The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany ---- 28 January 2018

Mark 1:21-28

21 [Jesus and the disciples] went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he 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.

… and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”

·       Don’t think for a minute that what Mark writes of in the Gospel today was normal. Don’t think that it happened every day. This is not how worship in a synagogue goes.

·       We’ve all experienced disruptions in worship. I’ve seen and heard infants crying, people fainting, dogs running around, and birds dive-bombing the altar and later singing while sitting in the organ pipes in the balcony. Ball lightening hit the church during one service. I was present for one Christmas Eve service where the hydro went out 30 minutes before the scheduled start and came back on 5 minutes after the end. I’ve heard a person stand up during the distribution of Communion and read a “prophetic” statement. I’ve even experienced members of the congregation dying during the service… on two different occasions.

·       These are out of the ordinary and I laughed at some of them. Others I simply had to endure or find a way to handle. What Jesus encountered in today’s passage from the Gospel of Mark is entirely separate.

·       The congregation in the synagogue is surprised at the “authority” of Jesus’ preaching for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Often the scribes taught by retelling what had been taught by other scribes and rabbis, saying nothing new and rarely adding any different interpretation. It was the rabbinical style of the time.

·       Jesus, however, showed himself to be different. He taught with authority, an authority that was decidedly different from that of the scribes. This was something unheard-of. Because of that, Mark wrote that the people were astounded. We may not be able to comprehend what this means. Unlike the scribes, Jesus spoke a fresh message and backed it, not with canned or stale examples or arguments, but with an authority that could not be contradicted.

·       Contradicted… no. Opposed… yes. Jesus’ authority was shown in his preaching and his teaching. That alone would attract both those who needed to hear his message and those who would oppose it.

·       This opposition manifested itself in a confrontation with a possessed man and an exorcism was came next. The evil that had possessed the man threatened to tell everyone who Jesus is, which would go against Mark’s way of telling the Gospel.

·       Jesus’ mission was to proclaim the Good News to the poor and the suffering. It was not to rid the world of evil. He didn’t have to search out evil and evil things; they were exposed by his presence and his teaching.

·       Jesus didn’t seek out evil; when it surfaced it found him. Sometimes the evil in the world showed itself in the raving of a possessed person or in the suffering of the sick. In those cases, the rather stern command to “Come out!” or the gentle touch of healing would do it. In today’s Gospel reading, the command to be silent and leave was enough to leave the man whole and to astound the congregation.

·       Other evils would take more. The evil found in the entrenched power of those who opposed Jesus would be what led to his death.

·       However, Jesus’ authority, teaching, and life goes beyond death. His mission was to tell and to be the Good News. The evil of the possessed man threatened to tell the world who he was in a way that might well have led to more oppression than to freedom for the human spirit. The evil of the entrenched and self-righteous powers – whether in the religious officials of the time or in the brutal political power of the Empire – refused to accept what Jesus had to say or who he was because it went against their power and privilege.

·       Jesus’ authority is with us today, in the freedom proclaimed in the Gospel. Any authority claimed by the Church or its ministers is derived from the teaching of Jesus and nowhere else.

·       Today, it is still our mission to proclaim the Gospel with all that it means. That message will be opposed, by forces outside of us and within us, for we still struggle to live as disciples. Thanks be to God that the authority behind our discipleship is real and true and powerful, for it is nothing less than the teaching, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

·       "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Actually, just about everything in our lives.