Thankfully, life rarely comes down to desert island preferences. You know the scenarios: if you were stranded on a desert island and could only have five albums, or if you could only eat one kind of food, or if you had to watch one movie, and on and on. But they make for great conversation scenarios. You get to know someone by cutting through all the white noise and cocktail party chatter and learn something about what is important to that person. And those questions often circle back to things like music, food, books–things that open up something about what we love.
Here is one for me: if I could only read one genre of writing for the rest of my life, it would be poetry. I don’t have to think about it, I don’t need the Final Jeopardy music playing, I can say that instantly. Poetry fills my soul, speaks to my heart, and expands my mind in ways that no other kind of writing can.
When John and I thought about what poets to discuss for that class, we went with some of the well-known writers; it’s maybe a stretch to say that a poet other than Shakespeare can be a household name, but Milton, Blake, and Wordsworth are close. Talking about a class for this winter and what poets read and talk about, we had a different approach.
Poetry often seems to be the realm of old, dead white guys. What if for a follow up, we let people know that poetry is as meaningful, powerful, and relevant today, that poetry matters and has a much broader range of accomplished writers than those from the past. Let’s look at three living women of color who are carrying on the mantel.
Tracy K. Smith, Joy Harjo, and Rita Dove have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and just about any other recognition you can think of for their writing. And they have each served as Poet Laureates of the United States.
Smith’s book, “Life on Mars,” Harjo’s “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings,” and Dove’s “Playlist for the Apocalypse,” have come out in 2011, 2015, and 2022: they are recent, relevant, and are evidence that these writers, these women, are wrestling with and trying to make sense out of life, experience, and so many of the alienating forces at work in the world. These are writers, and books, that belong on our bookshelves and in our hearts and minds as we try to walk through life doing the same.
I go back to Robin Williams’ line from the movie Dead Poets Society frequently because I think it says it so powerfully:
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
Or maybe we give the floor to Tracy K. Smith, the first poet we will read and discuss in our class. “Life on Mars” is a book that took a hold of me from the first time I picked it up. Smith’s father was an engineer on the Hubble Telescope, which is something that comes out in her searching and brilliant poem, “My God, It’s Full of Stars.” You can read more about Smith and hear her read from that poem at the link.
Smith talks about why she loves poetry:
That’s a lofty but worthwhile goal. It’s part of the hope of a class like this: that the world we return to after reading and discussing Smith, Harjo, and Dove might seem fuller and more comprehensible as a result.
Sunday morning, I walked up to the church about an hour before the 8:00am service. The evening before, I preached a sermon–still a very new-to-me experience–on Luke’s gospel story of Jesus healing a man possessed by demons.
Christ Church Easton has multiple worship services each weekend and Saturday is the most casual. People in the service, priest included, wear regular clothes. I was myself–talking in jeans and a Hawaiian-ish shirt and Vans. On Sundays, those serving are vested/robed. I was on my way inside to get robed up for three Sunday services.
The sunlight was dancing in the garden next to the church and I almost walked by it, feeling like a needed to be on task. And then I thought about being in the moment, for as many moments as we can, and I stopped and walked over. And perched on a flower was a dragonfly, who stayed, and didn’t fly away.
The dragonfly, the sunlight, and the flowers set the tone. Be in the moment.
A little background.
This past year, I became a first-year seminary student discerning a call to the priesthood. I’ve been a full-time church educator for the past five years. Our rector/pastor is giving a co-worker/fellow seminarian and I opportunities to preach, each of us being scheduled one weekend every other month. We have an incredible congregation/community, who are encouraging us.
So there’s that.
In the Episcopal Church, what the readings are each week comes from a common lectionary, which rotates over a three-year cycle. Generally speaking, an Episcopal service on a given weekend anywhere you go, will likely have the same Gospel reading. And if you are preaching, that is the Gospel you want to make sense of for folks in some way.
But as I thought about the reading during the week, an angle presented itself–talking about why a seemingly dated, archaic reading, which to many people might not seem to be at all relevant, actually matters here and now.
So I set out to look at demon possession through a modern lens. And here is what I came up with.
Personally, I retain more by reading than I do from listening. So the text is below. A friend was able to record the sermon portion of our 10:00am traditional music service, which you can watch here. Bear in mind that this is among the earliest sermons of someone not inclined to speak in front of gatherings of people.
An alternative to being demon possessed
Leading up to today’s reading, in Luke’s Gospel story, Jesus has been walking through cities and towns “proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.”
The crowds are everywhere around him, so much so that when his mother and brothers come to see him, they can’t even get to him.
So Jesus does something that plenty of people on the Eastern Shore can relate to: he gets on a boat.
And he says, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” Jesus falls asleep in the boat, and Luke gives us his account of the storm coming up, the disciples waking Jesus and Jesus calming the storm. The disciples are blown away that he can even command the wind and the waves.
