One beautiful morning recently I looked up at the clear blue sky.  The only hint of cloud was a jet stream heading from South to North.  Perhaps a flight from Queenstown to Auckland I speculated.  Then I remembered the long diatribe I struggled to politely get away from as someone tried to explain that jet streams where in fact chemicals spread over us to make us comply with the wishes of a secret group plotting world domination.

That reminded me that I have recently attended a number of street corner meetings where people made similar wild accusations about government action.  Apart from simple untruths and perceived rampant crime there was the belief that Covid wasn’t real and vaccines were a means of injecting microchips into an unsuspecting population.

A lot of the fear and accusation sounded very like something from our reading from Mark’s Gospel.  

‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?’ (Mark 1: 24)

There were certainly times when I wished I had Jesus’ authority to say, ‘Be quiet and come out of him!’ (Mark 1:25)

But the passage from Mark’s Gospel is not written as a formular for preforming an exorcism or even for politely ending an unhelpful conversation.

The understanding alluded to in our Deuteronomy reading is that God calls prophets and rabbis who have the divine authority to reinterpret scripture.  Mark has obviously included the man with the unclean spirit to inform his readers that Jesus has such authority. 

The word exorcism conjures up all sorts of images of things that go bump in the night.  However, in terms of understanding scripture for our time and place, we should consider a whole variety of mental stress, addictions, ideologies and conspiracy theories as unclean spirits.

We must also be aware that different people’s brains function differently and rather than be a hindrance such difference can be an advantage to both the person and their community. 

A few years back I heard a story from a woman who graduated as a psychologist and went to work for the education department.  She was soon sent to assess a schoolboy who was so disruptive that teachers simply locked him in a room by himself with a whole lot of maths problems to solve. 

The new graduate quickly diagnosed the boy as autistic, he hated being in crowded rooms and loved maths. Not being able to fully express himself he disrupted the class until he was locked away with problems to solve.  A plan was devised, and his schooling continued.

A whole host of great discoveries are made by people whose brains function slightly differently. The line between genius and demon possessed often depends on circumstances and community acceptance.

After taking fright as a new schoolteacher Janet Frame was institutionalised and prescribed a lobotomy.  Fortunately, a friend rescued her and allowed her to become ‘An Angel at My Table.’  A literary genius, always reclusive but always insightful,

The Covid epidemic has certainly opened our minds to the challenge of people who hold, as absolute truth, the wildest of conspiracy theories and unhelpful beliefs. 

But our assertion as Christians and the claim of Mark’s text is that a commitment to Christ can exorcise such demons and restore people to new beginnings. 

The downside of such an assertion is we have to carefully consider our own beliefs and not judge too harshly the opinions of others.

Our calling is not to make judgements, not to try and fit everybody into conforming boxes but to be the liberating and restoring Christ. 

We also need to be aware that miracles are achieved by quite rational means when the process is understood.  One of the suspicions of the Covid vaccine was that it was arrived at in a very short time compared with such discoveries in the past.  But it was research based on previous research and information was shared through modern communications rather than the isolated discoveries by past geniuses.

But some miraculous healings do happen by quite natural means.  The fact that Dr Siouxsie Wiles has pink hair didn’t stop her giving wise advice about the Covid epidemic.  It also won’t stop her discovering new antibiotics from New Zealand plants and sponges.

Some years ago I watched a program about curating a British Library exhibition called ‘Harry Potter: A History of Magic.’ The exhibition included rare books, manuscripts and magical objects from the British Library’s collection that captured the traditions of folklore and magic from across the world.  Much of this was material that J.K. Rowling had accessed when she was researching the Harry Potter novels. 

It was this research that gave Rowling’s fiction an air of authenticity.  At a time when we were worried about the lack of reading in young people, that authenticity sent sales of Harry Potter books into the stratosphere. 

One Librarian carefully handling a hand-written synopsis of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone explained that Rowling wrote it to try and sell the book to a publisher. 

