THE FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

January 29, 2006

Deut. 18:15-20

I Cor. 8:1-13

Mark 1:21-28

Year B

In Deuteronomy we are told God will raise up a prophet who will utter God’s words. But

how can you tell a true prophet from a false one? How can you tell if the voices you hear in the middle of the night are from God or just your own voice – or worse? Discerning God’s will, recognizing God’s voice, God’s presence, has been something the people of God have always been challenged by. Someone says, “It’s God’s will” and that just finishes it. How can conversation so any further? After all, who can challenge the Voice of God? There is no authority higher than God.

Today, close upon the heels of the beginning of Jesus’ call to the first disciples, Mark takes us to the place where Jesus caused such a stir he set the quiet house of prayer at Capernaum reeling. And it all had to do with the question of power and authority.

The people surrounding Jesus that day he went to the Synagogue in Capernaum knew what it meant to live under oppressive authority. The Jews, living under Roman rule, were denied the right of self-governance, and subjugated to many Roman laws that were unjust and discriminatory. Some Jews, such as the Zealots, were so furious about this killing oppression they openly advocated its violent overthrow. And this is what frightens people this morning about the fact that the Palestinian party “Hamas” has been voted into power. It’s not the process that apparently is being questioned; it’s the question of how they will use this authority that causes fear and concern.

The Jewish authorities of Jesus’ day such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the scribes, enforced strict holiness codes that said the sick, the possessed, and women, were “unclean”. The boundary lines between the insiders and the outsiders were clearly drawn, so that many people found themselves labeled unworthy and unclean. Most of these people had no control over those particular circumstances in their lives, such as gender or mental illness. But the authorities said they were unworthy and that was that. It was not to be questioned.

Twice we are told that those who witnessed Jesus healing in the synagogue at Capernaum were astonished at his authority. They were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority – and not as the scribes. Then, after Jesus encounters the man with the unclean spirit and demands that the unclean spirit leave him, they were all amazed and kept asking each other, “What is this? A new teaching – with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”

But what exactly was it about Jesus and the authority that seemed to permeate his being that caused such astonishment? What made it different from the leaders they were so used to setting the rules, the boundaries?

In the gospel we are drawn to see that in Jesus authority becomes radically redefined. Instead of being used to uphold oppressive structures, or to mask and cover truth, Jesus used his authority to boldly proclaim the whole truth of God, to break down false boundaries that separate the clean from the unclean, to cast out demons from those possessed, and to proclaim God’s victory over all demonic forces. His actions clearly also send a warning to all other false prophets to beware; that the time of their control cannot last forever; that God’s power is the ultimate and final power.

In a world such as ours, in which many powers hold people captive, that is good news. The day of leaders, whose authority lies in oppression instead of release, the day in which people are possessed by forces that control, manipulate, threaten and enslave them, will never overcome the authority that is of God. But God’s authority is not always honored in this world- as we know all too well.

During the height of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu addressed the Minister of Law and Order of South Africa with these words:

“Mr. Minister, we must remind you that you are not God. You are just a man. And one day your name shall merely be a faint scribble on the pages of history, while the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord of the church, shall live forever.”

When we think of evil we usually think of pretty nasty things. But evil often comes packaged in seductive ways. Those who grow apart from God, those who walk away from the light of God’s presence, enter into a kind of darkness, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they go around with the number 666 branded upon their foreheads. As one writer says, “Probably the most complete demonic control exists when the person’s actions seem normal enough for that individual to obtain influence in church or in government, in industry or in education”.

And it will stop at nothing to hold on to control and power. This is why the authority with which Jesus taught and healed became a threat to the powers that be.

Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon writes: “From our point of view..the scribes and Pharisees are almost characters in a hiss-and-boo melodrama: the moustache-twirling, cloak-and-dagger parts that the Gospel writers assign them seem overwrought. But from their own point of view they were quite correct. Powers that be are always expert sniffers of the wind and testers of the waters. They can spot a threat to their system a mile off: all they need is half a sentence from a professor or the odd gesture from a political figure and their heresy-alarm goes off like a klaxon. And Jesus provided them with far more cause for alarm than that. The common people may have been ‘astonished at his teaching because he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribe’..And the crowds may have been captivated by his healings and titillated by his consorting with publicans and sinners. But the experts knew better: he was, pure and simple, a menace. *

While Paul understands the worry over food offered to idols the larger question for him is who we are and ‘whose’ we are. He declares when knowledge causes people to think more of themselves than they ought, it is only love that edifies and builds up. He says the real danger lies when we say we know and understand divine things, but have not love; we begin to move away from the divine power and authority that is found in Jesus and in the Father.

The command, the power, Jesus has over whatever the darkness is in this man in the synagogue today is completely and totally commanding, but it is not oppressive. The witnesses are astonished because in Jesus they have witnessed the very power of God breaking into their midst; breaking down the socially-constructed dividing walls that separate the clean from the unclean, and breaking the demonic grip of the evil itself; so that a man once held captive is free - for life and service; the way God intended us to be.

I remember in the movie “King of Kings”, this scene in the gospel is portrayed very powerfully. There is no question that the power and authority that exude from Jesus’ personhood is awesome and breathtaking. And in the process of releasing his man from possession, Jesus takes him into his arms and holds him tight. As soon as the man possessed by demons is released from that power he becomes absolutely limp in Jesus’ arms and Jesus holds him as a mother might hold a child. He begins to weep with release and thankfulness. That act of love is part of his healing..

The power of God is now, and always has been, the power to give life, not death. This is the authority Christ gives to his disciples – and no other. After the resurrection the disciples, whose voices had gone silent with fear, were given new birth. They began to sound like Jesus and when their lives co-mingled with his resurrected life people were healed.

For those called to work in Jesus’ name, to practice the healing of souls under his authority, means participating in the mystery of God’s healing purposes. Therefore, the thermometer, the yardstick, of any Christian community, any Christian leader, any true prophet of God and God’s will, resides in the power to heal. It’s that complicated and it’s that simple.

Keats described this world as the ‘vale of soul-making,’ and whether they know it or not, what healers of all kinds are engaged in is the activity of saint-making.

The words of Barbara Brown Taylor say it well when she writes about Paul. She says

“Many who came to hear Paul were disappointed by him. His speech was contemptible. He stood there trembling, with his crooked legs bumping together and his bushy eyebrows leaking sweat, as if he were afraid a lion might jump on him at any moment. And you know what? Thank goodness for that. Because of that, there could be no doubt whose power was holding him up there, loosening his tongue until the words came out, and even after they came out, doing something through that short, bald man that the words themselves could not explain. It was not human wisdom on display that day, but the power of Almighty God, who is still eager to inhabit anyone who dares.”*

When Paul worked for the Romans he had the power of Rome behind him, but not God’s power and authority. His whole demeanor changed when he was confronted by the risen Christ. His fears, his weaknesses became utterly transparent and it was through that vulnerability that he became an instrument of God’s own healing power and authority. And, so the church declares, did he become a saint.

The church, and every one of us in it, is as much in need of healing as the man who stood before Jesus in the synagogue today. We all have our own demons that need casting out. And only in and through Christ – and by his authority alone – can that healing be accomplished. Let us pray for that. Let each of us kneel before the Holy One of God, asking him to touch us, so we might be gathered new and whole, to his wounded, but glorious presence.

AMEN

*Capon, Robert Farrar, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich.1985. p.349

*Taylor, Barbara Brown, Teaching Sermons on Suffering: God in Pain, Abingdon, Nashville, 1998, p.136

The Rev. Virginia L. Bennett, D.Min.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Edwardsville, Illinois