Hearing Voices

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Fifth Sunday of Epiphany
February 7, 2021
 
When I was entering the process toward becoming a priest in the Diocese of Virginia, there were a number of hoops I had to jump through to work with the Commission on Ministry.   The first of which was a writing assignment wherein I was to narrate my spiritual autobiography, articulating how and why I felt called to ordained ministry in the church.  It was daunting to say the least.  Being all of 24 years old, all I really knew was that I wanted to offer my time and energy to telling God’s broad and deep story of love as a way of life.  I was not sure that I had any real articulate language of calling, but my mentor and I worked on that.  My college years were immersed in the poetry of words and that helped.
 
In addition to the biographical component, we were obliged to have a thorough physical exam, and a comprehensive psychological evaluation.  This was a whole new education for me, not the physical part, I was an athlete in college and we were checked out regularly and often courtesy of the NCAA rules of order.  The psychological thing was completely new to me.  My appointed shrink was a testing fanatic.  I went through personality indexes, anxiety and depression inventories, and comparative vocational assessments.  In the end, I found that I was not all that sane, but about as sane as anyone else.  A little knowledge in that arena is a dangerous thing.
 
I will never forget one of the questionnaires and the ensuing conversation.  The question was this: “Do you hear voices?”  Now, I knew that the proper answer was, of course, “no.”  and yet, I was a saucy young adult.  I was a child of the 80s and I had heard all kinds of voices telling me who and what I was supposed to be.  I said “yes.”  My counselor was intrigued.  Perhaps the mundane evaluation was about to get interesting.  I said, “yes,” and then, unloaded.
 
Yes, the voices in my head had told me that I needed to be productive and upstanding.  I needed to be successful.  I needed to make money.  I needed to climb the ladders of status and social standing.  I needed to be svelte and lithe.  I needed to be self-actualized and self-aware.  I needed to be well regarded and well balanced.  I needed to eat like a vegan, workout like a triathlete, and pray like a Buddhist monk.  Those were the voices I heard.  My counselor was bug eyed but then, acknowledged the demon like voices of cultural expectation.  And he passed me as relatively sane.
 
The lessons from Mark’s gospel of late talk a lot about demons.  Wherever Jesus goes, he starts with teaching, but that never really gets it, so then, he heals and casts out demons.  It may seem like a literary device for Mark.  And frankly, we might push that aside and think of it as odd and off-putting.  The demons, we rationalize, must be mental illness run amok.  And yet, there they are.  I think that we push that away at our spiritual peril. 
 
Today’s lesson takes us to the Peter’s household.  His mother-in-law is sick, and Jesus is expected to help her.  As the text says, he took her by the hand, and lifted her up.  Those are the same words Mark uses to talk about resurrection.  He is not messing around. Jesus is all about helping, giving life, and restoring folks to something important.  Touching a sick person was not done, but Jesus does it anyway.  The world view at the time was that any sickness, any illness, any malady came from demonic possession: from evil set loose in the body.  While we have more information about virology and all that, disease is just what it says: dis-ease.  Health challenges alter our life, our feelings, and our outlook.  Fighting disease can feel like pitched battle.
 
We are bombarded with messages that tell us that we are not well even if we are.  The self-help and diet industry are legion in the post-holiday media.  So yes, there are voices, demonic voices, lively and active in our here and now.  Mark’s language may sound outdated.  And yet, we are beset with all kinds messages telling us that we are not enough.  Our skin is not shiny enough.  Our bodies are not celebrity tight. We are not the darlings of social media that we may present.  In reality, we are all just getting by.  We are flawed and foolish, at times, and our lives are messy.
 
If your phone messages and junk mail are anything like mine, you get many calls a day offering further solutions to life’s problems: a warranty, a service, or a program to make us better or safer from catastrophe.  I have this lingering fear that my car will break down because I did not buy that extended warranty, I get so many calls about.
 
The Jesus we meet today knows the demons that haunt our souls.  In the story with Peter’s mother-in-law, we are told that the demons recognize Jesus, but he will not let them speak.  Jesus voice is the antidote to all that pestering negative talk.  Jesus is, even, the antidote to dis-ease. He is not laboring under any illusion that we have to be well and whole to be worthy of love.  What he comes to show us is that God is with us to quiet the terrors of our hearts and walk with us in the chances and changes of life.  God is the One who reaches into our sickness, takes our hand, and lifts us out of whatever desolation we experience.
 
If we are at all honest, we have to admit that the demons of this world surround us, and it is not too strange to own up to the task of naming them so we can silence their destructive, fearful, and hateful voices.  When such voices of the world come calling,  tune out, turn off, or hang up.  The only voice of health, help, and salvation comes from the One who tells us that we are enough.  We are beloved.  Amen.