She then looked at the camera in a mixture of disbelief and adulation and said: ‘Who could believe that she had to sell Harry Potter?’

Interestingly when Rowling wanted to write a detective novel she did so under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith.  But it seems that her business minded publisher outed her on the back cover. 

With seven novels a number of which are televised, she is undoubtedly a multi-level storyteller.   I just wish her two detectives could simultaneously admit they are madly in love with each other and stop being so politically correct about their business partnership.

But to return to the documentary of the British Library’s exhibition there was an ancient book of herbal remedies using common British plants.  We know about various indigenous people that use forest and jungle plants as medicine.  M?ori have a whole list of native plants with medicinal properties. 

My dad always put flax jelly on an open wound because he had learned about that from the M?ori who worked on his family’s sheep station.  The antibiotic prosperities of manuka honey are now scientifically proved and the subject of patent disputes. 

What intrigued me about the British book of herbal remedies was that it was originally only published in Latin.  When it was translated into English the Royal College of Surgeons tried to block its publication because that was where they got their medical recipes from.  They didn’t want their fee-paying patients wandering out to the hedgerows and mixing up their own medicine.  They probably wouldn’t want my dad nipping down to the creek to cut a bit of flax to put the jelly on my frequent wounds either.

There is certainly tension in our world about multi-national drug companies, and indeed honey producers, locking up their recipes in international intellectual property treaties.

What the documentary also showed was that people have always looked for easy answers to the unknown forces that seem to control our world and people seek power by seeming to control such forces. 

But although some of the supposed magic rightly belongs in works of fiction there are real compounds in the natural world that can cure sickness and disease.  There is also an evil streak in human nature that wants to monopolise healing knowledge for individual or corporate gain. 

It is easy to classify mental illness as demon possession and addictions of various sorts can be seen as possession by an unclean spirit.   Even a simple non-malignant habit can grip us in ways that make it difficult for us to change and grow.  I think there are probably times in most of our lives when we would like to wave Harry Potter’s wand and make everything better.

‘Be silent, and come out of him’ (Mark 1:25) sounds a very convenient magic charm, like something that Harry Potter might use.  But the reality is that Mark’s Gospel is not an ancient book of spells.  

All the gospel narratives were written to encourage people to live in the way that Jesus modelled.  The gospels are stories that encourage people to form communities of caring.  Jesus’ call to be part of the kingdom of God was a call for each person to behave in a godly way to other people. 

The key message in today’s reading is, that when we are interrupted by someone with an unclean spirit, we react to them with empathy, love and compassion. 

That sounds great but it is actually hard.  

People with unclean spirits tend to interrupt life at the most inappropriate times.  They can disrupt a class of children when a harassed teacher it simply trying to do the best for all the children.  Or a teacher can appear insane when they simply don’t have the mindset to stand in front of a class of noisy children. 

Jesus was teaching at the Synagogue and the people were appreciating what he was telling them.

They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. (Mark 1:22)

Then suddenly the service is interrupted by this nutter who cries 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.’

Mark simply tells us that Jesus addressed the unclean spirit and it came out of the man.  That power at a street meeting in the pouring rain would be great but it simply does not work that way.

In fact, if we consider all the demons that possess people in our society the cures require even more loving care and patience.  Furthermore, the chemical cures available often cause new problems.

When encouraging people to give up an addiction or even just an unhelpful habit we must expect to fail time and time again. 

I still remember telling someone trying to rebuild their life that they had got rid of all their addictions except their addiction to useless men.  Now as a lawyer in her own practice that person seeks the court’s help to alleviate that issue for other couples.  Furthermore, I am on a promise to conduct her wedding when she sorts out her partner’s divorce.

Our task in the ministry of caring is certainly to encourage people to change. But we must not be discouraged when people fail.  Our task as Christ filled carers is to stay with them and encourage them along the way

Our task as Christ filled carers is also to remember that people do not need to conform.  The fact that they think and behave differently might seem like a curse. 

But it may be a blessing to the world we are all moving into.

