Sermon Seeds: With Authority/Power to Do
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Year B
Lectionary citations
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Sermon Seeds
Focus Scripture:
Mark 1:21-28
Weekly Theme:
With Authority/Power to Do
Reflection:
by Kathryn Matthews (Huey)
I remember seeing a commercial on television several years ago that showed a woman standing right behind a rhinoceros, as if she could reach out and touch it (probably not a good idea). I also remember reading even more years ago that computer technology was about to transform our perceptions of reality, at least on the screen, by its ability to create just such an effect, that is, a woman standing right next to a rhinoceros. We’ve forgotten the days when “special effects” often looked silly (“Look at that guy, hiding behind the screen”), because today amazing things routinely happen on the screen, right before our eyes, although it seems to take more to amaze us each year.
At the same time, scientific progress has made us more skeptical of the reality we actually encounter, and the stories that we hear. We may go along with the fun when we watch the cold medicine make the rhino disappear (after all, we get the point), but when we read a story like today’s passage from the Gospel of Mark, we’re tempted to dismiss it because, well, who really believes in “spirits” anymore? Perhaps, way down deep, we do fear them a little bit, or Hollywood wouldn’t employ those technical advances so profitably in the occasional movie about exorcism. In any case, we’re uncomfortable with this brief but powerful story that begins the public ministry of Jesus. Most of us think that people long ago mistook seizures for demon possession, so we’re not sure what to think when Mark says that Jesus expels an “unclean spirit” from a person. In any case, for all of our scientific sophistication, Fred Craddock says that “not believing in demons has hardly eradicated evil in our world” (Preaching through the Christian Year B).
This is actually a story within a story, and it all holds together, which is how Mark’s Gospel works. Jesus, faithfully attending synagogue on the Sabbath, started off by teaching those gathered – religious experts and the people gathered around them – in a way that was so impressive that it conveyed authority. We might say that it carried “weight.” Mark, unlike Luke (recounting a similar scene in Nazareth), or Matthew (with the Sermon on the Mount), doesn’t tell us what Jesus said, but seems to care more about telling us just how powerfully he taught.
The word “authority,” of course, has more than one meaning. Even a corrupt judge or police officer has “authority,” but the simplest, poorest person in the world can speak with a different kind of “authority” if they embody wisdom and integrity that others find compelling. Each one holds a different kind of power, one from the outside, and the other from within. Perhaps the scribes sounded authoritative because they could cite chapter and verse, so to speak, of the Scriptures (our chapter and verse numbers were added later), but that, after all, was their job. Scholars and preachers today back up what they say in much the same way, citing Scripture and the scholarship that surrounds it. When Jesus, this carpenter from dusty little Nazareth, walked into the synagogue and spoke in a way that “astounded” the people, more than one person must have sensed trouble brewing. Who is this man, they wondered, where did he go to school, and who gave him the right to speak this way? Scholars seem to disagree on whether the reaction was positive or mixed; perhaps some loved what they heard, and others were disturbed by it. In any case, it was no ordinary “Sunday in church.” And “just then” (Mark loves that expression), things got even more extraordinary, when Jesus’ teaching in words became teaching in action.
It’s much easier to picture Jesus there, in the midst of an excellent Bible study, than it is to imagine what happened next. A man tortured by, in bondage to, an “unclean spirit” emerged from the crowd, in the midst of the commotion over Jesus’ power-filled teaching. Ironically, while others were full of questions about Jesus, this evil spirit was the only one who recognized who Jesus actually was. Going back to the very first verse of the Gospel, we remember that Jesus is “the Son of God,” and the unclean spirit claimed to know that he was “the Holy One of God.” William J. Abraham says, “It is as if radical evil has a way of immediately discerning the presence of good” (The Lectionary Commentary: The Gospels). Jesus commanded the spirit to be quiet (perhaps to protect his identity so early in his ministry?) and then expelled it from the man, freeing him from a terrible bondage. We don’t hear any more about this man, but the whole region heard about what happened to him. Jesus had backed up his words, and his powerful preaching, with an action that illustrated what he was “about.”
What about that unclean spirit? John J. Pilch provides background: “Our ancestors in faith,” he writes, “believed that spirits were more powerful than human beings but less powerful than God.” In expelling the demon, Jesus proved that he possessed “powers stronger than those of ordinary human beings.” Today, we try to find scientific explanations for what happened: Our “tendency to rationalize the ancient understanding of spirits is rooted in the fact that Westerners have much more power over their lives and circumstances than the ancients believed they had” (The Cultural World of Jesus Year B). We also know far less than we think we do, and understand even less than that.
