October 20, 2019. Is. 43:15-44:5; 1 Cor. 15:20-26; Lk. 4:31-39

As preached by Brother Marc

Holy Wisdom Church


What is the one thing you want to change for yourself?

People in his hometown of Nazareth are amazed at Christ when he announces change but doesn’t cure anyone. He says, “I am bringing not a cure-all but something entirely new. Awake to a new day. This new day will be different and unfamiliar.” They get frustrated and shrug it off. You’re just the guy from down the road, they say to Jesus. This kind of cynic seems to prefer its own old platter of familiar stale food.

In another town in today’s gospel people do hear the echo of authority and ring of truth in the words of Jesus. The devilish spirit in the possessed man there becomes alarmed. Jesus is able to release the man from its destructive influence.

The old rules and taboos Jesus dispels throughout the gospels is not the Old Law of Moses given by God but the frozen human heart scarred by old mistakes and hurts and misunderstandings. Our old unchanging and unredeemed programming from 55-65-75 or 85 years of life are manipulations and dead ends humans have met since Biblical times. These ills and errors of human evolution still possess us and imperil the earth.

This is a deadly miasma that prowls the world, seeps into cells, and invades every homeland. No border will protect our bodies and hearts, because it has seeped into our spirits and stolen our souls. The old darkness has hypnotized us at the shopping malls. Whole walls of RoundUp weed-killer confront us at the big-box stores.

This is an evil, parasitic smog feeding off our energy as if in a horror film. It exerts a devilish control and chaos under the guise of order. It prevents us and our societies from flourishing, growing, creating again, seeking peace, healing and the comfort of good creative work and play.

This possessive feeling and spirit doesn’t want to move, change, get better for real, take the steps and do the work alongside the spirit and example of Jesus.

Can Jesus heal our lame constricted visions, blind grasping for comfort, destitute hearts and opinions, ears deafened by ear buds with canned music. We humans are imprisoned in cells of individualism and certainty, unchangeable as pillars of salt and having it our way.

The ancient poetry we just heard in the Isaiah reading is instead timelessly uplifting.

I will knock down prison bars,

You will cross great waters.

The wild beasts will honor me,

Wild dogs and ostriches

Who find water in the deserts

For my people to drink.

A modern version says to us, “The deserts spring water, the rivers run clear, the soil grows fertile with tilth and clods and earthworms instead of dust and sand and beetles,” as recent documentaries show it.

This poetry mirrors the ecology of our hearts and our relationships. It announces a new ecology of wholeness, growth, nourishment, blossoming, fruitfulness, and seeds of future health.

We may hear this and say like the people of Nazareth probably did, “Oh that is an old dream and naïve.” So our opinions are two-faced. we believe in change for the better but we know things just get worse and worse.

Even while suffering we keep to the evil we know, as preferable to the evil we don’t know. I choose what I feel, even when feeling badly, over what I need. Resist, procrastinate, put off, wait, make a promise: all this equals the influence of the bad spirit.

Jesus is still setting free the future. God’s hope and goodness help us see hopeful events and good memories as signs of great expectations and not fearfulness or discouragement.

What is the one thing you want to change for yourself? If you do not and cannot know and do that, you cannot and will not change anything else in the world. In fact, according to recent studies, things may turn into the opposite of what you intended.

Are we looking to be set free from destructive tendencies and powers we thought beyond change? I make all things new, he says: I restore to better than original blueprints or dna. At first the new is unrecognizable. To be truly new is not just to rejuvenate. Ic’s spirit overcomes every other authority and power including demonic control, confusion and lethargy.

Jesus and Isaiah’s words want to enter our hearts today and open up our thoughts and release our energies. We are not alone but we have to enlist in God’s program. We need to take the first step of what can become a life pilgrimage of daily walks and daily right eating, of daily meditation and pauses and even daily smiles.

At the end of the gospel we heard some good news: Jesus wakes Peter’s mother-in-law from her sickness, and she gets up, and like we might call a deaconess freely serves the holy gathering. How did he do that?

The love of Jesus finally changed her as it had changed Peter.