The Force Be With Us

Then they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried 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!”

Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet!  Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him 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.” His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee. (Mark 1:21-28)

Unclean spirits destroy us!  They scream inside us and tear at our insides, especially at our minds that are under constant attack.  

William J. O’Malley, S.J., in his 1996 book "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and You: Unravelling the Gospels" is instructive about these spirits and the evil they represent.  He wrote:

Bill Moyers said he was puzzled by how many times his sons had seen Star Wars films.  He asked them why, and one said, “The same reason you read the Bible so much.”  Wisdom comes from the mouths of babes.  That young man had intuit (not reasoned to) not only the motives behind his father’s pondering the Bible, but the real parallel to the effect on his own inner self of vicariously sharing the struggle between young Luke Skywalker and the Empire, focused in Darth Vader.  

The boy’s soul resonated to that struggle, because even though his was far less dramatic (and surely less hectic), he too faced the same struggle between good and evil within himself.  In watching the films, he saw his own unrest, bewilderment, and fear objectified, with the sides clearly delineated.  

Something very good within himself understood-without-logic that Luke’s story – no matter how fantastically fictional – “tells it like it is.”  The boy sensed there is a very real but invisible “menace out there” in the faceless, anti-human world of bureaucracy, hostile takeovers, cynical and self-serving politics, athletes, and entertainers whose clay feet go all the way to their heads.  But he also sensed the appeal of Luke’s commitment, his dignity even in defeat, his humanity.  The Evil Empire doesn’t exist.  But it does.  It always has.

The “Evil Empire” exists in all of us as unclean spirits.  We Luke’s and Leah’s must recognize this fact and battle these Vader’s for our souls.  So, let’s grab our light sabers, and start swinging.  Let the Force be with us!  That Force is Jesus who teaches us with authority.

Deacon David Pierce