January 15, 2019

EXERCISING OUR DEMONS

OR

EXORCISING OUR DEMONS

INTRODUCTION

The title and the theme of my homily this morning is “Exercising our Demons or Exorcising our Demons.”

Everyone of us has demons within. They are living there consciously and unconsciously inside our mind and heart and psyche. And these demons within us can destroy us. Let him without sins cast the first stone. Let him without demons cast the first stone. To deny them is to move towards  becoming a Pharisee.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel, Jesus comes along and frees this man of his demons, so that he can take those energies and use them for community. This is good news. Jesus brings freedom. He shares his strength to help those who are being overpowered by strengths and energies that they can’t control. He frees that energy that is locked up by our demons.

EXERCISING OUR DEMONS

Demons are our sins and the results of our sins. They are also the ways we have been hurt and sinned against. And then they are all those inner conversations and sometimes even shouting matches that we have with ourselves when we let our demons out to play in the playground of our mind.

It has been my experience that people exercise their demons. We flex them.  We let them out to play. And as a result, like any exercise they become stronger and more pronounced.

A good analogy for what I am trying to get at today is Eric Bern’s analogy of the tape. Most of us spend hours and hours of time each day playing tapes. We walk around with an invisible “Walkman” inside our skull. The result is we can become deaf to everyone else. Haven’t we all had the experience of being with someone who is totally involved with listening to tapes and totally unaware of us. And then we start to talk inside our heads about what they are doing. Sometimes it even pushes our button and we start to inwardly bitch and bitch about them.

In other words we do spend a lot of time talking to ourselves. Well, if they are conversations we had before, Eric Bern would call them “tapes”.

And we have a whole cabinet of them in our inner storeroom. And the topics and themes of our tapes are many. We play our anger tapes, our lust tapes, our should tapes, our should not tapes, our poor me tapes. We have drawers filled with all kinds of tapes. Someone just pushes our button and we have immediate access to them. Or we inwardly run and get them and start to play our tapes. We play them in traffic, in our rooms, in chapel, in the corridor. Say the wrong thing and push - we begin to play them. We begin to exercise our demons.

Warning: playing tapes, like using a telephone while driving, can dangerous to our health. They can kill us, because they can run the show. They can destroy us.

Let him without demons cast the first stone. Let him without demons deny the presence of the tapes. Let him without demons look down on those whose demons are running their lives and destroying their everyday.

MIKE 

Take the experience of going to a funeral. We go to the wake. We sit there. We go to the church. We sit there. We go to the cemetery. We stand there.

And what do we do the whole time. Don’t we play tapes.

I remember going to my brother-in-law’s brother’s funeral. I drove down for the wake and for the funeral. While driving back I began to play back what went on in my mind and heart while I was at the funeral—the tapes that I had listened to. 

Mike had his demons. One was demon drink. I even heard that phrase being used as a joke at the funeral parlor. He smoked. He died of cancer—alone in a small rented room. 12 years ago his wife after repeated attempts to reach him told him to leave. He did. She had gotten help from Allanon. But the damage had already been done from years and years of alcoholism. His 2 kids were quite messed up. Both had to get married.

At the funeral parlor I stood there and noticed that the son of the man in the closed coffin was quite drunk. He would sneak out, as someone told me, to take a drink or smoke a joint. He was bouncing all over the place. The demon drink was bouncing within him. He was filled with guilt as one person told me—living without his father for the past 12 years.

I figured it was useless to talk to him, so I butted in and talked to his wife. They are planning on moving in 2 weeks for North Carolina. I usually don’t jump in, but I went up to her and said, “Kick ass. Get yourself some help. It looks like Mike has a serious drinking problem.” Her response was, “Oh, he’s just going through a rough few days.” The demon of denial is playing in her head. I said to her, “When you get to North Carolina join Alanon like your mother-in-law did up here.” I didn’t say that geographical changes can often be a denial of the real changes that are needed.

The demon of not saying a thing was running around in my head, but I didn’t play that tape. I figured this was the best thing to do at the moment.

That was the just the funeral parlor. That’s what I was talking to myself about. That’s what tapes I was playing. A whole new set of tapes kicked in when I went to the funeral mass the next morning.  It was disaster alley. The priest was a robot. He said the whole mass in 29 minutes: sermon, prayers for the dead, meeting the coffin in the back of the church before and after the mass. I sat there stewing about impersonal priests. I even said to Jack McGowan after communion, “I’m leaving the Catholic Church.” After mass a few people were fishing for my reaction to the priest. One person said that the guy needed a personality transplant. I kept quiet.

But afterwards I began to think. I don’t know this guy. But I do have an obligation to know myself. Let him without sins cast the first stone. Let him without demons give the first evaluation. What are the things that I must do to make life more personal and better for others?

FIRST READING

That brought me to this morning and today’s readings. One of the advantages of preaching is you get a chance to clarify your own thoughts. 

In today’s first reading a sentence grabbed me. Yes, all things are subject to Jesus, but obviously, it has not happened yet.

GOSPEL

That brought me to the Gospel. This man in the gospel with the unclean spirit is me. That man is me. I have many unclean spirits in me that are often shrieking and yelling. I am here in this synagogue and Jesus approaches me or I approach Jesus.

I need help. I have demons within me. They are scared of Jesus Christ. They know that Jesus can destroy them. So they are very aware of Jesus’ presence.

But being smart they identify with my person. They become me. Demons become me. I spend so much time talking with them that I fear that I will be destroyed if they are destroyed. I am like Francis Thomson who said, “Lest having you I will have nothing else.”

Jesus: I confess today in this synagogue, this meeting place, that you are the savior. You can take away the sins of my world. You can uproot my demons.

And hopefully Jesus will say, Be quiet. Come out of the man.

And people will be amazed at our change - our change in personality and behavior.

Writing about this section of Mark (page 39), calling it “A Typical Day” in the Life of Jesus, Diarmuid McGann, a priest out in Long Island, has 5 steps that take place here:

1)       I must perceive my demons;

2)       I must claim my demons;

3)       I must name my demons;

4)       I must tame my demons;

5)       I must re-aim the energies that are locked up in  the demon.

CONCLUSION

So the obvious response is, Amen, Come Lord Jesus!