Two words jump out at me in these readings: anxieties and authority. As we heard, Paul wants us to be free of anxiety yet don’t we often feel anxious whenever we have ignored authority in our lives? I think back to instances in my childhood when I disobeyed my parents. Sooner or later, I began to feel anxious, wondering what the punishment would be once they found out that I had ignored their authority. My parents are no longer around, but the occasions for anxiety still remain. They surface when we ignore authentic authority, that is, authority that ultimately has our well-being in mind.
Moses told the people of Israel that someday God would send a prophet with legitimate authority whom the people would be well advised to listen to. “Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it.” To this day, the Church cautions us that when we ignore Jesus’ authority, the consequence is sin, and the consequence of sin is punishment, if not in this lifetime, then in the lifetime to come.
When Jesus began his public ministry, his reputation for healing became wide spread. Some scripture scholars argue what the gospel writers alluded to whenever they spoke of unclean spirits. Were these people really possessed by the devil or only mentally disturbed? The debate is beside the point. These people were troubled and Jesus healed them. Perhaps the man with an unclean spirit only had a guilty conscience, and afraid to face up to the wrath of God for his wrong doing. Unbeknownst to him, Jesus came to heal both body and soul and did so with the reprimand, “Quiet! Come out of him!”
Sooner or later, we all experience moments of anxiety. Pope Benedict spoke recently of anxiety as a natural dimension of life. To defeat this, he tells us, we need Christ’s intervention in our lives, just as he intervened in the life of the man with the unclean spirit. This was a lesson a certain political prisoner learned unexpectedly.
A Lutheran minister, Richard Wurmbrand, spent 14 years in prison in Romania, three of them in solitary confinement. His cell was a basement room with no windows, illuminated by a bare light bulb. One night, he was startled by a faint tapping on the wall next to his bed. A new prisoner was signaling him. This prompted a fury of taps. After awhile, Pastor Wurmbrand realized that his neighbor was trying to teach him a simple code.
From this crude beginning, his neighbor, who had been a radio operator, taught him the Morse code. Wurmbrand told him that he was a minister. He then asked the operator if he were a Christian. There was a long silence. Finally, the radio operator tapped back, “I cannot say so.”
Every night the two men spoke through the wall, getting better acquainted. Finally, one night, the radio operator tapped a strange message, “I should like to confess my sins.” Pastor Wurmbrand was deeply moved by his request.
The confession took a long time. It was interrupted by periods of silence and extended far into the night. No detail was left out. Nothing was glossed over. The confession was sincere and from the heart. When the radio operator was done, Wurmbrand was profoundly touched and slowly, he tapped back the words of absolution. It was a dramatic moment for both men. Then the radio operator tapped these beautiful words, “I am happier at this moment than I have been in many years.”
Although he had been baptized, the radio operator did not consider himself a Christian until he took the step to meet Jesus in the person of his representative. What he did in the gospel, Jesus did in that prison cell. He drove out another unclean spirit, this time, through Pastor Wurmbrand’s words of absolution.
What Jesus did in the gospel story and that Romanian prison cell, he does every time the sacrament of reconciliation is celebrated. Perhaps the anxiety of baring one’s soul to a priest is enough to stop you from giving him the chance to cleanse you of your unclean spirit, yet the words of absolution can be so freeing.
Each of us in this church to some degree has an unclean spirit, which keeps us from being the kind of person we want to be. For example, something may keep us from praying the way we would really like to pray. Or, something in us keeps us from loving the way we would like to love, especially our spouses and other members of our family.
Or perhaps, we may have something in us that keeps us from being as generous as we would like to be. For example, by virtue of our baptism, we all have the responsibility of helping to build up God’s kingdom on earth, yet, how much time, energy or money do we devote to this mission? We spend large amounts of time, energy, and money on ourselves, but not so much on God and God’s work.
The bottom line is this: Jesus wants to free us from whatever keeps us from being as prayerful, as loving, and as generous as we would like to be. But Jesus can do this only if we approach him and open our hearts to him, which we can do best in the sacrament of reconciliation.
Are you feeling anxious? Then allow Jesus to drive the unclean spirit, the source of your anxiety, replacing it with the wisdom of his Holy Spirit. Instead of destroying us; the Lord wants to replace your anxiety with the wisdom that God is not terrifying, but gentle and loving. That is what makes his authority so real.