Sunday: 4th Sunday after the Epiphany
Reading: Mark 1:21-28
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

Today I preach in praise of the Bible. But before I can even get to that I have to preach in praise of Anglican liturgy. This morning we get to see some of the glories of being an Anglican-the annual unfurling of the story of Jesus, the power of liturgy and song to preach the gospel, the centrality of scripture. The birth of Jesus and the arrival of the wise men are in our rear view mirror now and it is time to get to know Jesus. Tomorrow is the feast celebrating Jesus' presentation in the Temple and so that pervades our music. Instead of a psalm, we sang the Nunc Dimittis, the song sung by the old man Simeon when he saw the infant Jesus. For centuries, faithful Anglicans have said the Song of Simeon every day at evening prayer. We say it today as part of the flow of the liturgical year. If you didn't catch it fully, listen for it again in part during communion. In what other tradition is there so much packed into the non-preaching part of the service? If this sermon absolutely stinks (it won't, don't worry), we will still all have had a little bit more of the story of Jesus revealed to us in song. Of course, we all know Jesus' story, but the beauty of the liturgical calendar is that it is a circle and not a straight line. We had Jesus born on Christmas. We had the wise men show up on Epiphany. Now we get to see Jesus introduced in the temple. We get to see the mystery unfold again and again. We get to figure out what this Jesus of Nazareth has to do with us?

Actually though, my excitement about this sermon is only in part because of the Song of Simeon and the Feast of the Presentation. For this is not the year for Luke, this is the year for Mark. (You know, we read Matthew one year, Mark the next, and Luke the third, with a little John sprinkled in along the way.) This is the year for Mark and I love Mark. It is a moving Gospel. I sat down this week and read the whole thing through from beginning to end in one sitting. (It is the shortest gospel). It's great. It blasts onto the stage deep into Jesus' life at his baptism, it tells one short snappy story after another, it has this weird secrecy about who Jesus is, it is the gospel where we learn the name of Salome, Strauss's necrophilic lover, and it ends abruptly when the women see an empty grave and flee from the tomb because they are afraid. Wow. The Bible! The Gospel of Mark is there to teach us, to delight us, to move us.

Now not everyone in history has been so enthralled with Mark as I. For centuries it was all but ignored. People thought it was a bad condensation of Matthew's gospel. Because it has the most simple Greek it was looked down upon. It was dismissed because it seemed to some like an unskillful jamming together of stories with only the equivalent of an "and then" separating them. Its reputation has been rehabilitated in more recent times after it was determined that in fact it was not a condensation of another gospel but rather the first gospel written. Some think it was not just first, but also terrific. A great teacher of mine, Donald Juel, argued that Mark was not some bumbling editor's scrapbook, but was rather purposefully constructed. I buy Juel's argument hook, line, and sinker.

Today's text (which you probably have forgotten after this long introduction) gives one of the main themes of Mark. The answer to "What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth" is both clear and elusive-both right there to be read and also ahead of us to be discovered. The very first sentence of the gospel says Jesus is the Son of God and in our passage it says he is the Holy One of God. But that information is for the reader, it is not known by the participants in the story. To the non-demonic participants Jesus is elusive and they find it hard to pin down his identity. We, of course, are both readers and participants.

Making this Markan clear/elusive thing even more fascinating is that the one person who does understand Jesus is nuts. Remember that most in the synagogue were awestruck. Not the crazy guy, the mentally ill guy, the one who is possessed. "I know who you are," he bellows, "You are the Holy One of God." Now, I love the sweet words of Simeon in Luke sung melodically "Lord God you now have set your servant free." It's a nice way of introducing Jesus. But the rants of a crazy man, now that is exciting and jarring. I can imagine Mark's editor, "You are going to introduce the hero of your story in the crazy rantings of someone with schizoaffective disorder?" Mark would say, "Yes, these demons are going to play a big role in my story. The demons, being supernatural, will immediately know who Jesus is, unlike so many of the mere humans."

Mark drags the reader into the drama of the crowds trying to get a hold on this Jesus fellow. He informs the reader but then befuddles her by having Jesus so often purposefully hide his identity. In our passage Jesus rebukes the evil spirit and tells him to ‘Be silent' before ordering the spirit out of the man. Jesus tells the spirit to be quiet not because he is spreading lies but because he is telling the truth. Numerous other times in Mark, Jesus will tell people that recognize him to keep it quiet. Most famously after Peter tells Jesus that he is the Messiah Jesus sternly orders him not to tell anyone. Why all this secrecy? I don't know. Jesus led an incredibly public life; he couldn't have intended his message to remain secret. I think Mark is engaging the reader by frustrating him, pushing the problem of secrecy and Jesus out of the text and into the life of the gathered community.

Who is this Jesus? Today, the day before the feast of the presentation of Jesus in the temple we have the intersection of two ways of going about answering that question. Luke has Simeon sing, "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Simeon knows who Jesus is. The author of the Gospel of Mark is trying to do something different with his drama about Jesus. He is pushing the answer to the question about who Jesus is out on the reader. It is not that he hides the answer, but he leaves room for the reader to learn that answer himself. As readers we are let in on the secret about Jesus identity that the disciples and the crowds won't ever get in this book. But if you are like me, you are not just a reader; you are also one in the crowd who is amazed that Jesus teaches with authority. And sometimes you feel like one of the unclean spirits who know the truth but are muzzled and thrown out of their hosts. Mark forces us to ask, "What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth?"