Sermon: “As One with Authority”

Text: Mark 1:21-28

4^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

February 1, 2009

Scripture introduction.  Our second reading for this morning is from the first chapter of the gospel according to Mark.  Over the course of this year we will have many readings from Mark because that is the primary source of gospel readings for Year B of the three-year liturgical cycle, which began in December.  As someone noted at our presbytery training event yesterday, Mark’s gospel tells us nothing about the birth of Jesus, nor his growing up, nor his life with his parents.  Rather, in the first chapter Mark dives straight in to the life and teachings of Jesus.  As commentator Alan Culpepper has noted,[1] we can tell a lot about the direction a gospel will pursue by what the author selects as the first public act that Jesus performs.  Matthew is concerned to show that Jesus fulfills Old Testament prophecy, so the first public act is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which quotes Jesus saying that he has come to fulfill the law.[2]  Luke has a special emphasis on God’s concern for the poor, so Jesus’ first public act in that gospel is to announce good news to the poor and the outcasts.[3]  In John, which portrays Jesus as superseding the rites of Judaism, his first public act is to turn the water to wine at the wedding feast.  In Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ first act is to teach with authority and to cast out a demon, both of which for Mark demonstrate that Jesus is not an ordinary person but is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God.[4]

Sermon.  Law students learn very quickly that when they argue before a judge, the most persuasive statements are those that are based on the decisions of other judges.  In other words, the judge is generally not interested very much in hearing me say what I think the law ought to be, or in what I might think is right or wrong.  As the lawyers among us can sadly testify, the fact is that lawyers—at least when they stand before the bench—have no authority.  The judges have the authority, and one judge will much more readily be convinced by what another judge has decided, than by what the lawyer may think.  The thing that makes being a lawyer fun is to find cases from other judges that support one’s client and then to build an argument for why those prior decisions would lead the current judge to decide in favor of the client.  Judges may find this sort of argument very helpful, but it is not based on the authority of the lawyer.

We know very little about how synagogues operated in the time of Jesus.  But according to Mark, there was something very different about the way Jesus taught, compared with the methods employed by the normal teachers—the scribes.  Perhaps some of you have read portions of the Mishnah or the Talmud, which are ancient Jewish commentaries on scripture and religious practice.  From even the briefest encounter with this literature, we can see that arguments are developed very differently from what we might expect in a modern commentary.  Almost every point in the Mishnah and the Talmud include a citation to the writings of a famous rabbi.  “Rabbi Eliazar has said [thus and such].”  “Yes, but Rabbi ben Joseph disagrees, saying [such and so].”  Actually, it is very hard for me to follow these arguments because I don’t know the underlying texts they are citing.  But even modern rabbis are taught to engage in this sort of interpretive exercise.  Perhaps the practice in Jesus’ time was different, but common sense would tell us that there is at least some connection.  So, while we can’t be sure, we can imagine that the normal synagogue practice at Capernaum was for persons to interpret scripture, not so much based on their own authority, but rather on the authority of those who came before them.

If that was what a sabbath service looked and sounded like in Jesus’ day, it is not hard to imagine what a stir would have been caused when Jesus, a newcomer, was brought there by his four newly-chosen disciples.  Mark records no invitation issued by the leader of the synagogue.  Jesus simply—and, the Greek text says, “immediately” went into the synagogue and began to teach.  Then Mark gets to the point: “they were astounded at his teaching.”  And what so surprised the listeners?  Apparently it was not what Jesus taught.  Rather, it was the way he taught—as if he actually had authority.  Jesus must have thought it unnecessary to prove his points by citing older rabbis.[5] 

Those of you who like action should be attracted to Mark’s gospel, because Mark does not bog us down with a lot of character development and flowery descriptions.  No sooner has Jesus astonished the congregation—again, Mark uses the word “immediately”—than a man covered with an unclean spirit comes into the synagogue.  Just imagine how you—a worshipper—would feel.  First some newcomer you don’t even know strides up to the pulpit and begins preaching with power.  You’ve hardly come to grips with that—very different from your normal preacher!—when somebody else rushes in and cries out with a loud voice, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”  With us?  What does he mean “with us?”  It is clear from Mark that there was only one unclean spirit in or around this man, so we must assume that the spirit is speaking on behalf of all unclean spirits.  “Have you come to destroy us?”  Aha!  Now it is clear that there is going to be a battle.  (I told you action-types you’d like Mark.) 

Slyly, the unclean spirit plays his trump card: “I know who you are—the Holy One of God.”  In ancient times it was commonly believed that knowing someone’s name gave one power over that person.  This helps explain why God was sometimes evasive when Old Testament figures like Jacob[6] and Moses[7] asked God’s name.  It also may be part of the reason—even today—God’s proper name is believed by faithful Jews to be too holy even to pronounce.[8]  So the unclean spirit believes that because he knows Jesus’ identity, he has power over Jesus.  But it is Jesus, not the unclean spirit, who has the power: “Be silent [literally, “muzzle yourself”] and come out of him!  And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.”  Jesus had all the authority he needed to defeat and to command the unclean spirit.

I’ll confess that the next sentence in Mark took me somewhat by surprise.  I would expect after a dramatic event like the exorcism that all the witnesses would be talking about the man with the unclean spirit.  Of course they do, but this is not the first thing they say.  No, they come full circle back to Jesus’ teaching: “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this, a new teaching—with authority!’”  It is as if Mark is telling us that the teachings and the exorcisms and (as we will soon learn) the physical healings of Jesus all derive from, and give evidence of, his special relationship with God.

Some of us know the old hymn by Charles Wesley, “Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild.”  But this is certainly not the image of Jesus we have when we read the gospel according to Mark.  In Capernaum, and throughout the rest of the gospel, Jesus is a man of action and constantly exhibits his authority, doing battle with—and overcoming—the forces and powers that work to bring us down.  Granted, the power of Jesus often works through apparent weakness.  Jesus allowed himself to come under the power of the Roman authorities, but just when it appeared he had finally been beaten in death, his power became undeniable in resurrection.

So when we have finished our race and our battle in life is over and we are called to give an account of how we lived, our representative will not be like the lawyers I described earlier.  Our lawyer will not need to cite earlier cases.  Our advocate will be Jesus.  He will not argue based on the opinions of other judges.  Rather, he will argue based on his own authority and on his own power—the power of one who is at the same time both advocate and judge.  In the words of another old hymn, “Jesus paid it all.  All to him I owe.  Sin had left a crimson stain.  He washed it white as snow.”[9]

Friends, that same Jesus who will be our advocate in that last, great day is also our friend and guide in this life.  He sustains us by his spirit as we seek to be his faithful disciples.  Sometimes he works directly through our own God-given strength.  Other times we have to be weak before his power can work through us.  But when we are tired, he lifts us up like eagles on the wind.  When we are discouraged, he shows the way ahead.  When we are spiritually hungry, he feeds us with his own self.  As later this morning we share the bread and the cup, I pray that each of us will know his authority and feel his power.