One of God’.
If Epiphany is about the reality of God being shown to people, then this man, tormented soul though he is, sees who Jesus is and declares it.
Jesus heals him; and the crowd wonder all the more at the authority Jesus shows – in his healing and his teaching, this is something new.
I must confess that I am not immediately comfortable with this story: the way in which the New Testament talks about unclean spirits or demon possession doesn’t sit easily with my 21st century understanding of illness of body and mind.
We wouldn’t speak of someone ‘having an unclean spirit’ – we might talk about mental unrest, or an imbalance of brain chemicals, or deep distress, perhaps brought about by stress. But for the people surrounding Jesus that day in the synagogue in Capernaum the language of unclean spirits afflicting this man would have been quite normal – just as we have all perhaps heard that Winston Churchill referred to his experience of bouts of deep depression as his ‘black dog’, which would visit him from time to time.
For the crowd in the synagogue this man’s life was disturbed by unclean spirits, and Jesus heals him by casting those spirits out.
Whatever language we choose to use for the dis-ease of this man in the synagogue, there is no doubt that Jesus heals him. Jesus comes proclaiming God’s kingdom of health – and shows that the kingdom is already here, in Him, by bringing health to this man.
But as so often in our Gospels, there is more going on here than the healing of man from his distress.
Mark sets up a contrast between Jesus and the Scribes, who would normally teach in the synagogue – it is such a contrast we could even describe it as a conflict.
The people in the synagogue pick up on it straight away: “he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes”. This conflict with the scribes will build and build until they eventually seek to have Jesus crucified – but what is the difference that the people are seeing ? – what is meant by Jesus having ‘authority’ and why does it alienate the scribes so much?
The teaching of the scribes was based on law and case history and proven examples. If the scribes were asked ‘what do we do about this man with an unclean spirit?’ they would consult the law, the teaching of other rabbis, the history of those with unclean spirits.
They might well conclude that as someone who was unclean, this man should be refused entry to the synagogue. These unclean spirits could affect other people and there were rules about unclean people making themselves clean before they could be with or touch others. Otherwise they could ‘infect’ others with their uncleanliness – just as anyone who was ritually unclean through touching a dead body, or through bleeding, or through breaking God’s law must seek ritual cleansing before being with other people.
The authority of the scribes was tied up in previous laws and cases and was very concerned with keeping the community as clean and pure as possible, even if that meant casting out someone who was unwell.
But Jesus’ authority was different - Jesus had authority because he proclaimed the old truth about God’s love in new ways.
Jesus proclaimed a kingdom for all, a kingdom where reaching out to heal was more important than observing purity law or sabbath law – it was a kingdom that reached even beyond racial boundaries. Each person was valued in that kingdom, and Jesus came to show love and care to every single one.
Matthew’s gospel points out this new teaching of the old truth when he quotes Jesus saying, on many occasions “you have heard it said.. but I say to you”.
Perhaps in the teaching of Jesus that day in the synagogue in Capernaum, which Mark doesn’t record, Jesus said something like “You have heard it said that a man with an unclean spirit is to be avoided and shunned… but I say to you this is a beloved child of God and he needs healing, love and care”.
Whatever Jesus said that day what he did left the people of the synagogue amazed – he engaged with the man, talked to him, commanded the unclean spirits to leave him and restored him to health.
And Jesus’ authority lay not just in what he said or even in what he did – but in what he was: God’s love come to display itself to all humanity.
This is the example of epiphany for us this week – God’s love revealed in this healing by Jesus.
How does this story help us see the love of God in Jesus more clearly in our world of today?
I said earlier that the very language of ‘unclean spirits’ to describe what we would call ‘mental illness’ is strange to us. But the concept of people being unclean, shunned, ostracised because of brokenness in their lives is still a reality in the 21st century.
I was fortunate enough to visit the site of the synagogue at Capernaum, in 2019.
The synagogue was rebuilt in the 4th century AD, but the site is still the one where Jesus would have taught and healed that day.
In the grounds I was surprised to find this sculpture.
It was created by a sculptor called Timothy Schmalz: the original was in Toronto, but there are now over 50 copies across the world – including this one in Capernaum, just outside the walls of the synagogue.
It is called “Jesus the Homeless” and is life-sized. Though cast in bronze it makes you double-take to see a person on a bench whose bare feet stick out from under a blanket, whilst the rest of their body and face is covered.
There is space on the bench for you to sit by Jesus’ feet – which has the wounds of crucifixion on them.It makes you wonder:
Would you sit there?
Would you talk to a homeless person on a bench like this?
Would you let this person into your synagogue, or church, or shop?
The sculptor, Timothy Schmalz, is a devout Catholic.
He visited Pope Francis in the Vatican in November 2013 to present a miniature version of his statue. He recalled the Pope's reaction, "He walked over to the sculpture, and it was just chilling because he touched the knee of the Jesus the Homeless sculpture, and closed his eyes and prayed. It was like, that's what he's doing throughout the whole world: Pope Francis is reaching out to the marginalised."
Once he had made the life-size sculpture, Schmaltz offered the first casts to St Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto and to St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
Both churches declined.
Regis College, a Jesuit College which is part of the University of Toronto finally installed the first casting outside their main entrance.
Since then, more and more copies have been made, until now there are more than 50 across the world.
It really makes you think to see Jesus as a homeless person outside the synagogue in Capernaum – one of the marginalised people; someone we might consider unclean, or difficult, or disturbed. It is quite an epiphany.
Where do we see and experience the things of God?
In the broken people of this world; in the broken places of our own lives – wherever brokenness and illness are replaced by the wholeness and healing of God’s love and care.
May we meet with Christ where we least expect to – may we know his healing in our lives: healing of bodies, minds and attitudes.
And so may we be part of the kingdom of healing for all God’s children in God’s name. Amen
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