A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 31 January 2021. Forth Sunday after Epiphany, by Revd Phyllis Wong. The scripture readings that day were Psalm 111 (O.T.) and Mark 1:21-28 (N.T.).
Opening prayer:
God of life, may your word inspire us and fill us by your wisdom from above. Send to us your holy spirit to renew our life and set us free. Amen.
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When I started to prepare for today’s sermon, I found that I preached 6 years ago with the same lectionary readings. For this time, I was attracted again by the same theme on wisdom.
How would you define wisdom? What does wisdom mean to you? Have you ever prayed to God for wisdom to guide you in making decisions or resolving problems?
When I looked at the Collins English Dictionary: Wisdom is defined as the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight.
With this topic on wisdom, I remembered one of my many encounters with my mom where I learnt from her wisdom.
When our son was born, my father-in-law was very happy and excited. He was very keen to give us suggestions on choosing a name for our son. My father-in-law identified himself as a person from the East of the globe. He recognized a powerful and influential leader in China, as well as his boss in the restaurant who had the name East, which in Cantonese is pronounced ‘Tung’. He thought “Tung” was a good name as it has good meaning with the right identity, power and wealth. He recommended that we take Tung for our son’s name. My husband and I did not really like this name. But at the same time, we didn’t want to disappoint our father as if we did not appreciate his suggestion. While we were figuring out what to do, my mother offered a wonderful suggestion. She said we could give our son two names, one was East, Tung Tung, a nickname that we used at home. We then chose another one that we preferred as an official name printed on the birth certificate. Apparently, my father-in-law was very happy because we always called our son Tung Tung (East East) at home. He felt that we had given him such respect. When I asked my mother why she had such a great and wise idea, she shared that it was nothing special as her father used to have more than one name. Yes, it is so true, in some cultures and traditions, a person is given different names in different life stages.
Wisdom indeed has very much to do with our accumulation of life experience, knowledge and insights that people use in a certain context that bring forward happiness, satisfaction and peace to others. You may recall in your life when you met people with wisdom.
Today I would like to focus on wisdom from above: Divine Wisdom.
Psalm 111:10 says, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have good understanding.”
In here, the word fear is not referring to a person being afraid of someone or afraid of being judged or punished. Fear in Hebrew – ‘Yare’, means ‘Reverence and respect to God the Holy One’.
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It enlightens us to understand this: Wisdom is to know God, to show our respect and to discover God’s wonderful works in creating a life of wholeness and freedom.
From here I would like to move to today’s gospel story taken from Mark 1:21-28. This is a story about Jesus’ authority in teaching and his encounter with the unclean spirit. Jesus, the incarnate, revealing God, the Holy One inspires us to learn what is Divine Wisdom.
Jesus encountered the unclean spirit in the Synagogue while he was teaching.
Unclean spirit in Judaism is referring to demons, foreign and even hostile to the religious and moral purity demanded by the service of God.
Unclean spirit is thus an enemy of God because it takes people away from God. Unclean spirit/ demon separates people from God. Casting out of an unclean spirit is to renew a person’s life and to restore the relationship between God and the person.
In today’s context, unclean or evil spirit could refer to selfishness, greed, aggression, manipulation, discrimination, exploitation, systemic violence and injustice, oppressive governance.
When Jesus entered into the synagogue and taught to the people inside, a man with an unclean spirit cried out to Jesus (1:24) "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."
When you read about this story, are you surprised to see there is unclean spirit in the temple, a place called holy for God or a place that is set up for the people of God? Evil and holy co-exist in our world even in a sacred space. Don’t be surprised if we see evil spirit and evil doing in church. In a way we have to acknowledge heaven and hell co-exist at the same time. Just like light and darkness coexist in the same manner. This is a divine wisdom informing us that we have to acknowledge the realities we are living in this world. With this acceptance, it helps us to overcome our disappointment and fear, knowing that this negativity is part of life and is allowed by God. Quite often, what makes our life miserable and unbearable is we refuse to accept harsh reality, imperfection and suffering on earth as part of our human experiences. When we make this connection, we may overcome and even take the challenges instilled by the evil spirit as an invitation and an opportunity for us to see Jesus and return to God, the Holy One.
The man with an unclean spirit cried out to Jesus (1:24) "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."
