The unclean and quiet spirit in the synagogue

(Mk 1:21b-28)

In the confusion of the bloody civil war in progress (68-69) the Roman communities ask for guidance.

Describing the beginning of the Lord's activity, Mk indicates how to proclaim: no longer relying on previous teachers.

The Gospel is meant to replace imperial proclamations of victory and prosperity (golden age), and is detached from the messages of other religions.

The episodes of Jesus' life challenge the heart, creating a critical consciousness - less contrived, more natural.

After inviting the first disciples to follow him (Mk 1:16-20) by making them "fishers of men", Christ takes his own - precisely - to "fishing".

The surprise is paradoxical, and lies in the first of the environments he indicates. The one that today - not by chance - finds it hardest to hold on to everything, as it once did.

In short, wanting to follow the Son of God, it seems that in order to lift people out of deadly situations, one must start not from a place of sin and malfeasance, but from homes of honest religion and pious living!

It is no coincidence that the young Rabbi is referred to as 'Nazarene' (v.24), which in the language of the time - alluding to the land of Nazareth - meant hot-headed, subversive, revolutionary.

As if to say: the ancient "synagogues" seem to want to celebrate and praise God, instead they humiliate him [and stifle his project of humanisation].

They do not rely on the Mystery, which unfolds in the inner world - in the personal outpouring of talents and passion.

The religious authorities only used the divine Name to defend their own social status, inculcating in the people a subordinate conduct, and a world of thoughts or doctrines in their own image.

At that time, in fact, the leaders imposed on all classes a kind of spirituality of immobility, reassuring and manipulative.

The Good News brought by the Master - on the other hand - creates harmony precisely with the desire for fullness of life that each man carries within himself.

Hence a great reformation and overthrow of all widespread beliefs in the empire.

The new Word rises above all the ancient narratives, and radically supplants them, even from the point of view of custom.

It is not rooted in any contrived cloak, or custom, nor alienation, much less reckoning of smuggling and crib.

Despite the contrived and typical cloaks, this essential Logos lurks spontaneously in the soul of each woman and man, and is immediately known, in their actual existence.

Consequently, it is authentic Word, without ancient or schematic projections, disembodied and fashionable; rather, unusual. Thus truly harassing the official institution.

And - even today - provoking reactions both among the tame of observance, and among the fake à la page phenomena of reformism without construct; abstract, sophisticated, cerebral, glossy.

They are varied 'places', these of the various doctrines... but in which there is someone who always remains in a calm and quiet corner, and does not cause the slightest disturbance.

But at a certain point he snaps (v.23).

It is not the prayers and songs that make him explode and swear, but the new teaching.

Where the Master arrives, the old stagnant and compromising balance cannot continue.

His Presence cannot be reconciled with the opposing forces - of lethargy, or the windy fantasies of self-styled prophets.

Before Jesus, the situation in the synagogue was one of 'peace': a quietness and a current mentality that suited everyone.

But the two poles are bitter adversaries: they cannot stand each other, they immediately spark off.

The catechesis of Mk invites us to compare each person's experience to the unresigned life of the Son.

He did not instruct simple people externally, putting on a good face - quoting commonly accepted authorities from memory.

He started from the personal experience of the Father, and from his own concrete life. So do we.

In Christ, immersed in his own Faith, believers scrutinise deep facts and feelings; they do not limit themselves to noble exhortations. This is the 'trouble'.

The Lord's brethren do not repeat commonplaces of others.

Rather, they resolutely fight and expel the power of evil that takes possession of creatures and aligns and alienates them.

The man who cries out against Jesus speaks in the plural (v.24; cf. Lk 4:34) precisely because the Gospel goes to promote personal wealth and undermine group interests.

It is about the entourage of false friends of God; not infrequently, the very ones who open their mouths in his name (v.24c).

The spirit of the habitual and habituated believers or those interested in order realise that in the man who is the true image of the Father comes the One who is able to bring down their house of cards, and they become frightened.

