Sermon notes- Sunday 28th January
When Christian Herter was governor of Massachusetts, he was running hard for a second term in office. One day, after a busy morning chasing votes (and no lunch) he arrived at a church barbecue. It was late afternoon and Herter was famished.
As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken. She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line.
“Excuse me,” Governor Herter said, “do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?”
“Sorry,” the woman told him. “I’m supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person.”
“But I’m starved,” the governor said.
“Sorry,” the woman said again. “Only one to a customer.”
Governor Herter was a modest and unassuming man, but he decided that this time he would throw a little weight around.
“Do you know who I am?” he said. “I am the governor of this state.”
“Do you know who I am?” the woman said. “I’m the lady in charge of the chicken. Move along, mister.”
Authority is a strange word, often people believe they don’t have any. But you don’t need to be in charge of a country or a company to have it, you might be in charge of the chicken.
Today we’re going to look at the gospel reading and think about authority. Don’t get tied up in exorcisms and healings, this passage is about authority and, in particular, Jesus’ authority.
Today’s reading, found near the beginning of Mark’s gospel, sets out the battle between good and evil. It shows how Jesus is going to challenge the social and religious order. Many people will say that Christians should stay out of politics but Jesus IS political and it’s illustrated here. Politics and religious practices overlapped and intertwined – as they do in England today with us being the established church.
Be clear here, this isn’t about a healing – there are other instances in Mark’s gospel where it is but this passage isn’t. Today we’re talking about an exorcism, in the synagogue, on the sabbath. It is a confrontational act. An act designed to illustrate authority.
William Oncken, Jr. leader of a big corporation and writer on leadership writes that authority is comprised of four elements:
1. The Authority of Competence: the more competent the other person knows you are, the more confident he will be that you know what you are talking about and the more likely he will be to follow your orders, requests, or suggestions. He will think of you as an authority in the matter under consideration and will feel it risky to ignore your wishes.
2. The Authority of Position: This component gives you the right to tell someone, “Do it or else.” It has teeth. “The boss wants it” is a bugle call that can snap many an employee into action.
3. The Authority of Personality: The easier it is for the other person to talk to you, to listen to you, or to work with you, the easier he will find it to respond to your wishes.
4. The Authority of Character: This component is your “credit rating” with other people as to your integrity, reliability, honesty, loyalty, sincerity, personal morals, and ethics. Obviously you will get more and better from a person who has respect for your character than from one who hasn’t.
(William Oncken, Jr., Colorado Institute of Technology Journal 22 (July 1970): 273)
Jesus had all four of these things…and yet, none of them at this point.
Competence – there is no reason why anyone should have confidence that he knew what he was teaching. Position – he is starting to show it but most people have no idea who he really is. Personality – for his disciples and followers this could be true but for the others in the synagogue it isn’t. Character – again, there were many in the synagogue who would not know him personally.
It says…they were in the synagogue at Capernaum and Jesus was teaching. They were astonished at his doctrine for he taught as one who had authority and not as the scribes.
Scribes, as they taught, would refer to the scriptures. They would say “As Moses taught” or “As it says in Leviticus” – you get the idea. Jesus was teaching directly, unfortunately we are not given any details about what he was saying but think of the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the peacekeepers” and you can clearly see the difference.
You can see why they would be ‘astonished’ at this teaching. I’m sure they were muttering about him. Who is this man? Who does he think he is?!
And then, a man shouts out. The man with an ‘unclean spirit’. There is much written about what this could mean, we can tidy it up and modernise it by relating it to mental illness. It’s funny how everyone is perfectly comfortable with Jesus talking to the weather, he can command the wind and waves, but not so comfortable with the thought of unclean spirits.
However, leave that all aside for the moment, ignore the specifics of the healing for the man, and consider more the reason for the struggle.
The ‘unclean spirit’ is representative of the scribal establishment. Their authority currently undergirds the dominant Jewish social order. And this exorcism is an act of confrontation.
Let the battle commence!
“Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know who thee thou art, the Holy One of God”.
Jesus says: “Hold thy peace, and come out of him.”
The spirit left the man and all were amazed. Immediately his fame spread abroad and throughout the region of Galilee.
Confrontation, challenge and victory. There is no doubt now about the authority of Jesus. Immediately his fame spread – I bet it did, like wildfire I would imagine. And, as we know, it didn’t make him popular with religious or political leaders of the time.
So what can we, those of us who already know who Jesus is, take from this passage today? It’s a great passage but what relevance can it have to our own lives?
Those with authority direct the lives and actions of others. Today take some time to reflect on this: If Jesus has authority in your life, how is that affecting and directing your thoughts and actions? What difference does it make?