Christ calls us all to walk beside the unloved and unlovable, and the result of such caring is what demonstrates Christ’s authority and the true magic of the Gospel.

The Christian festival, when we focus on the Holy Family, has become through the commercialisation of Christmas a time when both Christians and the secular world focuses on their families.  We spend time together, we feast and give gifts to each other and the success of the festival is measured in efpos totals.

Due to the need to produce an order of service before people went on holiday and immersed themselves in those activities I needed to write this sermon before Christmas.  So I felt no guilt at looking back to the last time I preached on these readings for inspiration.  That was 15 years ago and I began by reflecting on our Christmas Day which obviously I can’t do now.  So, I have anticipate what might happen.

Like we did then, we are most likely to spend time at our son’s place on Huntsbury Hill.  The majority of Pakuranga Perrys are visiting us in relays in the new year. We won’t be seeing our eldest granddaughter becase she has just had a holiday in Japan and, as a diligent local body bureaucrat, she will need to support her colleagues in containing Auckland’s Mayor.

Sharing a meal with the Huntsbury Family will be different to 2008 when our Grandson Nico was 23 months old.  He will now be starting his last year of secondary schooling next term.  Furthermore, my son has separated and married Tina George and they are now referred to as the PGees. 

Fifteen years ago was the time of the popular commercial that had kids recruiting help to build a retaining wall because DIY was in their DNA.  In Nico’s presents was a toy electric drill and he raced around the lounge boring imaginary holes in all the furniture.  I truly believed that, like his father, he had DIY in his DNA.

Now if he is home when we visit he will most likely be playing games on his computer. He does this incessantly while his father and step mum race across the southern Alps or plunge to the depths of the T?kaka limestone caves like a couple of midlife energiser bunnies.   

However, in recent times Nico has confessed to quite liking skiing and has been rock climbing with his father. So, there are traces of his father’s DNA.

Jesus’ DNA is mapped out in chapter three of Luke’s Gospel after the voice from heaven declared ‘Jesus beloved and divine son of God’.

The genealogy goes back through David to Adam who, as the first created human, was of course son of God. 

That is not particularly unique because we are all children of the first humans and children of the Creator of the Universe.  Indeed, Luke’s genealogy and incarnational theology backs that up. 

We all have a divine nature within us but that needs to be nurtured by open and caring lovingkindness and empathy.  The divine spark can also be stunted and corrupted by neglect, self-centred indulgence, greed and fear.

Watching Nico in full carpenter mode fifteen years ago we wondered what his career path might be.  However, with his father a geography teacher, mother a maths teacher and a stepmother an ex-chef and sports scientist we worry if computer games could distract him from the influence of his DNA and his over active household.  

One of my mother’s often repeated whinges was that she was made to leave school and go to secretarial college so the family could finance my uncle going to university to become a lawyer.

But the reality is that the future is not ours to see.  My uncle was interred and lost his practicing certificate for objecting to World War Two. That meant he struggled financially with a large family.  Nevertheless, his professional status was restored, and he spent the rest of his life getting compensation that gave hope to injured workers before ACC.  He also helped change the world by passing his DNA to a linguist, a scientist, a school principal, a lawyer, woman’s rights activist, and a gay postie.  

My reading also leads me to suspect that his passion for peace and justice, along with a sharp wit, nurtured similar attributes in a large law clerk who became the prime minister who banned nuclear weapons from Aotearoa.

In my own household my mother was a passionate supporter of my father’s ability as a photographer but did not want me to inherit that affliction. 

She continually encouraged me to live out her unfulfilled academic ambitions and was always suggesting I become a schoolteacher.  An ambition fulfilled by the grandchildren she never lived to know. 

My photography career choice was probably based on the conservatism of following what I knew.  However my mother’s Liverpool left-wing, humanist convictions, family DNA and the Holy Spirit eventually led in an entirely different direction.

Joseph, we are told, was a carpenter in a time when opportunities to deviate from the household enterprise were extremely limited.  Therefore, expectations would have been that Jesus would follow his father’s occupation.

