Authority over Unclean Spirits: Gospel for Pentecost 7B Mark 6:1-13

It was reported today that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church by Pope Francis.

Finally!

Viganò is a man who has called Francis a “false prophet,” and has insisted that Francis had committed a “crime against humanity” by promoting vaccines during the Covid epidemic. He claims Francis is too friendly towards immigrants and gays, and too eager to promote an “eco-sustainable” agenda.

To Viganò, the reforms of the Second Vatican Council were an “ideological, theological, moral and liturgical cancer.”

And Viganò believes no one, not even the Pope, has authority to hold him to account.

Does any of this sound familiar? Does it track suspiciously close to the style and agenda of  a certain former President? Does it reverberate in a sickening way with the news from the rising right voices of Hungary, Italy, France, Germany, and our own neighborhoods.

Many of my friends and family members join me in deep worry about what is happening to our companions and to the Zeitgeist.

That word, “Zeitgeist” or “spirit of the age,” is appropriate, but not adequate. Each age may have its dominant mood. But there are unclean spirits at work that have been hiding in the woodwork of all the ages, and come out to plague us with far too much disastrous rapidity.

But Jesus, in Mark’s Gospel, encourages. This is what the disciples were recruited for. This is what all Christ followers are called to combat in our own times of trouble and promise.

The first verses of Mark, chapter six, are a tale of the trouble with popular opinion. Quickly Jesus’ hometown folk turn from being “astounded” to being “offended.” And this fickleness of nature poisons the environment to such an extent that Jesus can manage not his usual battle against Satan, but only the cure of a few sick people. As astounded as the neighbors are with Jesus’ wisdom, Jesus is even more amazed at their mistrustfulness of him. They see grace. They see healing and health. They see love. But interpret it all as “ideological, theological, and moral cancer.” That is how troubled the times are in Nazareth.

But then Jesus sends “the twelve,” equipping them with “authority over the unclean spirits.”

Adela Yarbroo Collins, in her masterful Mark: A Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, Fortress Press, p. 297, writes, “The purpose of the Twelve, for the historical Jesus and probably also for the author of Mark, was to symbolize and anticipate the eschatological restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel.” She also points out that the exorcisms in Mark reveal to us the ongoing struggle with Satan which leads to the reestablishment of God’s rule o earth.

The disciples are us: slow, blind, and hard-hearted. They have but little faith. Like us.

Yet Jesus changes them and equips them and us for the ongoing work of turning back the Zeitgeist—the spirit of the age. We see these unclean spirits mocking and renouncing every single prophetic call for justice, affirmation, equity, inclusion, and care for the environment. We hear their arrogant and abusive voices. They see themselves as above the law, above morality (the ends justify the means), and beyond our power. But they are not beyond the power God places in our hands—the power of love, justice, peace, and affirmation.