Rev. Eliza Linley
Old Testament Lesson: Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm: 111
New Testament Lesson: I Corinthians 8:1b-13
Gospel: Mark. 1:21-28
Sermon:
The question of authority can be a vexing one. Much of our political discourse, in this election year, circles around this question, as each party tries to tell us that the other is completely out to lunch. We are saved from chaos by faith, more or less, in a system of governance that is flexible enough to permit conflict without imploding.
This is not a new question. 26 centuries ago, Josiah, King of Judah, became king at the age of 8 during a time of instability. His grandfather Mannassah was one of the kings blamed for turning away from the worship of Jahweh and letting the Temple fall into corruption. At the same time, the international situation was in flux. To the east, the Assyrian Empire was beginning to disintegrate, the Babylonian Empire had not yet risen to replace it, and to the west, Egypt was still recovering from Assyrian rule. Josiah turned out to be very good at consolidating political power, which he coupled with religious reform. In a theocracy, the two go hand in hand. He directed the high priest, Hilkiah, to restore the temple and its worship. As Hilkiah was cleaning out the temple, what should he find but an ancient scroll, containing none other than the whole of the Law of Moses. How convenient! Josiah had it read to the people with great solemnity, and so came into being the concept of the Law, as opposed to ordinary laws, God’s incontrovertible authority. In our reading this morning, the author puts into the mouth of Moses the promise of a prophet to uphold and mediate this law, a promise that took form as a whole series of the prophets of Israel. As Christians, we see this promise as fulfilled and ultimately transcended in the person of Jesus, whose word carries with it the whole authority of God.
When Paul writes to the community at Corinth, he takes up the question of authority as it relates to practicing faith in a multireligious context. At the time Paul wrote, meat was generally available only after the great festivals, when priests sold the surplus of the meat of sacrificial victims that was their share. In a letter whose details seem somewhat obscure to us, he cautions believers that authority does not lie in knowledge but in love. He says that it’s neither here nor there whether or not Christians eat meat that has been offered to idols. And yet, there are those whose faith may be threatened if they eat something that’s been offered on a non-Christian altar. They might wonder if they’re being unfaithful – if they’ve sinned, if they’re abandoning the worship of God in Christ. Paul says that for love of these whose faith is still being formed, he himself steers clear of eating this meat, lest THEIR faith might be undone. For Paul, the authority of love trumps the authority of law.
And then we have the Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus begins his ministry by casting out an unclean spirit. Many scholars believe that Mark’s gospel was set down about the same time as Paul wrote his letters: between 60 and 65 CE. The presumed audience is the Jewish Christian community, not in Judea, but in the Diaspora, perhaps in Rome. If this is true, then the story about Jesus’ authority takes on a special meaning. This would have been the time of the first major persecution of Christians in Rome. Nero, the emperor, singled out the Christians in Rome for serious persecution, beginning a trend that ultimately resulted in Empire-wide persecution under Diocletian. In the story, Jesus demonstrates authority in teaching Scripture, not by quoting rabbis and commentaries, as was the tradition, but directly and forcefully, culminating with casting out a demon. His teaching is so powerful that even the demon recognizes him as the one coming into the world, bringing the Reign of God. He says to Jesus, “are you coming to kill me?”
So picture yourself as part of this Christian community in Rome in the first century. You have a Jewish heritage, but you’re living in exile, away from Israel. You’re uncertain about your religious identity. You can’t go to the temple to worship. You believe in Jesus. But does this mean you’re no longer primarily a Jew? Or something else, and, if so, what? And now Nero has begun to persecute people like you. So this question of religious authority becomes immediate and personal. At the same time, the demonic is immediate and personal, too. The “authorities” might show up at your doorstep at any time to take you off to prison, perhaps to be fed to the lions. So now, hearing this text from Mark’s gospel, two of your anxieties are addressed: authority that clearly comes from God, and authority to overcome the demonic. Mark takes care to emphasize that it’s not the casting out of the demon that is remarkable. It’s Jesus’ authority that is important, and the healing we see in his ministry is a manifestation of that power, not the other way around. This text was clearly deeply meaningful for the community for whom it was written.
How about us, who face no religious persecution, for whom our faith is the given tradition? How do we know Jesus’ authority and the word of God to be meaningful, not as doctrine, but as the story of our lives, as immediate and personal as it was for the Christians of the first century?
These texts we read today are also about journey and transformation. The Book of Deuteronomy describes a time of ancient memory to those who heard it in the reign of Josiah, a time when God spoke directly to Moses and guided the people through the wilderness of Sinai. Josiah and Hilkiah reminded the people of this time in another era when things were dicey, pluralism threatened the faith and the power structure. The Pentateuch tells the people of Judah, and us, that God will get us through this wilderness of difficult times and confusing ideologies.
First Corinthians addresses a community whose countercultural faith was at issue, a stumbling block in the pluralist religious culture of the time. While our own faith may seem on the face of it to be highly traditional in our culture, we know it isn’t. Adherence to what Jesus taught has always been countercultural. Paul assures us that it’s not knowledge that will get us through the hard times, but love. All the knowledge in the world won’t help without the assurance of God’s love.
And then we see how the Good News of Mark’s gospel was a talisman for people who may have been facing persecution and death for their faith, a time of great uncertainty when the faith itself was just coming into being, transforming and being transformed. Our demons look different now, and the lions that await us in the Coliseum. Illness, or hardship, or discord, or discouragement may have taken the place of those lions, but they are no less there, and we are no less in need of the assurance of God’s love and the authority of Jesus to take us through the wilderness.
In Mark, Jesus amazes his hearers with his exposition of Scripture. We have heard his words so many times, they sometimes just wash over us and we assume we know what they mean without really thinking about them. If they’re to become that life-giving talisman for us, we need to own them; to be familiar with them and to have thought about them enough so they become a part of us. We hear them every Sunday, but that’s not really enough. It’s sort of like reading a book about how to get physically fit.
Jesus tells the unclean spirit to be silent. Daily prayer keeps us in relationship with the God whose love we swim in. But if we neglect our prayer life, it’s hard to remember that God’s love is both universal and very personal. And unless we spend time in silence with God, how will we know what God has to say?
Finally, we see the authority of Jesus in people whose lives are patterned after his. You may say, “well, ok, that cuts ME out”. But, oddly enough, God can and does use any one of us to be the light of Christ to one another. Who will come into your life today to give you the opportunity to heal someone’s hurt, to connect, to show God’s love?
Or someone else may shine that light in your life when you least expect it. After all, if even the unclean spirits can recognize Jesus, so can we! The Gospel is always good news. But unless we’re deeply engaged with it, we don’t perceive it as life-giving. To experience the healing that Jesus exemplifies, we, too, have to knuckle under and submit to his authority. It can be hard to turn over to God the parts of ourselves that need healing, or casting out. But that submission is a gift, and one of the keys to the Kingdom.
