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Today's gospel reading drops us in the middle of the action. Now, if you paid attention in your New Testament class and I really hope you did. You will remember that Mark's Gospel is the quickest.

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It's the fastest narrative of them all rather than starting with a birth narrative or a genealogy. Mark introduces Jesus as a mature adult who after being baptized, spends 40 days in the wilderness, being tempted by

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Satan and then comes out to recruit followers, disciples among the working class of Galilee. It is at this point that we find Jesus at the synagogue in Capernaum just northwest of Galilee. It is there that

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he begins preaching healing and yes, casting out demons as one with authority. Jesus did not depend on the authority of previous experts of maybe his professors or something he read while in uh during his studies,

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but rather he acted like an authority himself while in John's gospel. Jesus' first miracle is the turning of water into wine. My personal favorite in the synoptics . It's exorcism that comes first jesus' first miracle is

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the casting out of evil spirits. Now, the Greek word for exorcism means to purge or to cleanse , to extract an evil or impure spirit from a body. Mart stresses this aspect of jesus' ministry.

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In fact, before chapter one is over, Mark mentions it three times moreover, it seems like Mark is wanting his readers to get the point. The word for authority, which is used to describe Jesus

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literally means out from himself, thereby juxtaposing what Jesus is doing and who he is. Yes, it's as though Mark wants us to know that casting out evil spirits is an essential part of what it means

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to be his disciple. Now, I recognize that for most of us, the idea of exorcism might be a little nerve wracking. The idea of possession might be jarring to our modern or postmodern sensibilities.

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It might even inspire terror. Now Hollywood has certainly capitalized on this fear every Halloween. I'm sure your Netflix feed is inundated with the latest movie of, you know, of, of uh some priest who

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liberates someone usually a younger white woman who is being tormented by demonic forces. Am I, am I speaking the truth here? Yes. Now some of you may have come to seminary expecting to become proficient

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in the skill of exorcism. If so, then I have some good news because professor Jen Lord will cover this in her class later this semester. She will go into great detail on how to master this

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craft. So make sure you register because drop a ends on Friday in all seriousness though the vision of exorcism promulgated by Hollywood in our popular culture isn't the only way to think about exorcism. I want to

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suggest that we should approach this topic differently by thinking through the logic of possession and dispossession displayed in jesus' Ministry. I want to suggest that instead of approaching this with fear that we as Christians lean into it

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after all. Isn't this something that defines Christian existence ? Isn't this what happened at Pentecost? What does it mean to be a Christian? If not one who was possessed by the Holy Spirit? For you

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see, after rising from the dead, Jesus told his disciples go back to Jerusalem and wait, wait for the spirit and thus our motherly God birth the church by sending the Holy Ghost who possesses people from

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every nation under heaven. Now, this isn't just limited Pentecostals. This also applies to Baptists and Lutherans and Methodists, Episcopalians, evangelical. Yes, even the frozen chosen Presbyterians. And you see as part

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of that body, we too invite God's spirit to inhabit us, our bodies, our minds thereby becoming more like his son. It is this way that we regain the divine imprint so corrupted by sin.

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It's a beautiful image. But let's return to the topic of exorcism. An evil spirit can affect more than just an individual body. You see evil can take hold of a community, a family, a

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business, an institution, a school, even a nation evil often animates corporate bodies in our world today . In 2010 theologian Willie Jennings published a groundbreaking book titled The Christian Imagination Theology and the origins of race

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. In it. Jennings exposes how race in the modern world in fact, has a Christian architecture and how Western Christianity has a racial animus, a racial spirit. He shows how whiteness operates as an invitation

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more than anything as an invitation to view ourselves and God's creation through a logic of racial supremacy. You see this distorted vision ultimately prevents us from participating in the intimacy in the life, the common life that

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God desires for all of us. In this way , we as Western Christians in the United States, we inhabit an ecclesial body afflicted by an evil animus , possessed by an impure spirit. Now, you

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might be asking well, what would it look like to exercise this spirit? I'm glad you asked to answer this question. Let me briefly share with you the story of the DeWolf family. While in seminary

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, Katrina Brown De Wolf received a letter from her grandmother about her family's origin. You see, Katrina had long been proud of her family. Her, her New England family, who was full of professors

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and scholars and writers and, and and architects and many Episcopal ministers. But in her letter, Katrina's grandmother exposed the underside of that idyllic image. Katrina came to learn that the the wolves were, in

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fact the largest slave owning family in American history. Her ancestor, Mark Anthony De Wolf immigrated to Rhode Island in 1744 he established a merchant mercantile and sailing company and was responsible for enslaving over 10,000 Africans.

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Nearly one, anywhere between half a million to 1 million of their descendants could be alive today. And so Katrina uh uh wanted to reckon with this, this history, this aspect of her family. And

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she decided to retrace her ancestors steps from Rhode Island to Ghana, West Africa and to Cuba where they owned a sugar plantation that was now in ruins. She wrote to all of her existing family, 200

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people, in fact, extended cousins, siblings and everyone in between inviting them to come along with her because she decided to make a documentary out of this called Traces of the Trade. Nine people replied and

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went with her and the documentary traces them as they journey through these colonial steps. You see the documentary concludes with Katrina returning to her home church in New England preaching a sermon that shared their experiences, their

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experiences that grappled with this violent and this violent history and the turmoil that it has caused. Now you might be wondering, well, what does this have to do with exorcism? While at the end of

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her sermon, Katrina and the clergy of that church , invite the congregation up, invite them up to be prayed over to be anointed, ultimately to be liberated. They ask God to heal them from their

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blind blindness, heal them from their refusal to make them whole. I share this story, not because it is led by a hero or there is some triumphal uh ending for there are no heroes rather,

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it is a tangible and sobering example of what exorcism in our world can look like. Exorcism. The driving out of an impure spirit is not a simple event. It's not one and done. Jesus tells

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us that unless we fill a house with something better than what exited, something else is going to take its place. Unless we substitute that evil spirit for the spirit of God, who knows what will end

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up happening? You see this example shows the power of the church to redefine the the exploitive narratives that continue to shape us personally and corporately. Now, it's not enough just to expel a demon. We

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might be able to vote someone out of office. But unless fascism is addressed, who knows what will take its place? You see, Jesus says that we must inhabit those places that we must call upon

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the spirit of God to take residence where evil has occurred. Now, you might think to yourself, preacher, I've been fighting for justice for a long time. I've been, I've been fighting for a

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living wage. I've been, I've dedicated years of scholarship to the struggle for equity. I've given up my time, my money, tears and prayers. I've invested in the struggle for justice in what the

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late John Lewis called. Good trouble. I've raised my voice on behalf of the poor, of the oppressed, seeking to expel the evil that squashes the weak among us. But I'm tired, I'm tired

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and disheartened and fatigued. If this is you, you're in good company, you're in good company because as Isaiah tells us, have you not known? Have you not heard the Lord is the everlasting God

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, the creator of the heavens and the earth? He does not faint nor grow weary. He understa his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and strength to the powerless. Even youths will

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fall exhausted. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up like wings of eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. So