Whom do you serve? Or, Whose Authority do you trust?

      This was one of those weeks where I knew where God wanted me to be focused and I was fighting Him every bit of the way.  You might ask why?  If you knew where God wanted us to focus today, Brian, why would you ever argue with Him?  Of course, if you are asking that question aloud, you are clearly new to the parish or visiting.  Adventers who have been attending for more than a few months understand that I, but I am certain many clergy, spend significant time wrestling with God.  I like to think it’s conscientious or good clergy that wrestle with Him the most, but of course I would think that, right?  It’s ok to laugh.  There’s more than a kernel of truth in that statement.

     My real wrestling with God was over the follow up work, the pastoral care we would say, as people hear my words and start their own wrestling with God over the question raised by Mark today.  The illustrations that I assume God gave me rather quickly are low hanging fruit, but I recognize such low hanging fruit will challenge some of us to be reflective in ways that we do not like to reflect upon ourselves.  We are often loathe to look at ourselves through the lens provided by Scripture.  Occasionally, we might reflect in Lent because we HAVE to, but in Epiphany?  All that is to say please pay attention to what I say and what you hear.  If I say it, please, come on in and let’s hash it out together.  If I don’t say it and you hear it, realize your real fight is with God and not me.  You are still welcome to come in and argue about it with me, but, if I do my job well today, the Holy Spirit is the one dishing out the spiritual wedgies this week!

     We pick up Mark’s Gospel this week all the way in verse 21 of the first chapter.  We have spent 1 week of Epiphany in John, but the rest of the season has been spent in Mark.  Mark has skipped the birth of Jesus and picked up with Jesus’ Baptism by John the Baptizer.  We understand that Jesus is the Messiah because Mark has already written it for us.  Those around Him, though, do not yet know what to make of Jesus.  Jesus has faced His Temptations in the Wilderness and, upon the imprisonment of John the Baptizer, has begun His earthly ministry.  He has started calling fishermen with the promise that He will make them fishers of people.  Crazily, they have answered His call.  All this happens in just 20 verses.

     Jesus and those who have accepted His call to follow Him now go to Capernaum.  Mark tells us that on the Sabbath, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.  Mark tells us those in the synagogue were astounded because He taught as one having authority.  We as a society have just come off a scandal of sorts regarding plagiarism.  Those of us outside academia probably were not too invested in the charges leveled against the former President of Harvard and the wife of the hedge fund manager because we are not academics.  Original thoughts are the big value that scholars contribute to the wealth of knowledge in any given field.  There is an expected credit given to those whose thoughts subsequent scholars quote or paraphrase.  Rabbis and other teachers in Israel were famous for building upon the work that came before them.  Plagiarism was almost impossible because they fastidiously reminded people that this rabbi said this and that rabbi said that and another rabbi said this and they were adding to that understanding.  A rabbi generally hoped to be included of the line of rabbis or scholars who taught something because his insight was revered or foundational. 

     Jesus does nothing of the sort.  He claims to know what God said, why He said it, and what it means for the life of those who follow God.  As you all know from other Gospel stories, Jesus was critical of the priests, Pharisees, Sadducees, rabbis, scribes, and anyone else who knew God’s instructions and calls and did not live accordingly.  He called those men hypocrites, white-washed tombs, and other names which helps explain their opposition to Him, right?  We do not know from which scroll Jesus taught on this particular Sabbath, but those in attendance, who do not yet know Jesus’ role like we do, were shocked by His authoritative teaching.

     How do they respond?  Mark tells us that a man possessed by an unclean spirit immediately cried out asking Jesus what He has to do with them.  We understand the scene that Mark is describing on a superficial level, but let’s look deeper.  Does the man represent all or most of those in attendance at the synagogue?  Does the demon simply refer to other demons among the congregation?  Does the demon mean collectively all those who rebelled with Satan against God?  Possibly.  In fact, the demon could be referring to those possibilities and others we do not know.  I know in the 21^st Century Western Educated city of Nashville, some of us are probably unhappy about the thought of spiritual warfare.  St. Paul writes about it, but we sort of file it away in the “things they did not understand well” file that we like to create to explain things in Scripture with which we are uncomfortable, right?  Let’s blame mental illness or anything but demons, right?  Luckily for us all, I am not called to preach on this today, but I will remind you that Mark treats demons as real.  More importantly, Jesus treats demons as real.

     Mark is counter cultural, though, in presenting demons as capable of possessing another individual.  Many of our Hebrew ancestors understood that demons could attack God’s people.  We would say Job is the prime example of such an understanding.  Demons could and frequently attacked God’s people trying to harm them in a fit of rage or to turn them from faithful adherence to the torah of Yahweh; but, for the most part, possession was not widely considered or accepted in that culture.  Notice how Mark describes this as a possession and treats it like a disease.  Except for lepers, do we blame people when they have a virus or cold or cancer or whatever?  Of course not!  And we have enough medical types in this congregation to understand even lepers should not be blamed for their disease.  Similarly, Mark is not laying blame at the foot of the man in question.  His words are the responsibility of the demon.  The man is oppressed by the demon judge as other are oppressed by poor health or poverty or any other oppression we might name.