So in our reading for today this boat ride takes them to the country of the Gerasenes. Jesus has gone over to the other side of the lake to get away from the crowds. And as soon as he steps on land, a man with demons meets him.
The funny thing, reading about the demon-possessed people in Scripture is that I think we dismiss these stories. Because we don’t talk like that anymore. Most of us aren’t worried about demons when we go into the grocery store or walk across town. So we say, okay, this story doesn’t apply to me. It’s not relevant.
Let’s think for a bit on this man and his demons. Here is a guy who is not in his right mind. His mind has been taken over by so many demons, they identify themselves as “Legion.” Here is a man on the opposite side of the lake from Galilee, meaning he is a gentile, not Jewish, which we further see by the fact that there are pigs around, which anyone Jewish wouldn’t have had. But what this area did have in common with Galilee, Jerusalem, the whole region, is that it had been taken over by Rome. And legions of Roman soldiers. So here is a man whose people had been conquered by foreign powers, and whose lives would have been affected accordingly. We might say that he was dealing with the spirit of the times.
Do we feel like the spirit of the times, of our times, might take over our minds sometimes? As Fr. Bill mentioned last week, do we feel like an unholy trinity of fear, leading to anger, leading to violence might carry us away with it sometimes?
Social media offers us more than a peek inside something like this. I have seen people who I know to be loving, caring, do anything for anyone people, say things on social media that certainly point to something taking over their minds and hearts—things full of blame and hate and anger and fear. Those are things, especially when they take over people who are otherwise loving and giving and caring, that lead us nowhere we want to go. And I get it, I feel those things too, I can be overcome with thoughts and feelings I don’t know where they came from and I wish they weren’t there.
We have dear friends and brothers and sisters at Christ Church who have shared their addiction stories and their journeys in recovery. Addiction is a disease that takes over someone, in a way that someone in Jesus’s time might well have described as demon possessed.
And when we look around the country at a new mass shooting each week, now including St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Alabama—it is not hard to make the case that we have people, here and now, who are not in their right minds; we are struggling and trying to understand and to help people through mental health crises, to help them know that they are loved and valued, at times when they are having trouble finding themselves.
We can see all around us that there are forces at work that have nothing to do with love, grace, forgiveness, or God.
All of this is to say, when we run into the demon possessed in Scripture, don’t be so quick to dismiss these stories—they still happen today, to us, just as much—with things taking over the way we think, feel, and act—which cause us to act in ways we normally wouldn’t.
And so in today’s reading, what do we see immediately with Jesus: these demons know him, and know that he has authority over them. They know he can get rid of them. Which he does and puts this man back into his right mind. And that is a great line, I think, when the people came out to see what happened, “they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”
And then there is one of the most curious, interesting lines. Seeing this guy back in his right mind, how did this make the people feel? “They were afraid.”
Let’s circle back to our times. If we know that love conquers all; if somewhere in our hearts, we know we could live differently, be more loving, but we would have to put down this armor, this way of seeing and being that we’ve become accustomed to… if we were asked to stop blaming people we disagree with, if we were asked to love our neighbor who lives differently or votes differently than we do: would we? If we are asked to love and forgive and do something about the state of the world around us—will we?
If we get so used to looking at the world through certain lenses, taking those lenses off, and trying on a different way of seeing, of living, can be scary. It requires us to change. It asks something of us.
So into this demon-possessed way of being, Jesus comes, and frees this man from the legion of things that cloud his heart and mind. Jesus, with power and authority, gives him, and gives us, an alternative way to be. A different way of seeing things and being in the world.
Jesus restores the man who was possessed by demons. And in the next chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we see Jesus calling the twelve together and giving them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and sending them out.
We are called to be disciples of Jesus, right? I am going to speak for probably most of us, when I say I don’t know how well equipped I am for casting out demons and healing the sick. But there is some good news for those of us who don’t feel up to those tasks. And this season of Pentecost gives us a clue: He hasn’t left us alone to do this kind of work. He has sent us the Holy Spirit as our advocate, as our comforter, as our helper. We are never alone, especially when we are doing the work that God has given us to do.
A number of us have begun a three-week study of former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams’ book “Being Disciples.” And at the end of the first chapter, Williams has this profound thing to say about discipleship. He says:
“A disciple is, as we have seen, simply a learner; and this, ultimately, is what the disciple learns: how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.”
We are learning how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.
No pressure, right?
Let me tell you a quick story. Over the past month and a half, I have taken 20 minutes each morning for centering prayer. What that is, at base, is breathing, clearing my mind, and being in the presence of God. One of the ways I try to keep that focus is when I breath in, I think about breathing in God’s love. And that makes me smile. And when I breathe out, I think about filtering God’s love through me, and breathing out compassion, empathy, and love for others. And if I sit with that for a minute, and wrap my mind around spending more time breathing love into the world, than I do fear, or hate, or anger, that should certainly change how I act, how I see other people, and how I treat others.
