4th Sunday in Ordianry Time – Jan 28, 2018 - Homily - 1
We hear in today’s gospel about the man with an unclean spirit coming into the synagogue where Jesus is teaching, to cause a disturbance. And as we observe, the man is completely powerless over this spirit – it has taken control of his life, and there is nothing he can do under his own power to unbind himself from the evil that has taken hold within him.
When we do some self-reflection, if we’re honest with ourselves, we come to see that the one thing that is most difficult to give up in our lives is control. We all want to have a firm grip on our lives, and never want to admit to ourselves let alone others that we sometimes face situations and struggles that we simply aren’t able to manage on our own.
And once again, if we’re honest with ourselves, we all quickly come to the realization that there are certain vices in our lives that we too are powerless against! Evil in this world is a reality, and I think we can all identify something within ourselves that we would prefer not exist, yet we’re just not able to root it out.
Perhaps it’s some form of greed, anger, envy, lust, or any multitude of human struggles that can subtly take over our lives – often even unnoticed – until it comes to the point where we are humanly unable to uproot those things that lay claim on us.
And that’s normal. It simply means that - guess what – we’re human! And part of being human is having that overriding sense of pride that makes us believe we can deal with everything on our own, and that we put on a good face for others even when we are suffering inside with a great desire to unburden ourselves of all those things that hold us down. And it is this pride that creates our greatest obstacles.
For the man in today’s gospel with the unclean spirit, his utterances toward Jesus are a veiled cry for help. The unclean spirit – which we can substitute for whatever vice that we may be personally struggling with in our own lives – is rebellious and resistant against Jesus, because it wanted to hang on. And often in our lives the vices we struggle with hang on, because deep down we don’t really want to let them go. We know on a rational level that we need to release ourselves from these things in our lives if we wish to be truly free, but change is never easy, and change always means some temporary pain before we can know true healing which can only be achieved through Christ who conquers all evil. This reality however does impose upon us the humbling requirement to admit we are not always in control.
There is some great wisdom in the 12-step program pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous which I encourage all of you to Google sometime and read, and the first step is simply to admit that one is powerless against that thing that has a hold of us, and in the case of AA, that would be alcohol. But as simple as that statement sounds, it is the most difficult step to come to, because one has to finally admit to themselves that they are no longer in control of their lives. And for us as humans – to admit we are powerless over whatever vice wedges itself into our lives takes a tremendous amount of humility which is why it is so difficult, but at the same time, this is the fundamental epiphany that allows us to begin the process of healing.
And the 2nd and 3rd steps of the AA process are equally simple yet profound – to believe that a higher power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity, and that we are willing to turn our will and our lives over to that greater power whom we trust will heal us.
For us as Christians, we know that higher power to be Jesus Christ, who we see in today’s gospel casts out the demons from the man, freeing him of all that bound him. And all who witnessed this were amazed, for they witnessed Jesus speaking with authority!
But although we can take comfort in trusting in Christ’s ability to set us free from sin, the reality is that it won’t be easy! The often given advice to just ‘take your problems to prayer’ is of course a vital step, but that doesn’t mean things automatically get better. Even with the healing we hear in today’s gospel, the man still endures some suffering as Jesus commands the evil spirit to leave him. There will be struggles and some pain to get through our challenges, and probably even some falls and setbacks along the way, but these are all necessary steps which help us to restore ourselves from that which binds us, as we cooperate with the grace of God in the healing process. And although I’ve outlined the two primary steps of AA, don’t forget there are 10 other steps – evidence that as the saying goes, although God guides us by his graces, he helps those who help themselves.
Spiritual progress begins with God’s grace, but it becomes a reality in our life when we act under the influence of that grace, when we do what we know we should do because we know he is helping us, and not waiting for it to become easy before acting. We have to let go of our fears, trust in God, and act based on our trust, so that we can be with the witnesses of Jesus’ actions in today’s gospel to be astounded at how he works in our lives as the authority over all that binds us. Christ wants to set us free, but he can’t work in our lives until we admit we need Him by our sides. The key is to let go, and as the Carrie Underwood song from a few years back says, we humbly ask, ‘Jesus, take the wheel’…