     Notice, too, Mark’s description of the spirit.  He calls it an unclean spirit.  Unclean should call to mind our understanding of the purity instructions in the torah.  One had to be clean in order to come into the presence of God.  The other side of that coin was that uncleanness meant that one was cut off from God and community.  Think of the menstruating woman who grabs the fringe of Jesus cloak or the story of the Good Samaritan where the “religious guys” avoid the possibly dead body.  Uncleanness was spread from person to person and required time, energy, and resources in order to be purified.  Good.  Y’all remember those and other such stories.  This spirit, Mark says, means that the man in question cannot be in the presence of God.  It is a spirit, we might say, that destroys the intimacy with God that He desires with each one of us.  But neither Mark nor Jesus blame the man in this.

     Continuing our deep dive, the unclean spirit names Jesus.  In antiquity knowing a name meant having power over someone.  When we hear that phrase, we probably understand it wrongly and think that someone is able to compel another person by their name, like some sort of controlling magic.  That’s not what is being described.  Many of us our married, and all of us know married people.  If we men get too puffed up in ourselves, because we all know the ladies here never have that problem, what do we think when our spouses say they know us better?  Good.  You are laughing a bit, and yes, gentlemen, I know the ladies can sometimes behave like us.  But let’s be fair.  As a gender, we struggle with that, right?  If you had that gulp in your throat or remember such conversations in your past, you understand what the demon is implying here—you have also learned, in part, why God uses “to know” when describing many sexual relationships in the Scriptures and why He chooses to use marriage as an illustration of the intimacy to which He calls all humanity.  The demon is claiming an intimate knowledge just as a husband or wife has intimate knowledge of his or her spouse.  It is a question that we can at times consider when thinking about spiritual warfare.

     Does the demon know who Jesus is?  Clearly.  He adds the “Holy One of God” title at the end to make it clear that he thinks he knows Jesus.  If the demon is really a fallen angel, it makes perfect sense, right?  Just as it makes no sense that the man in question, unlike us, does not yet know who Jesus is or His mission.  But, and this is a pressure point in these discussions, does the demon understand what Jesus is really doing right now?  By that, I mean, the demon clearly understands that Jesus has the power and authority to destroy him and them.  But is that why Jesus is the Incarnate One at this time in salvation history?  No.  Jesus came to save this time.  When He returns in power and glory, that will be when He judges.  So is the demon correct that He has intimate knowledge?  No.

     Mark tells us that Jesus silenced the unclean spirit and made it come out of the man.  Notice again, Jesus does not act according the authority and power the spirit rightly understands.  Rather than destroying the demon then and there, Jesus commands the demon to leave the man.  Though the demon cries in a loud voice, it cannot disobey Jesus’ command.  Notice, too, Mark’s use of that cry.  We talked at the beginning of Epiphany how our categorical over-simplifications of Scripture are not always accurate.  John is thought of as the poetic and thoughtful Gospel writer; the others are more simple storytellers, right?  Yet, as I have pointed out, those simple storytellers have a literary flair, too.  Mark is creating another one of those literary bookends in his Gospel.  When will a loud voice cry out again in his Gospel?  Right, when Jesus gives up His spirit on the Cross in fulfillment of His mission to save us!

     Back to chapter 1, though.  How does the crowd respond?  Again, they are amazed.  Brian and Joshua can tell you about the difference in the two words used by Mark in this pericope.  For our purposes, though, we understand they are amazed at Jesus.  Now, Jesus has demonstrated authority over the supernatural realm, and the demon has obeyed Him command.

     Mark’s Gospel today causes us to face the question of authority.  We live in a country that is suspicious, if not outright hostile, to authority.  Tiktok and YouTube are full of videos of people who refuse to listen to any authority, be they police, teachers, airline personnel, parents, you name them.  We live in a country that is full of everyday thoughts and reactions to authority.  One of our candidates for the office of the President has made four years of claims that he is the rightful authority, that Republican and Democratic poll workers, normal people like you and me but of differing political party affiliations, conspired together to steal the election, to steal his authority.  As a consequence, we have a swath of Americans who believe the current authority is not really the authority, right?  Worse, the means by which we correct our government, voting, has lost its authority in the minds of some.

     I chuckled early this week when a former co-worker and friend posted the newest nonsense out of Texas.  The Governor signed an executive order that plagiarized the language of previous proclamations that led to the Civil War.  Now, it’s Texas and I get it.  Karen and I lived there a few years.  Greg and Jeri lived there longer and I am sure have far more tales to tell.  But one of the newest consequences impacts the Church because a group of “Christians,” I use the air-quotes intentionally because of the “call,” are taking it upon themselves to pick up their weapons and go defend the border.  I went looking in my translations of the Sermon on the Mount to find that verse where Jesus instructed His disciples to pick up their AR-50’s and shoot immigrants in His Name.  Guess what?  It’s not in my KJV nor my Greek Bibles, and I am certain it is not in any of your translations.  But their claim is that God is giving the authority and responsibility to do this.

