Speaking with Authority: Reflections on Mark 1.21-28 (RCL Epiphany 4B, 28 January 2018)

Speaking with Authority

Reflections on Mark 1.21-28

RCL Epiphany 4B

28 January 2018

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 28th.

Mark 1.21-28

            ^4.21 They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, [Jesus] entered the synagogue and taught.  ²² They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.  ²³ Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, ²⁴ and 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.”  ²⁵ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”  ²⁶ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.  ²⁷ They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this?  A new teaching — with authority!  He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”  ²⁸ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

         My New Testament professor and seminary adviser was Jim Dunkley, a big man born and raised in Texas.  He was unusual among our professors because Jim was a layman who enjoyed the freedom of not being ordained.  He became someone I quickly trusted and, to this day, he and I have an occasion, now and then, to reconnect.  I always come away from each encounter enriched.

         One day, during my first year in seminary, we were studying the gospel of Mark.  Jim was, and is, a lover of words, so he wanted to make sure that we understood the difference between ‘power’ and ‘authority’, two words used frequently in the New Testament and just as frequently misunderstood.

         Jim pulled out a wooden chair and placed it in front of the class.  ‘Move!’ he shouted in his big Texas voice.  The chair remained firmly rooted in its place.  ‘This is an example of authority,’ Jim said.  ‘Authority relies on a relationship between two persons and relies on persuasion.  I have no relationship with this chair and this chair can have no relationship to me.’  We all nodded and dutifully wrote in our notebooks.

         Suddenly Jim shouted again, ‘Move!’ and kicked the chair with a considerable force.  It swooped across the front of the classroom and crashed into the wall.  There was a moment of shocked silence and my classmates in the front row tried to recover their composure.

         Jim looked out at us and said, ‘That was an example of power.  Power does not require a relationship.  It only requires coercion and force.’  None of us jotted this down in our notebooks; it was forever etched in our memories.

         In today’s gospel reading from the Gospel according to Mark we hear a story of how Jesus’ ministry is a ministry of authority rather than a ministry of power.  His authority springs from his identity as the Beloved of God and speaks directly to those who encounter him.  When the evil spirit asks if Jesus has come to destroy it, Jesus only answers by ordering the spirit to leave.  The spirit leaves, responding to a command from this Holy One of God, unable to deny the authority flowing from Jesus.  No threat of destruction.  No threat of everlasting damnation.  Just a simple command that cannot be ignored.

         Authority requires an integrity of body, mind, soul and strength.  When authority is exercised, we come face to face with someone who might be able to demand our obedience but rather chooses to invite us to respond.  It’s true that someone with authority may have a reserve of power to coerce us, but the first approach is one of invitation.  Even the classic, ‘Stop in the name of the law!’ is an invitation to do the right thing voluntarily rather than risk the more unpleasant consequences of the force that can be brought against us.

         Authority differs significantly from manipulation.  Manipulation is a form of persuasion that appeals to our fears and ‘our more terrible angels’.  I think that a great deal of contemporary advertising and political rhetoric can be seen as manipulation.  Are you afraid of being out of fashion?  Buy this product and you’ll be ‘cool’.  Are you afraid of people who are different?  Build a wall and keep them out.  The examples go on and on.

         Authority appeals to our hopes, our joys and ‘our better angels’.  It requires more patience than manipulation and more courage on our part than force.  I cannot help but think that the evil spirit actually responds to Jesus’ command because this spiritual entity longs to be re-united with God.  The Holy One of God the spirit knows Jesus to be has come not to destroy nor to condemn but to heal, to forgive and to restore.  Perhaps even an evil spirit can hope.  Certainly the people who witness this dramatic event recognize that Jesus is speaking to their hopes rather than their fears.  They see in Jesus one who appeals to something that I believe lies in the core of every human being:  an awareness that we are loved and that there is more to our lives than the sorrows, the disappointments, the disillusions we encounter.

         When we share the good news of Christ that we have experienced, we are called to speak with authority.  To speak with authority we need to delve into our hearts and minds to recover the joy and the hope that this good news has brought into our lives.  Let me invite you to consider a couple of questions:

• What brings joy into your life?
• How has being a disciple of Jesus brought this joy into your life?
• What brings hope into your life?
• How has being a disciple of Jesus brought this hope into your life?

         This is the authority that our friends, families and neighbours need to encounter, an authority that springs from these sources of life and meaning within us.  This is the only kind of authority that can liberate ourselves and those we know and love from the fears and uncertainties that capture the hearts and souls of many.

         I, for one, find joy when someone I know or work with awakens to the realization that they are a beloved child of God and that they are share in God’s work of restoring the dignity of every human being.  I find joy when someone who has not found faith finds it in the midst of a community such as ours. 

         I live in the hope that the sorrows and disappointments of the present age are not what our world will be.  I live in the hope that God is not finished with us nor with the creation and I long to see it in its fullness.  I can live in that hope because, even despite all the failings of humanity, I see glimpses of that world in the lives of individual men and women who choose justice rather than privilege, who love kindness more than self-interest, who exercise a stewardship of humility rather than an arrogance of dominion.

         In the days to come may it be said of each one of us that we taught, that we lived, with such an authority, an authority springing from joy and hope.  And the earth will be filled with the glory of God.