[Sundaycommunity] Even the Demons obey him --reflection Sunday gospel reading.

[Arthur Blomme]

Hi y' all

This is my reflection on Jan 27 Sunday gospel.

Art

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      He commands even the demons and they obey him.

Arthur Blomme 24-01-24

In this Sunday's gospel according to Mark, Jesus begins his journey to 
Jerusalem by casting out theunclean spirit in the temple at Capernaum.  
This event has little meaning in our society today. Ours is a 
technocratic worldview characterized byamechanisticview of science 
coupled with a world view that makesthe material so much more important 
than mind and spirit. For the most part our society considers the 
Demonic to be a fictional superstition. This kind of thinking obscures 
the horrendous reality of evil in our midst.

In contrast the worldview of early Christianity was unified and 
holistic. Matter,mind and spirit are part of a continuum that is 
asawhole,real and important.  In this worldview,thecasting out of demons 
was a much more meaningful part of Marks Gospel story than perhaps we 
experience today.For the early readers of Mark's Gospel demonic evil was 
a very real consideration.

In this Sunday's gospel reading, it is apparent that the demon is 
separate from the humanity of the individual possessed by the unclean 
spirit.  The unclean spirit was a nonhumanbeing. For the early 
Christian, humanity was created in the image and likeness of a loving 
God. To be human is to have compassion, to know good from evil and have 
a conscience. We speak of barbarous events as inhumane, non human.

Our thinking of psychopathy issimilar to the thinking of demons in 
Mark's gospel.  Psychopaths have no conscience or compassion.  We 
sometimesspeak of psychopaths as inhumane. Like the demonic, psychopathy 
thrives in the shadows.  When we shine the light of truth on psychopathy 
the power of the psychopath is diminished.

Early Christianity saw the demonic in the social institutions. St. 
Mark's version of the crucifixion tells the story of how all the major 
political institutions of his day: the high priest, the Herodians(Roman 
proxys), thescribes, the pharisees and the zealots(Judas Iscariot) 
conspired to crucify Jesus.

Institutions are not human and they have a life of their own. When 
acting on behalf of these institutions it is easy to go with the flow 
and setaside one's compassion and humanity to serve the ends of the 
institution.  This is how we can become possessedby the institution and 
participate in its psycopathy.  When good people do nothing the 
psychopathy of the institution prevails.

The psychopathy of war is so well hidden by the false storieswe are 
being told by a mainstream media.  We often fail to recognize the 
atrocious evil of war. There is the adage: “The first victim of war is 
the truth”. Now we are in perpetualwar and the stories justifying 
atrocities are so thin. The stories being told about war cannot fool all 
of humanity.  The dominantnarrativecan no longer contain the truth of 
these demonic acts.

Attesting to this point is the demonic genocide and the ethnic cleansing 
of Gaza. Last week South Africa invoked the World Court ofJusticeto 
indict Israel for genocide in Gaza.  In the opening statement 
SouthAfrica sites Netanyahu's use of ancient Jewish scripture to assert 
his intention to slaughter every man woman and child of Moab(Palestine).

Despite the overwhelming evidence that this slaughter of men,women and 
children is taking place our Canadian government joins with other 
Western leaders to claim that there is no genocide in Gaza. Clearly our 
western leaders are possessed by an unclean spirit. They have no 
compassion for our Palestinian brothers and sisters. They have lost all 
sense of their humanity.

The genocide of the Palestinian people is only the obvious, the tip of 
the iceburg. If we push back further the veils of deception,we can 
uncover so many more demonic atrocities perpetrated by our demon 
possessed national and world leaders. It is our fear that keeps these 
demons in the shadows.

The good news is that we have no need to fear the power of 
demonsorpsychopaths. When the unclean spirit encounters theLight of the 
Universal Christ:... the unclean spirit convulsed and with a loud cry 
came out of him.  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.”(Mk. 1:26-27)

This is our faith.  Christ is resurrectedand victorious over death and 
the demonic psychopathy of warandavarice.
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