     Locally, we are fighting over taxes and how to pay for a football stadium for a billionaire owner.  Who is in charge?  Who gets to decide?  Who has the authority?  Our school boards are fighting over what is taught and who gets to teach it?  Again, who has the knowledge and the authority to do what is best for the youth in our community?

     And churches are not immune to such struggles.  There are far too many “pastors” who seem to think the flock exists to serve them or empower them in some way, rather than it is they who are called to model Christ’s behavior by serving, discipling, those in their cures.

     I could go on and on with examples of us questioning authority.  I assume the Holy Spirit has reminded each of you of your own personal examples.  Maybe you have chafed at a boss or rebelled against a parent.  It does not matter because our questions of authority are questions of trust and of power.  Who can I trust, and who can accomplish those things with which I entrust them?  We all ask those questions.  Part of our fear, part of our worry is that, when we are truly reflective about ourselves, we understand that we would not entrust levels of authority to ourselves.  And if we cannot trust ourselves, then who can we trust?

     Thankfully and mercifully, the One person in all history who truly served you and me and all humanity is the same One who has power to accomplish all that He promises.  Better still, He wants what is best for each one of us.  All authority under heaven and on earth was given to Him.  How did He use it?  To redeem each one of us and all those in the world we encounter out there!  We know He loved us because He had to will Himself to stay on that Cross even when Satan and we crowds tempted Him to come down and save Himself.  We remind ourselves in Holy Week that He was so focused on doing the will of the Father that He refused the sponge that was meant to help numb the pain and relax the mind.  We know He did all of that knowing we would be who we were and are, that we would sometimes glorify Him in our lives and often dishonor Him despite His work for us.  It is precisely because of His Will and focus that our Lord gave Him all authority.  All.  And yet, how often do we bristle at His instructions?  How often do we dismiss His claims on our own lives because we are still in rebellion against Him?  How often are we those “Christians” who give no thought to the dishonor we try to bestow upon Him?

     I understand it is hard to accept authority for some of us.  I even understand the reasons why many of us balk or chafe when someone takes authority upon themselves to do what is best for us.  But you and I have been called by the One person is this history of the cosmos who has used the authority given to Him to save you and me and everyone who has ever or will ever live.  We have, in the waters of baptism and the laying on hands by a bishop in confirmation, accepted that call and pledged ourselves to Him.  We call Him Lord and Master and other authoritative words because He has earned those titles in our eyes and hearts, and we have chosen to try and do as He instructs.  And such is His love and grace for each one of us that, when we call Him those titles, He acknowledges their truth but reminds us He calls us friends. 

      Giving Him such authority in our lives is cross-bearing and counter-cultural.  The world has its understandings and wisdom, but it fails utterly when compared to God’s.  You have seen how a food pantry run the way God would run it works.  Was the wisdom of the world correct?  Have we really been teaching people to be lazy?  And, if someone has been stealing from God, are the others we are serving going hungry?  Think of our discussions of local restaurant owners and their discovery that the economics of the restaurant world are not nearly as good as the economics of God.  We know these things and so much more, and we still fail to trust Him in all that we do; is it any wonder that those who do not know Him make such terrible decisions and oppress others?

     The Gospel news my friends is that the One person who demonstrated His love for you and served you at the cost of His life is the One to Whom all authority has been granted.  All authority!  No exceptions.  There is not a singular cubic inch of this expanding 16.2 billion light year across cosmos that is exempt from His claim of authority.  And for reasons known only to Him and to the Father and to the Son, they have called each one of us into an intimate relationship with them, that we might manifest His glory in the world around us!  Jesus has authority over every aspect of our lives.  His is our Lord in the workplace.  He is our Lord in recreation.  He is our Lord in school, and on the highway, and in our homes!  Everywhere we go, He is our authority.

     But the even better news of the Gospel is that such is His authority that there is no end to what He can do.  Mark reminded us today that Jesus is the authority of the torah and of the supernatural.  Such is His authority that He can take sinners like you and me and turn us into saints in the lives of others.  He can take the human beings that we were when we first made our claims to submit to His authority and transform us into servants who manifest His heart to those He is trying to reach in the world around us.  Best of all, Jesus has authority to take men and women like you and me and transform us into those whom He calls friend.

     Whom or what will you serve?  The powers and principalities of the world which seek to oppress you and those whom you know and love?  Those who claim authority for themselves and make you live according to their whims or false wisdom?  Or will you do your best to serve the One who died for you and promises in His authority that all your sufferings in His Name will be redeemed and that, as His friend, you will share in His glory forever?

 

In His Peace,

Brian†