4th Sunday Year B - Homily 2

Homily 2 - 2012

He spoke with authority – unlike the scribes.  I like the word authority – as I understand it.  The catch is that the word has so many meanings and is used in so many different contexts.  What does the word mean when applied to Jesus? The language of the Gospels is Greek; and the Greek word used here of Jesus is a kind of picture-word conveying the sense of being [or life, or energy] flowing out from someone.  Jesus taught with authority in the sense that, when he spoke, he had the effect of making people feel more alive … liberated … energised … interested.  Ultimately there is only one energy that is truly, supremely,  life-giving and liberating; and that is the energy of love.

When Jesus spoke, people could sense that he truly connected with them, that he respected them.  They could feel their own dignity affirmed and stimulated.  His genuinely connecting with them stimulated their interest.  They became open to listen to him, to reflect, and to seek out what he meant.  Such true authority is powerful.  And there lay a problem.  People in positions of power, real or imagined, could see him as a threat – and many of them did.

Today's Gospel incident is a case in point.  Whatever about the details of the historical event [and they are few], Mark used it to introduce Jesus' ministry in Galilee.  The incident happened in a synagogue, on the Sabbath – both key elements in official Jewish life.  Jesus' presence there triggered off a decisive confrontation with a man already there in the synagogue – whom the Gospel described as possessed by – that is, under the power of – an unclean spirit.  Speaking through the man, and seemingly voicing the fear of unclean spirits in general [because it spoke in the plural], the unclean spirit shouted out: Have you come to destroy us?  And immediately, but fruitlessly,  it tried to dominate Jesus by naming him explicitly: I know who you are….

Jesus did not in fact destroy the unclean spirit.  Jesus destroyed no one.  Jesus simply firmly commanded it to be quiet and to surrender its control over the man.  And, faced with the transparent authority of Jesus, it did.  No violence in Jesus – just the authority of life-filled love.

The message of the incident - the reason why Mark placed it here and recounted it the way he did - lies in what prefaced it.  Mark observed: Jesus' teaching made a deep impression on his listeners because, unlike the scribes, he taught with authority.  Instead of giving life and setting free, the scribal establishment's interpreting and applying of the Jewish Law served in fact to exclude, to marginalise, to disempower, to oppress and to exploit.   Where Jesus gave life and set free, the scribal establishment had become linked to, and infected by, the realm of evil – of non-life…

The risen Jesus has sent us out to preach and to embody the Good News – not to exclude, to condemn, to push to the edges, or to disempower.  He sends us out to destroy no one.  We are sent to give life, to give meaning and purpose, to give hope.  Taking our warning from today's Gospel, we,  as individuals and as Church, must constantly be alert to the possibility that, like the Jewish scribes, we, too can easily fall into the trap of judging people, condemning them; and pushing to the edges - even excluding – those who don't measure up.

The quality of our authority will be a factor of our love for people.  It will mean that we encounter people with respect, [even, and particularly, those who don't respect us].  We meet them where they are, not from a stance of superiority, but presuming their good-will and open to whatever insights into truth they might have.