"Jesus heals by refusing to accept traditional and official sanctions against the diseased person. Jesus heals him, in other words, by taking him into a community of the marginalized and disenfranchised - into, in fact, the Kingdom of God."

I never know quite what to do with a text like this. On the surface it seems fairly clear that Mark is making a theological statement about Jesus' identity by way of his power and authority as he recounts this story of Jesus appearing in the synagogue and healing a person with an unclean spirit. This is, in Mark's gospel, the first public action Jesus performs after he has been baptized, gone through forty days of temptation in the wilderness, and returned to preach the good news and gather his disciples.

But the story also contains a lot of religiously and politically loaded references. For starters, Jesus' authority and power is favorably contrasted with that of the scribes. The scribes were the literate elite scholars and lawyers who represented the priestly rulers in Jerusalem. Their authority and power is called into question as Jesus' teaching is proclaimed to be more authentic than theirs.

Next enters a person who is said to have an "unclean spirit." This immediately brings up the issue of the first century Jewish purity laws: the norms that regulated the boundary between the sacred and the profane. This would have been the domain of the priests in Jerusalem, not of a Jewish peasant from Nazareth. Someone like Jesus should be obeying these laws, not stepping in to cross them or attempt to transform them.

Finally, at the end of this story it is the unclean spirit who recognizes who Jesus really is and is immediately told to keep quiet. This may be one of Mark's signature references to the "Messianic secret." It might also imply that for Mark, as it was for other gospel writers, it would be unclean gentiles who would first understand Jesus' true identity.

One of the challenges that confronts us when we hear a story like this is the huge gulf that separates us in our technological, scientific, industrial post-modern age from those that lived in the first-century Mediterranean world. The things that we assume and take for granted about how the world operates are so vastly different from the assumptions that they would have made. This gulf becomes obvious when we attempt to understand the exorcism described in this story. I do not believe in supernatural spirits, clean or unclean, possessing a person. Yet I do believe that this scientifically inaccurate diagnosis attempts to describe a very real condition that required healing and transformation in order for things to be whole, good and right both for the individual and for society.

Exorcisms and healings portray the macrocosm of society, with its social illness and need for liberation, within the microcosm of the individual's body with it's disease and need for healing. What is happening to the body of the individual is a direct reflection of what is happening to the corporate body of society. When one is sick, both are hurting; when one is healed, both become more whole.

Whatever these unclean spirits were, they weren't only possessing the individual, the whole community was in bondage to them. If they were to be exorcised this would lead to the individual's restoration and reintegration into the community and the community's wholeness would be made manifest. The unclean spirits within society are being symbolically overthrown in every individual exorcism.

So what might this look like today? I can't help but think about the recent election of President Obama, our first African-American president. While this even has not exorcised racism in America, it has certainly taken some of the wind out of those sails! It is vitally important for us to continue to be mindful of and intentional about the work that remains to be done. But it is also good for us to take a moment to celebrate, to dream, to hope, to cry for joy together at the step forward we have taken as a country.

I hope that generations from now racism will be a thing of the past and that future societies will view it as we view past assumptions that the earth was flat or that the sun and the planets all revolved around us. Three hundred years from now might some future historian view the recent inauguration as a symbolic turning point in the corporate exorcism of racism in America? I don't know. But this joining together of symbol and story, of society and individual is exactly what we find in our gospel stories of healing and exorcism. Today one particular individual is elected president and society itself is seen in a new light. Two thousand years ago one individual was healed and the whole community was made more whole.

I'd like to make this even more personal if I may. The first week after my father had died I was amazed at how so many long-forgotten memories popped into my awareness throughout the day. Many of these were rather mundane, some more profound, some were happy and others were not so happy. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my father and I went through a very difficult time in our relationship. This lasted many years and only gradually and slowly healed. But while we were in the midst of our difficulties, my father could do no right. Yet it is only now after his death that I have come to truly understand and know more clearly than ever before that it was his goodness that truly defines who he was. It is the good, kind, loving things he did and said that reveal his true nature. I'd like to share one of these with you today.

It happened about twenty-two years ago. I think I was in my second year of seminary. It was spring break and I had gone to visit my parents who were living in Houston, Texas at the time. My memory is not very clear about the exact context but I do remember that I was feeling some fear and anxiety about my future and whether or not I would be able to find a church that would actually call an openly gay man to be their minister. At the time there were fewer than a dozen openly gay or lesbian ministers serving in UCC churches in America (and the world). During the visit with my parents I'm sure we talked about this and about the hurdles that I would have to confront as graduation approached and I began searching for a call.

The last day of my visit my father took me to the airport. We were early enough that we had some time to sit down and talk. He told me about the time, after we had moved to a new community, that my youngest brother's new best friend was an African American boy in the neighborhood. My father told me how he had been raised with a lot of prejudices about African Americans and that he was a little concerned about this new friendship, but that he had realized, with Mom's encouragement I'm sure, that his prejudice was wrong and despite the fact that he felt uncomfortable he was not going to do or say anything to get in the way of this friendship.

Later on my parents actually had this boy's parents over for dinner one night. My parents rarely had dinner guests at all, and we had never had a black family over for dinner before that night. This seems even more remarkable now when I look back upon it and take into account that not long before this my father's brother was shot and killed by a man who happened to be African American.

As he told me all this at the airport I think that Dad was trying to tell me that somehow it would be okay. That people have prejudices but that they are able to rise above them. If he could do it, so could others. This gave me a lot of encouragement and a deeper sense of connection with my father.

The healing we have to do, both individually and collectively, rarely happens in single, dramatic moments but rather is found in the many daily opportunities we have to set aside our assumptions and our prejudices and see ourselves and one another as we truly are: good, kind, loving human beings. Individuals, communities, nations, even the world is changed in every small transformation of awareness and action.

Stories about miraculous healings or dramatic exorcisms don't need to put us off or alarm us. Let them be a reminder of what is possible over the long haul, of how each small healing or transformation is part of a bigger process, and of how deeply interconnected each one of us is with the whole. This is the Kindom of God in which we all belong.

Then they come to Capernaum, and on the Sabbath day he went right to the synagogue and started teaching. They were astonished at his teaching, since he would teach them on his own authority, unlike the scribes.

Now right there in their synagogue was a person possessed by an unclean spirit, which shouted, "Jesus! What do you want with us, you Nazarene? Have you come to get rid of us? I know you, who you are: God's Holy One!"

But Jesus yelled at it, "Shut up and get out of him!"

Then the unclean spirit threw the man into convulsions, and letting out a loud shriek it came out of him. And they were all so amazed that they asked themselves, "What's this? A new kind of teaching backed by authority! He gives orders even to unclean spirits and they obey him!"

So his fame spread rapidly everywhere throughout Galilee and even beyond.