This is maybe the exact opposite of demon possession. Instead of taking in all these things of the world that keep us from God, I try to take in, to dwell on, to feel God’s love and grace.
I’m not saying that centering prayer is the answer to evil in the world. But let’s ask ourselves, what are those things we can do to help us focus on God, on love, on healing and forgiveness, rather than the different forces at work that want to keep us from the power of God’s love.
Rowan Williams has a few suggestions as to things that can help. He says: 1) attending to Scripture, following the Gospels so we can better understand this life we are called to live. 2) He says coming together to worship, to baptize, to celebrate Communion together and to welcome others to do the same. 3) And he says looking to the lives of others around us that help us to have faith. We need each other for that, to help us focus on God.
And so what if all of us who think of ourselves as Christians spent even a little time each day trying to focus on God’s gifts for us; on God’s grace and his love, in whatever ways we find most nourishing.
And then what if, by our breath, by our thoughts, by our actions, we tried to put more love into the world—taking in God’s love for us—and putting that love, in our own special and unique ways, into our community, into our world. Would that make a difference? And if it would, are we willing to put the time in, to put the work in, to do it?
We are called to be those people. We are called to be that community. We are called to further this work.
Today’s story of a demon-possessed man should resonate with us in today’s world, if we use the language of our time. And Jesus having the power to heal, to drive out the demons that tormented this man, and many others, is still as true today as it was then.
The world we live in is a frightening and heart-breaking place too much of the time. Helping to set it right, helping to be places where the acts of God can happen in the world is the work we have been given to do.
But we don’t do it alone. We have each other, and we have the Holy Spirit. And that is enough.
No one wants to be a grown up on Charlie Brown. No one wants what they have to say to amount to WA-WAH-WA, sounding off in the background, unintelligible. And yet, that’s what happens to the majority of words, of communication that comes our way and a good bit of what we put out into the world. We talk too much and say too little.
…only at a time when the fresh creation of meaning has become a rare occurrence, a time when people commonly speak in conventional, ready-made ways, “which demand from us no real effort of expression and… demand from our listeners no real effort of comprehension”–at a time, in short, when meaning has become impoverished. – David Abram, summarizing Maurice Merleau-Ponty in “The Spell of the Sensuous”
When meaning has become impoverished, what we get, and what we become, are grown ups from Charlie Brown.
But this isn’t what language is for or what it is meant to do. Language, words, gestures, expression, body language, is supposed to be us trying to convey, to express our wants, needs, fears, questions; trying to get someone to understand something of vital importance–otherwise, why bother?
If we go back to the feeling of being alone, unheard, not understood, language works miracles, it attempts to do the impossible: to communicate with another being something that is inside us. But only if we find the right words or the right way to get something across.
Abram talks about language also being physical and touching our senses as well. Maybe we can all reach back to a time, place, way we have felt someone’s words wash over us, where a gap has been bridged. But Abrams doesn’t just limit it to people.
If language is always in its depths, physically and sensorially resonant, then it can never be definitely separated from the evident expressiveness of birdsong, or the evocative howl of a wolf late at night. The chorus of frogs gurgling in unison at the edge of a pond, the snarl of a wildcat as it springs upon its prey, or the distant honking of Canadian geese veeing south for the winter, all reverberate with affective, gestural significance, the same significance that vibrates through our conversations and soliliquies, moving us at times to tears, or to anger, or to intellectual insights we could never have anticipated.
There have been times where I have physically felt God was communicating me without a word spoken, simply with the sounds and language of the landscape alive around me. In the mornings, I sit with coffee and listen to birds, cicadas, neighborhood dogs, the buzz of hummingbird’s wings as it goes to the feeder. Sometimes that language means more and says more than what we hear from people.
If our own language, our own words, are going to mean more, it’s up to us to use them wisely, and maybe less frequently; to look for, and listen for, the right words to speak our hearts and minds. And to listen to others who are making the effort to do the same.
I’ve had this notion in my crawl about reclaiming language, trying to come to meaning, to get back to the primacy of saying something worth saying. And then was moved all over again by words I’d heard before.
In the movie version of “Into the Wild,” towards the end, there is a scene on the magic bus in Alaska, where Chris McCandless is reading Boris Pasternak’s “Dr. Zhivago” and comes across this notion:
For a moment she discovered the purpose of her life. She was here on the earth to grasp the meaning of its wild enchantment and to call each thing by its right name.
Maybe that’s the challenge we need to give ourselves. To strip away the static, the clutter, the convention, the emptiness of the words so often around us. And to call each thing by its right name.
Let things sink in. Let them wash over us, trying to come to our own truth about them. And when we talk, when we pray, when we write, when we see, when we hear, to call each thing, and each other, by our right names.
