January 28, 2024

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle B

Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28

I used an example a month ago at an Ecumenical Advent talk in Conway, and since the point of the story also illustrates a lesson from today's Gospel, I am going to use it again, with apologies to those that heard it the first time. As a young man fresh out of college, I spent five years in the United States Navy. The situations found in the military give you perspectives that you don’t often find in civilian life, and you learn a lot about your world, about others, and about yourself. Here is one of those things that I learned: dead silence can startle you. In a ship, there is always noise. In some spaces, like the engine room, it is quite loud, but in all spaces, there is always the quiet white noise of the fans that circulate the air throughout the ship. When I first reported on board, someone told me that if they ever turned off the fans when you were in the bunk, you would wake up, not from a noise but from the sudden absence of it. And sure enough, when they ran drills, they would sometimes turn these fans off to conserve electricity during a power plant drill, and I would wake up, wondering what was going on, knowing that something had changed. I think anyone that has been a parent can relate. You’re doing something in the house, the kids are in a different room, and suddenly you notice that they are not making any noise. Your antennae go up and you instantly think, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

I bring this us because I think that it is important to consider just what Jesus does when he confronts the possessed man he met at the synagogue. In addition to the observers, there are two main persons here. One is screaming, carrying on, yelling demands. The other simply and calmly speaks only five words, at least as translated into English. “Quiet. Come out of him” [Mark 1:25b NABRE]. The translators of the bible edition we use here at Mass, the New American Bible, added exclamation marks to these words, but at the time that the gospels were written in the first century, punctuation marks were not used in Greek writing, and Mark does not add any adjectives to his statement which would indicate that Jesus raised his voice at all, but only tells us that Jesus spoke with authority. In my experience, those people with real authority rarely raise their voices – they don't have to. My guess is that Jesus, very calmly, just loud enough to be heard by those around him – he was teaching by his actions and wanted the people to hear as well – and told the man, “Quiet. Come out of him.”

The first word is important. They were not to the demons inside of him – they would have been quieted by the mere fact that they left him. No, he was telling the man to be quiet. To be still. To open his heart to receiving the message of God. To understand the desire that God has for our union with him. To be open to the joy of God’s love. Jesus knows that the man cannot do this if he’s listening to the shouting voices of evil in him or around him. Jesus knows that we here today cannot hear the quiet voice of God in our hearts if all we pay attention to is the constant noise all around us. But the effect it had on the man was profound: when he was able to quiet his soul, God was able to exorcise the demons that plagued him.

Now demons are a problematic thing to talk about in modern Western society. While much of the rest of the world have no problems with the idea of supernatural forces, Western countries do. I would point out that God is supernatural – the word combines super, meaning above or outside, with nature, and simply means outside of our natural world. God is in the infinite beyond our worldly dimension of time and space, so also cannot there be other creatures which God has created? This is a great topic, but for another day. If we want, instead of demons, we can use the idea of evil forces, or evil tendencies. We all know those exist – that voice that tells us to do what is expedient rather than the right thing, which another voice within us is also urging. Many people characterize the effect of addiction on a person as a demon, and many of the best treatment programs work with this outlook and ask a greater supernatural force, God, to work to overcome the evil addictive force within the person’s life. But however we want to look at this force, this problem, this human tendency to evil, the Gospel today is telling us that Jesus wants to help us overcome it, and the first step is to be quiet and listen to God.

And if we can get quiet enough, I think we will be startled awake, like I was in the navy. We might be surprised by what we are being told. If we have asked God for his help on a problem, it is then that we will really understand what solutions are possible. If our prayer always consists of our talking to God and asking his assistance, but then we never shut up and try to discern what his answer is, are we surprised that we feel our prayer is often ineffectual?

It is very difficult in our modern society to do this. There are so many things out there forcing themselves into our lives at high volumes, and even those that aren’t at high volume come in such a torrent as to never let up. Even the things that are good themselves can become bad for us if they crowd out the day to the point where we can’t find a quiet time to be with Jesus, to hear him quietly telling the evil forces that surround us to “Come out of him.” “Come out of her.”

I will leave you with one final thought about the efficacy of silent mediation. All we need do is look to the lives of holy men and women. Saint Teresa of Calcutta talked quite a bit because the faithful asked her to, but a calmer, quieter person in her manner is hard to imagine. Saint Frances only heard God quietly tell him to rebuild his Church because he had been quietly waiting there for the message, praying in an old church. Saint John Paul II, Pope Benedict, and Pope Francis all devote hours each day to prayer and Eucharistic Adoration despite their extremely full schedules. Finally, Padre Pio did not as a rule do exorcisms, but he reportedly did one successfully for a little girl. The story says that he quietly touched the girl on the head and simply and quietly said: “Begone.” If we are doing the will of God, no shouting is necessary. If we are not doing the will of God, no amount of shouting will matter.

As we continue with our Mass, may the Eucharist give us the grace to understand God’s message to us. As we return from communion, let us try to still our hearts and minds to be open to God’s love and mercy, and listen to what God's will is in our lives. If we can do so, I think we will be startled at what we learn: about ourselves, about God, and about the plan that Christ has for us.