The Devil and an Exorcism: Jesus Upsets Business as Usual

 

Jesus’ teaching “with authority” is an attack on the scribes, but it’s the devil who complains. That makes surprising sense. Mark’s Gospel has a political setting. Now something appears as if from another world, but Mark gives it a close connection with this world of political maneuvering, including Jesus’ politics. Fifth in a series on “The Worldly Spirituality of Mark’s Gospel” with help from Ched Myers’ Binding the Strongman: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. The Introduction and a Table of Contents are HERE.

The devil appears for the second time in Mark’s story. Jesus is teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum, amazing all present with his sense of his own authority – “not as the scribes taught” –  and cures a man possessed by a demon there. That’s the barebones of the story, two apparently unconnected episodes. Myers sees something more:

From the moment he strides into a Capernaum synagogue, it becomes clear that Jesus’ kingdom project is incompatible with the local public authorities and the social order they represent. A ‘demon’ immediately demands that Jesus justify his attack [my emphasis] upon the authority of the scribal establishment; Jesus vanquishes this challenge …. (Myers, 137)

I already knew that Jesus “vanquished” the devil, but Myers’ idea that the devil was attacking Jesus on behalf of scribal authority was new to me. Not wanting to take him at his word, I opened my Bible to that passage:

Then they came to Capernaum, and on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. (Mark 1:21-26)

At first I saw nothing here that would corroborate Myers’ statement that the devil is taking the side of the scribes. I had to think a little. I had to think of Mark as a genuine author, not a mere recorder of events. This is true of all the gospels. They are not snapshots but interpretations. Perhaps Mark was not just recording two historical events that occurred one right after the other, but using authorial freedom to put one of Jesus’ exorcisms next to his preaching “with authority.”

The demon’s reaction to Jesus’ preaching seems unprovoked. Jesus hadn’t confronted the devil in the possessed man. All he did was preach in a manner unlike the scribes, and the devil gets all worked up. Mark sets Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish authorities into the context of the age-old struggle between good and evil, God and the devil. Or, he locates that ancient spiritual battle in the here-and-now of the authority and power structures of society.

Mark’s sandwiching technique

To make sure his readers get the point, Mark goes right back to Jesus’ new, authoritative and amazing teaching after the incident with the devil. Essentially, after the exorcism he repeats most of the narrative from before the exorcism:

All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” (1:27)

This is what some call Mark’s “sandwiching” technique. (Myers calls it framing.) An incident is hemmed in on both sides with its interpretation. In this case the meat and cheese of the sandwich is the casting out of the devil, and the two slices of bread are the two mentions of Jesus’ teaching “not as the scribes,” the attack on the scribal establishment. Marks original readers see now that  the devil is closely connected with the scribes and Jesus is exorcising that devil.

The words for the bystanders’ amazement evokes almost a sense of panic over a challenge to something very familiar, comfortable, even if not to everyone’s liking. Jesus’ exorcizes an individual and aims to do the same to the old order of things and old authorities.

In the next episode of this series we’ll see how Jesus’ miracles of healing have a similar symbolic meaning.