So there is more than one fruitful way to approach this text. Dianne Bergant provides a challenging reflection on the demons that hold us in bondage, demons that she renames as “dysfunction and sin” that trap us “between good and evil…human finitude and failure.” Despite our best intentions, “The demonic seduces us in more ways than we can count, and we are often caught in its web before we recognize what has happened.” The world, including the church-going, faithfully believing world, stands in need of God’s liberating touch, and longs for what can “really satisfy the desires of the human heart.” We’re probably no more able to recognize that gift when we encounter it than the people in the synagogue were all those years ago. Bergant suggests that our “mistaken expectations” are to blame, because we really have no idea what we’re saying when we claim to “want and need a savior” – what will that really be like, and what will it require of us? (Preaching the New Lectionary Year B). A distant cousin, perhaps, to the adage, “Be careful what you wish for.” Like our ancestors in faith, we may find ourselves asking more questions about this Jesus, who he is, and what he means in our lives. Are we truly willing to follow him?
Much is written about the scribes in this story, and the conflict set up between Jesus and the religious authorities here, right from the very beginning of the story, a conflict that many have interpreted as the cause of Jesus’ eventual death. However, some scholars go further when they seem to set this conflict up as good v. evil, with the synagogue as evil, the teachings of the scribes as formal and dry, and their preaching style as well. Unfortunately, this interpretation contributes to a dangerous misunderstanding and prejudice against the Jewish people and their faith. In fact, Gerald Caron suggests that we must not “ignore or simply dismiss Mark’s polemic against the religious (Jewish) authorities,” because it appears “innocuous.” We must hope that the horrors of Auschwitz, the culmination of centuries of persecution and violence, would lead us to re-examine such misinterpretations and understand that they have been misused to justify immeasurable suffering and countless crimes against Jesus’ own people. Caron reminds us of the danger of “(Christian) stereotyping” of the Jews that can “[perpetuate] a teaching that all Churches have now decisively rejected.” Alas, “Mark’s characterization of the scribes as having no ‘real’ authority and his use of ‘their’ synagogues create a picture of the Jewish institution and their authorities (together with the Pharisees) that has left its mark in Christian consciousness” (Mark in the Lectionary: An Ecumenical Guide to the Sunday Gospel).
There is another problem with such an interpretation: Jesus’ “new” teaching is actually quite old, even if it is embodied in a dramatically new way in the teacher. Jesus is not a departure from the hope and faith of the Jewish people. Richard Swanson makes a winsome claim about the translation of “Jesus of Nazareth” as “Jesus Netzer,” which in Hebrew, “refers to a sprout or a shoot of a plant,” like “the shoot ‘out of the stump of Jesse,'” and God’s ancient promise of “a new beginning, an anointed leader who would begin it all again as a new David.” Swanson traces a line from Jesus back through John to the prophets themselves, all rooted in the deepest hope and faith of the Jewish people: “John appears in Mark’s story as a native growth, erupting out of old, reliable tradition and expectation. People (including Jesus) went out to John because their faith (and their faithfulness) led them to expect that God would work something larger and more life-giving in a world that was distorted by dangerous foreign powers and those that consort with them. In Mark’s story, the most likely interpretation puts Jesus in the synagogue, teaching, because that would have been the place he would have found other people ready to hear that God’s dominion was ‘so close'” (Provoking the Gospel of Mark). Where do we find the ones most “ready to hear that God’s dominion” is close at hand?
Yes, there was conflict with the powers that be. As I mentioned last week, James Carroll’s new book, Christ Actually, offers a compelling case (building on the work of scholars like John Dominic Crossan and others) that those powers were the Roman Empire, not the Jewish people who have paid such a tragic price for this misunderstanding (lamentably, an often willful one). Yes, Jesus challenged the religious authorities on many occasions, as he challenges us today, in church leadership. However, he did not represent a departure from the promise: “Mark’s description of what Jesus is doing,” Megan McKenna writes, “corresponds closely to Isaiah’s description of what God’s does for [God’s] people Israel and of what a servant does that brings pleasure to God” (On Your Mark: Reading Mark in the Shadow of the Cross). James Carroll, then, provides a convincing case for the Gospels’ depiction of these controversies within the Jewish community (between Jesus and the “authorities”) as representing the later intra-community struggles between Jesus’ Jewish followers and other groups with Judaism.
We trace our own faith back through the long story of Israel, and we hear in today’s reading from Deuteronomy (18:15-20) the same promise they heard, of a prophet who speaks in the name of God. To us, Jesus is that promised one. Richard Swanson urges us to see “Jesus as the eruption of what the scribes had long taught and described. The scribes teach and preserve and prepare; Jesus blazes, explodes, and erupts.” In this season of Epiphany, “the season of revelations,” Swanson reminds us of our call to “participate in a revealing of what opposition to the goodness of creation looks like, for real” (Provoking the Gospel of Mark). There’s a sentence, and a call, to sit with for a time, and to consider carefully.