However, we are told that Jesus’ conception and his birth, filled his mother with interesting visions of his future.  Furthermore, the Bible, history and reading Inge Woolf’s book Resilience shows that Jewish mothers can be a determined lot.  Even stronger willed than mothers from Liverpool.

So, the reaction of Simeon and Anna to the infant Jesus might well have been encouragement to Mary’s ambitions for her son. 

But the despite the ambitions we hold for our children the passion for righteousness we install within them can divert the in other directions.

Although Ruth was my cousin that followed her father’s path into law she was steep in the \woman’s liberation movement so wouldn’t accept a job in what had been her father’s firm.  Then after a brush with a chauvinist judge she became complaints officer for the Consumers Institute.  She ended her short life in the office of the minister of woman’s affairs redrafting the laws she opposed.

Then because of her early death her brother went on to do a PhD in cancer research which, like all research, adds to the worldwide knowledge that gives life to humanity in a dangerous world.

Change happens through both triumph and disaster as learning and inspiration is passed from person to person in our own families and in the greater family of humanity. 

Both the science of genetics and our faith tell us that we are all children of the first humans.  All linked by our common DNA, our family stories, and the leading of the Divine Spirit..  

That Spirit is nurtured or stunted by our parents and the people we interact with, and the first three chapters of Luke draw attention to that reality in Jesus’ beginnings. 

John the Baptist’s mother was a relative of Mary.  Jesus subsequently accepted John’s baptism and carried on John’s mission after John was arrested.  Jesus’ parents were devout and followed the religious practices of their time.  Practise that the adult Jesus would criticise because it exploited the most vulnerable by demanding payments they couldn’t afford.  

We are told in verse 40 of our reading that Jesus ‘grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him’. 

Isn’t that what we wish for our children?  But isn’t it also true that in wishing that, we cannot wrap them in cotton wool and control their futures?

I used to fret about the marks my oldest boy coasted through university with, while his major focus seemed to be gaining the right to wear a black track suit, rather than an academic gown.

Nico’s dad was even more frightening with a passion for white water kayaking, tramping through Nepal and India and disappearing in Southeast Asia. 

I always had difficulty in understanding why he needed an honours degree in coastal geography to work as a painter in Christchurch and London, as a chair lift operator in Banff, or even as mail order manager for Kathmandu. 

Then one day he came into my study and said, ‘Can you can sign my Teacher’s College application, I’ve decided I need to get a life’.

Recently he added a Master of Education to his qualifications, ran the one-day Coast to Coast and, as a extra job teaches would-be geography teachers at Canterbury University. 

We grandparents can speculate about Nico’s future, but he has enough stubborn and self-determining DNA in him to find his own way.

Luke tells us that the infant Jesus had the DNA of kings, was conceived through the power of God’s spirit, and, like all of us, was a child of Adam and therefore a child of God.

Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection, his destiny, would bring the falling and rising of many, the opposition that would reveal the inner thoughts of many, and the sword that would pierce his mother’s soul.  But that destiny also reveals to us that we each carry the divine spark and we are each linked to the loving creator of all that is. 

We each have the potential to walk our own journey with the Risen Christ and demonstrate to our world that indeed, the kingdom of God is at hand. 

We each have the Risen Christ within us that can guide us to be the church in this place.  Be part of reforming the church in a new way for the unknown future.  Like all those who came before us we are called to that task despite the fear we feel, the division we find amongst us, and the grip the past holds on us.

We can, like all those who have gone before us, be part of Jesus’ Kingdom of God project. 

We can in small insignificant ways, or in history making acts, be part of the future the Risen Christ calls us all to.

All of us can, at the right time and place, speak a telling truth or write an inspiring story.  For some it may be dangerous and deadly opposition to oppression.  Others it may simply be the DNA and nurture which forms our children into who they are becoming.

We can all play our part in building a world of justice and love! 

She’s a pretty big job! 

But it’s a D-I-Y project—Divine In Yourself. 

It’s in our culture and it’s in our DNA.