Obviously the clash. So much for harmless goodness and facade.

When these opposing energies meet, they confront each other with no holds barred.

They are hostile and end up attacking each other - there is no candyfloss or mannerism that holds. 

The "possessed" proclaims the name of the young Rabbi (v.24a), hoping to show himself superior and take possession of him.

But the Son of God does not allow himself to be seized by tricks.

The false teachings of normalised religion - of whatever stripe - had inculcated into people's minds that the 'saint of God' would present himself eloquently, peremptorily.

He could be none other than an eminent and celebrated personage: ruler, leader, high priest... thus recalling the distinctive customs of the chosen people.

But in the 'synagogue'-goers such conviction brought with it a spirit of awe and death that produced sedate, habit-forming personalities. Subjugated to bland, all-too-common observances; in the end, only reassuring.

Yet now that same habituated spirit feels threatened - instead of conformistically mirrored. Thus it claims to kennel in the Son even the very God it proclaims.

In the presence of the Word-event that does what it says, the king is naked. Not placid irenicism, but conflict is just around the corner.

The powers that harness us with repetitive festivals and feed on renunciatory illusions see the inertia and leashes that have made their fortunes crumble.

"And the unclean [spirit], writhing and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him" (v.26). Why "writhing him"?

It is indeed heartbreaking to discover that lifestyles and ideal conditioning can lead one astray.

And in this way, so many trifles inculcated as sacred values are perhaps the very ones that lead away from a dialogue of love with God.

Even today, a subtle deceptive and homologising propaganda tends to hijack and alienate the personal soul; to recommend inaction - or its excess - and tear us apart in performance [e.g. of power and money].

An oppressive atmosphere, the one we sometimes suffer, under the cloak of pyramid situations and addictions.

All enslaving the simple; with formalities, moralistic obsessions, and packaged ways of being (or rather, appearing).

Those who evangelise in earnest detach people from trivialising ideology, from the ways of the local single thought - whether traditionalist or avant-garde.

It may seem notably idealistic, or excruciatingly committed, but it then slumbers in practices and doctrines that betray the deep expectations of our authentic vocation.

In short, the cloak of artifices humiliates existence in its fullness; it weakens and extinguishes the step of our unrepeatable exceptionality, on which the Father intends to build his own Newness.

In Christ, the "new teaching" is a "didachè kainè" (v.27), which in the Greek expression emphasises precisely a call of a superior quality; capable of supplanting what remains swampy.

A call that replaces, completely supersedes everything else. And will not be superseded.

A word that lays bare and sweeps away the ballast, as well as all the conditioning scaffolding - along with the guilt inculcated by the usual cheap and self-interested guides.

Moral: women and men humanise; they begin to live and breathe again.

They no longer allow themselves to be plagued by ideas and limitations; beliefs that are extraneous, opportunistic, soporific, or dissociated, hysterical [filled with projections; empty, ungrounded].

"Didache kainè": it undermines forced identification, and a view of life that makes one stagnant, one-sided.

Now if we find ourselves possessed by one-sided, external, dehumanising powers, we are brought face to face with God - without first going through the long rigmarole that makes us monochromatic.

And here enabled to find ourselves, even in the opposites; as well as the discriminating commitment, the reason why we were born.

Enabled now to cross the idols that sequester dreams, and the enthusiasm that starts from within. With a desire to be reborn.

Exodus fruit of alliance with our multifaceted sides, all indispensable for personality completion and evolution.

In short, the Present Son restores our awareness of the Call to Freedom - previously without construct. Vocation already rooted; but without facilitation.

It restores (first and foremost to us, who habitually frequent places of worship) perfect personal judgement, an unthinkable purity.

The turning point comes immediately. Even in depth, as in excess.

To internalise and live the message:

Are you credible and free, i.e. full of passion and depth?

Do you rely on the inner world, or on the (somewhat too) outer world?

Having listened to and welcomed yourself and the reality to come, do you put yourself at risk or are you of the 'ne quid nimis' - nothing too much?