It is interesting to see the unclean spirit, the demon recognizing Jesus as the Holy One of God. Even the evil knows about Jesus. Sometimes I wonder how some people, especially those who are in high position with power, claim themselves as Christians. They don’t recognize Jesus as the Holy One in their lives as they fail to follow Jesus as a merciful and forgiving person to do justice and love kindness. Instead of using their power to serve the poor and the underprivileged, they manipulate it for personal interests. This is sad. Sisters and brothers, we need to deeply reflect in ourselves whether if we have ignored Jesus and failed to see he is God, and follow his way. If we are often so blind and ignorant to the life and deeds of Jesus, we may be even worse than the unclean spirit to recognize the presence of the God in our midst.
In the gospel story, when the unclean spirit challenged Jesus of Nazareth with this question: What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us?
How did Jesus respond? He rebuked the unclean spirit and told it to be silent. Jesus did not argue with the unclean spirit or gave it a lesson as such. He just simply ordered it to come out of the man, leave the man alone.
Once we are aware of the evil spirit that lives in us and in our community, we just stand firm to ask it to go away like Jesus. We don’t have to struggle with it. Whenever we encounter the unclean spirit in the form of bad thought and evil deed, first of all we learn from Jesus to calm ourselves, to silence the evil with gentle power. Jesus tried not to give the evil any energy to struggle with us. Quite often, we are too occupied with the evil and allow it to consume our soul. The more attention we give to the evil and fight with it, the more time and energy we may end up using to deal with them. No, we don’t have to. What we have to do is just focus and take the Divine Wisdom from Jesus. We just focus on God, the Holy One, instead of the evil. I have seen some friends who have been so upset by people who have hurt them or are so angry at the unjust system, they end up feeling depressed and trapped. In that case, the unclean spirit wins and takes over our lives instead of God.
In Jesus, we see also how he handled the unclean spirit that lived in the man. He did not destroy the evil spirit, he allowed it to leave. If we translate evil spirit as the enemy in our life and in our community that bring us troubles and turn us away from life, love, joy, peace and wholeness, what we have to do is to boldly ask it to leave or we ourselves can walk away from it. We don’t have to destroy it.
To learn from Jesus, whatever we do, we do it with love and peace, but not out of anger or hate. Jesus’ way to encounter an evil spirit has enlightened us how to deal with wicked and evil people around us. Quite often, we may be very angry and wounded by what our enemy and the wicked people have done to us and to others. There is a temptation to take revenge or do the same like these wicked people so that they may suffer like the victims. We have to be mindful not to lose our heart and soul. We have to be alert and not to behave and act like the evil and the wicked that we have condemned. If people who are seeking human dignity and social justice end up losing mercy and their sense of righteousness, it is not only tragic but also a great violation of God’s salvation through Jesus who came to renew and restore life but not to destroy.
Jesus’s prime concern is to heal and set the man free from demonic control.
The way Jesus cast out the unclean spirit from the man in the Synagogue shows to us Jesus did not just heal the man’s physical problem but also restored his life. Jesus ordered the evil spirit to leave the man in order to set the man free from any control. The man who was once being enslaved by the unclean spirit could be now in charge of his life again. He could be in touch with his real self and his real being. He could be reconnected to God. Jesus delivered this troubled man by restoring his wholeness as full human being. Jesus, the Son of Man who reveals God the Holy One, came to the world to save and liberate the whole humanity from sins, free from any force that separates them from the life and love of God.
After Jesus did all these, the people in the synagogue were all amazed. They were amazed by his authority. The authority to deliver new teaching and cast out unclean spirit. Obviously Jesus did not attempt to increase his reputation or build up his status through his teaching and healing power. The agenda of Jesus is not to dominate and control. Another divine wisdom we learn from Jesus is, anyone who is called to be God’s servant will be given authority to do good works for others. The key point is we have to use God’s given power to serve others but not for our own ego. While the people in his time was amazed by Jesus’ authority to make the unclean spirits to obey him, for me I am amazed by Jesus’ deep love to transform his people, and his powerful act to set the people free .
The Old Testament Reading today, taken from Psalm 111, is a beautiful poem of praise. The Psalmist praised the Lord for his faithfulness, as he had kept the covenant love with his people. The Lord had freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and brought to them new lives and liberation. The Lord is gracious and merciful, faithful and just. The Psalmist praised God’s wonderful works as this living God has been actively participating in the world he has made and caring for his people he has created.
Jesus Christ has revealed God’s continuous salvation in human history. His words and deeds have echoed the majesty and power that the Psalmist has proclaimed:
Psalm 111:9 He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name. As Jesus’ disciples, let us affirm once again Jesus Christ, Holy and awesome is his name. He is the Holy One of God. Let us gracious receive the divine wisdom from him and live a life like him.
To close my sermon, I will read Psalm 111:10 for a moment of silence to reflect the word and give our everlasting praise to God.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever.”
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, January 31, 2021