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus begins his ministry by going into the synagogue and introducing himself and his ministry by reading from the prophet Isaiah about bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and letting the oppressed go free. In Mark’s Gospel, we don’t hear such beautiful words. Instead, we hear words like “destroy,” “rebuke,” and “convulsed.” However, in Mark, we see actions, powerful, dramatic ones that proclaim just as surely that the promises of God are true, those promises of old that are new in the person of Jesus. “His care for the poor in spirit and mournful is demonstrated,” Mike Graves writes. “The authority here in Mark is not power…but a willingness or right that has everything to do with seeing justice served. This is what Jesus’ ministry is about” (Feasting on the Word Year B, Vol. 1).
And that brings us to the preacher’s task. In this Epiphany season, we may begin by revealing, as Swanson urges, “what opposition to the goodness of creation looks like,” but there is the next step, too, the one that opens us to transformation of ourselves and the world God loves. In any age and any religious setting, words can easily become just words. Words, however, spoken in the name of God, have power and can, like the words of Jesus, “cause things to happen,” Graves observes. As preachers, he continues, “We want the same thing, come Sunday. We do not desire simply to provide more information about this text. We do not desire to add to all the other words ever uttered from pulpits, just because that’s what preachers do on Sunday mornings. No, we hope that our words, infused with the power of the One who speaks through us and on whose behalf we speak, will cause something to happen” (Feasting on the Word Year B, Vol. 1). Undoubtedly there will be many words from pulpits this Sunday, and much information shared, but we pray too for transformation, for “something to happen,” in the United Church of Christ, and in the whole church, the Body of Christ. Then, all will be amazed, not just by what they think they see, but by the reality they encounter in God’s love made known in the world God loves.
The Rev. Kathryn Matthews (Huey) serves as dean of Amistad Chapel at the national offices of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio (https://www.facebook.com/AmistadChapel).
You’re invited to share your reflections on this text on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.
For further reflection:
Alice Walker, 20th century
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
Blaise Pascal, 17th century
“Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.”
Howard Smith, 20th century scientist
“I’m religious not because I’m ignorant. I’m religious because I’m in awe.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel, 20th century
“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”
Leighton Ford, 20th century
“I am advocating that we see the gospel as story, and that we understand evangelism as living and telling the Story of the One who has entered and changed our story and will do so with theirs who also encounter his story.”
Lectionary texts
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: “If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.” Then the Lord replied to me: “They are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak — that prophet shall die.”
Psalm 111
Praise God! I will give thanks to God
with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright,
in the congregation.
Great are the works of God,
studied by all who delight in them.
Full of honor and majesty is God’s work,
and God’s righteousness endures forever.
God has gained renown by wonderful deeds;
God is gracious and merciful.
God provides food for those who fear God;
God is ever mindful of God’s covenant.
God has shown God’s people
the power of God’s works,
in giving them the heritage
of the nations.
The works of God’s hands
are faithful and just;
all God’s precepts are trustworthy.
They are established forever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness
and uprightness.
God sent redemption to God’s people;
God has commanded God’s covenant forever.
Holy and awesome is God’s name.
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
God’s praise endures forever.
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.
Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but one.” Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth — as in fact there are many gods and many lords — yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. “Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.
They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 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.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 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.” At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
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Liturgical notes on the Readings
In ecumenical liturgical practice, there are normally three readings and one psalm at each Sunday service, in this order:
First Reading: Hebrew Scripture
Response: Psalm (or Canticle) from the Bible
Second Reading: Epistle (or Acts or Revelation)
Third Reading: Gospel
The first two lessons are normally read by laypeople, the Gospel by a Minister of the Word or a layperson. In Roman Catholic, Anglican and liturgical Protestant churches, it is uncommon for an ordained minister to read all of the lessons.
The psalm is not a reading but a congregational response following the lesson from Hebrew Scripture: it is normally sung with a refrain or recited by the congregation as poetry. Occasionally, a canticle is appointed in place of a psalm; it is sung or recited in the same way. The New Century Hymnal provides a complete liturgical psalter with refrains and music.
A hymn may be sung as an introduction to the proclamation of the Gospel
Notes on the Lectionary and Liturgical Colors
Advent, Christmas and Epiphany
The Violet color for Advent is traditionally connected with royalty and penitence. Blue is symbolic of expectation and hope, not only for the birth of Christ, but also for Christ’s return at the end of history. Rose on the third Sunday of Advent, which was Gaudete (Joy), provided a little relief from the somberness of Advent in earlier times. White first appears on Christmas Eve and may be continued through the Sunday after Christmas, Epiphany, and the Sunday after Epiphany (celebrated by many as the Baptism of Christ) to show that all of these events are related in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. (Some traditions use Gold or both for Christmas and Easter.) Green is the color for the rest of Epiphany season, until Transfiguration Sunday, when white is used again.