Sunday's lection from Mark offers us a glimpse of Jesus as an exorcist. Exorcisms make up a significant portion of Jesus's ministry in Mark, in Matthew, and in Luke. In John, on the other hand, Jesus is accused of being demon-possessed.
In Antiquity, a lot of illnesses, unusual or deviant behavior, and unbelievable feats of human strength were ascribed to spirits. It was a common belief that these spirits could take possession of people, which resulted in physical or mental affliction. That these spirits were unclean, even evil, was a later development.
In Mark, these unclean spirits know who Jesus really is: The Holy One of God. Only in Mark do we find one explicit identification of these unclean spirits with Rome: Legion (in 5.9). A Legion was composed of six thousand soldiers and the Roman Empire had about 30 legions deployed all over its territories.
Do not forget this. Ever. The worst kind of possession is imperialism. True then, true now. The worst kind of possession is when the colonizer has "possessed" or "occupied" the colonized's heart; when the colonized speak the colonizer's tongues, reproduce the colonizer's ideology, worship the colonizer's gods, and fight the colonizer's wars.
The silence and indifference of most of the "Christian World," who confess to follow the Palestinian Jesus, on the ongoing genocide against Palestinians is proof of this continuing imperial possession.
My friends, we need an exorcism. Right now!
*art, "The Possessed" (JESUS MAFA) from vanderbilt divinity library digital archives.
