January 28: "Authority"

THE WORD IN THE GOSPEL  Mark 1:21-28

Jesus and his followers went into Capernaum. Immediately on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and started teaching. The people were amazed by his teaching, for he was teaching them with authority, not like the legal experts. Suddenly, there in the synagogue, a person with an evil spirit screamed, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the holy one from God.”

“Silence!” Jesus said, speaking harshly to the demon. “Come out of him!” The unclean spirit shook him and screamed, then it came out.

Everyone was shaken and questioned among themselves, “What’s this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands unclean spirits and they obey him!” Right away the news about him spread throughout the entire region of Galilee.

MESSAGE     “Authority”

We have a problem in this country. (Wait . . . )

Oh, I thought for sure someone would say, “Just one?”

Yes, we have a lot of problems in this country, but this morning I’m thinking of one in particular. We have a problem . . . with authority.

The problem is that we have too many authorities. Too many authorities with too many different opinions. Too many authorities whose opinions contradict each other.

Just look at the issue of vaccinating children. There are some authorities who firmly believe that vaccination is an unnecessary risk. But then there are other authorities who argue strongly that the risk is very small, and every child should be vaccinated.

And what about all the people who claim to be authorities in financial matters? Some of them think the answer to our country’s economic problems is to raise taxes on the wealthy. But others think that the answer lies in cutting what they see as unnecessary services to people on the other end of the economic ladder.

There’s no shortage of experts and authorities in our society and in our government who want to tell us exactly what we should be doing, because, after all, they are authorities, and they know best.

It’s no different in matters of faith. There are any number of religious authorities who teach very different messages.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine sent me a link to an online article about a pastor who was describing an encounter he had with a teenage boy who was, according to the pastor, disrespecting God. This pastor told his congregation exactly how he handled the situation: by going up to the boy and punching him as hard as he could in the chest.

Hmm, well. That’s one religious authority’s opinion on how to minister to someone whose faith might be weak.

But what about all the other religious authorities who preach a message of non-violent love, and who would rather sacrifice their own lives before they physically abused anyone.

Then there are those religious authorities who strongly claim that God wants us to kill people who are homosexual, while other religious authorities claim just as strongly that God wants us to love all people.

And then there are religious authorities who declare that God wants you to be wealthy and successful and popular. And . . . then there are other religious authorities who remind us that following Jesus means sacrifice and self-giving and putting others first.

So who do we listen to? Whose advice do we follow? Whose authority do we respect?

Well, let’s look at a more fundamental question: What is authority, and why do some people have it?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, authority is “the power to give orders or make decisions; the power or right to direct or control someone or something.”

Some people have this kind of authority by nature of their job or their position. For instance, police officers have the authority to make arrests if necessary in order to protect citizens. Judges and court officers have the authority to send people to prison. 

Another definition of authority is “the confident quality of someone who knows a lot about something or who is respected or obeyed by other people.”

Some people have this kind of authority because of their education and training – they are experts in a certain field, such as science, or medicine, or theology, and so we respect their authority and we respect what they say and follow their advice . . . at least sometimes.

Most often, authority is something that is passed on. In other words, authority is often given to a person by other people who already have authority.

For example, when I was ordained almost 5 years ago, the bishop – a pretty high-ranking authority in the UMC – said to me, “Nancy, take authority as an elder in the church . . .” For me, that was a very humbling and scary experience. I was being given authority by virtue of my education and training, yes, but also by way of an entire host of authorities – other elders, the BoM, and the bishop – who deemed me worthy of accepting this authority.

In this morning’s reading from the gospel of Mark, Jesus is still at the beginning of his public ministry. He has just called the first of his disciples to follow him, and they all went to Capernaum.

On the Sabbath, Jesus goes to the local synagogue and starts teaching. The people there are amazed at the kind of authority that they saw in Jesus’ teaching. It was an authority that was very different from that of the legal experts, who were the respected authorities on the religious laws.

And then, as if on cue, something happened that demonstrated Jesus’ authority.

Suddenly, a man in the synagogue interrupts Jesus. This man, who was being controlled by an unclean spirit screamed out, saying, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the holy one from God.”

Jesus said to the spirit, “Silence! Come out of him!”

And the spirit caused the man to convulse, then it left the man.

If the people in the synagogue had been amazed at Jesus’ authority before this, they were really astounded now. They said, “What’s this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands unclean spirits and they obey him!”

What kind of authority did the people hear in Jesus’ teaching? What kind of authority did they see in Jesus act of freeing that man from the unclean spirit? And why was that authority so different from the religious authorities of the day?

Both Jesus and those religious authorities demonstrated the kind of authority that gave them the power to control something.

The difference is in how they used their authority.

The religious leaders were authorities in the religious laws, and they were concerned about the people keeping those laws so the people would be clean and pure and faithful. If it had been up to the religious authorities, the man with the unclean spirit would most likely have been escorted right out of the synagogue. After all, he was unclean, impure, everything that was contrary to what the experts considered to be holy and worthy.

Where they saw a man who was unacceptable and unwanted, Jesus saw a man who was hurting, who was being tortured by something beyond his control, and who needed to be freed from his pain.

The religious experts exercised their authority to control people and to exclude them from the community when they deemed it was necessary.

But Jesus used his authority to free people, to heal people, to restore people to community and to life.

Jesus did what the religious authorities of his day couldn’t or wouldn’t do. The man with the unclean spirit would have been banished by the religious authorities to the realm of those who are considered unworthy of being in God’s presence.

But Jesus restored this man’s dignity and worth in the eyes of the community. Amid all those other voices of authority, one voice spoke clearly to say that there is no spirit, no force, no human situation that is beyond hope, that is beyond God’s redeeming love.

Jesus’ authority has the power to break through the boundaries of anything that keeps people from experiencing the love and life that God intends.

There’s a third definition of authority from the dictionary: “Authority is a quality that makes something seem true or real.”

Indeed.

Jesus’ loving, merciful act of liberating that man from whatever was tormenting him confirmed the things Jesus taught about the kingdom of God. Jesus didn’t just tell the people what the kingdom was like – he showed them, definitively and beautifully.

People were drawn to Jesus’ authority through an irresistible power that didn’t seek to manipulate or control them. Rather, people were drawn to him because of the truth of his actions, by the way he not only “talked the talk,” but “walked the walk.” People were drawn to him because of the lavish ways he shared the gifts of God with others, even and especially those on the margins of society.

In one sense, it’s incredible that the people saw such authority in Jesus. Because in a worldly sense, Jesus didn’t really have any power or authority at all. He wasn’t a worldly king with political or military power. He wasn’t a member of the priestly class, who had the power in Judea. He wasn’t even a scribe with the authority of Jewish tradition. And none of the existing authorities of his day were willing to grant him any authority of his own. In fact, they constantly criticized and questioned him whenever he tried to teach and preach and heal.

And yet, Jesus had an authority that amazed and astounded people, an authority that was surpassed anything they had ever seen before. It was an authority that was grounded in Jesus’ supreme confidence that what he did and what he said was God's truth and God’s hope for the world.

Let’s go back to our original question: Out of all the authorities, all those voices in our world today that are clamoring for our attention, how do we know which ones we should listen to? How can we tell whose advice to follow? How do we know what kind of authority we should respect?

Simple: we need to measure any voice of authority against the kind of authority Jesus had.

Because unlike so many of those voices we hear, Jesus invites us to imagine and live toward a different, beautiful, inclusive world that is infused with the love and mercy of God. Amen.