Many years ago, I remember watching my sons play baseball and feeling sorry for the boys whose parents tried to outcoach the coach. I can still see the confused look on the boys’ faces when their mom or dad was on one side of the field yelling to them to do one thing and coach was on the other yelling the opposite. Many times, a boy would shake his head angrily toward his parent and then do what the coach said. That angry head shaking really meant, “You are not the authority here. You need to be quiet so I can hear my coach’s voice.”
Each of us encounter many voices in our lives, and we are constantly discerning which one to listen to. Sometimes, when there is a lot of noise around us and within us, that’s not always an easy thing to do.
In Mark’s gospel (Mk 1:21-28), we hear about a man with an unclean spirit that shows up in the synagogue. He’s loud. He interrupts. He captures our attention the way an unbathed, talking to himself-homeless man would catch our attention if he walked into our church today. But ironically, he does not have that effect on the people in the synagogue. Their attention is focused on Jesus. They are astounded by his presence and teaching. It’s like nothing they have ever heard before. He speaks with authority. His words mean something. They make a difference.
This one with the unclean spirit is really an image of what the lives of those in the synagogue look like. His uncleanness is not about personal hygiene, immorality, or even being bad. His presence describes their fragmented lives, and the many voices within them. The man asks, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” He speaks not only for himself but for all in the synagogue that day. He represents everyone who has ever experienced the brokenness of life. He represents all who feel disconnected from themselves, from others, and from God. He represents the human condition. And I can only imagine that behind his question is the very hope that Jesus would say, “Everything. I have everything to do with you.” Those are the words that would begin to put his life back together.
We’re not so different. Each one of us longs for that answer because we too know the brokenness of our own lives. We’ve lived in isolation. We have been trapped in our grief. We have carried the burden of guilt. The truth of these situations often reveals itself in the many personas we wear.
We use these personas as masks to hide the truth of what our life is like and who we really are. These masks often arise from the many voices that live within us. These are the voices of anger, resentment, guilt, grief, fear, and judgment. These are voices that keep us in constant comparison and competition with others. These are voices asking, “What have you done for me today? What’s in it for me?” These voices are never satisfied. We are never able to do or be enough. Every one of these is a false voice, the voice of the unclean spirit that separates us from our authentic self, from all those we love, those who love us, and from God.
We say the right things, act the right way, and even believe the right way, and all the while we are creating ourselves in the image and likeness of the unclean spirit. The irony is that these masks that we wear, these personas we project, keep us from having the very things we think they’ll give us; things like intimacy, love, acceptance, healing, forgiveness, and authenticity. These personas offer no possibility for our lives to flourish and to be abundant. Yet we hold on to these false voices, voices that ask, “Have you come to destroy us?”
That is exactly why Jesus came. He came to destroy. He came to destroy our brokenness. He silences our false voices. He casts out all our personas and makes us people with a clean spirit. Jesus has everything to do with us! He stands before us as the mirror image of who we can become. He calls us back into the beauty and wholeness of our original creation, reminding us that we were made in the image and likeness of God. He came to destroy our sin so that we can truly live!
The true voice is always present. We just need to be able to hear it amongst the noise that constantly surrounds us. For every false voice that that leaves us crying out, “What have you to do with us?” Jesus responds, “Shhh. Be quiet. That’s not who you are. You are mine, you are precious to me, you are loved, and I have everything to do with you.”
Listen to that voice and you too will astounded at what will become of your life.
