Sermon: Weldon D. Nisly
TITLE:
“What…..authority!”
THEME:
Epiphany: revealing prophets and authority
TEXTS:
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Greeting
The
Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Prayer
God, we come in
gratitude and longing to worship you today.
We
come with all our baggage about authority and demons.
Confront
us with your prophetic word; comfort us with your
healing word this day and always. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Question
Have you encountered authority recently? Or how about demons? But asking
such questions is getting ahead of the gospel for today.
Gospel
-- Mark 1:21-28
Mark’s gospel has
been called a passion narrative with an extended introduction
of Jesus’ life journey that took him to the cross. Over the past Sundays, we’ve
heard the prophetic prologue of Mark’s gospel, the wild
John the Baptist stories,
the baptism and temptation of Jesus, and Jesus’
announcing the reign of God and
calling disciples to live it.
Today Jesus’ ministry really begins.
After calling disciples, Jesus
continued on around the sea of Galilee with his
disciples.
They came to Capernaum; and when the
Sabbath came,
Jesus
entered the synagogue and taught.
People were astounded at his
teaching,
for he
taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Just then there was in their
synagogue a man with an unclean spirit,
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."
But Jesus rebuked the unclean
spirit, saying,
"Be
silent, and come out of him!"
And the unclean spirit,
convulsing the man
and
crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
The people 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."
At once Jesus’ fame began to spread
throughout
the surrounding region of Galilee.
This the Gospel of
Jesus Christ.
Jesus encounters authority
Jesus begins his ministry by confronting us on two
accounts – authority and demons.
How are you with facing authority or demons? Both authority and demons make me
nervous talking about them without encountering them.
Many of us grew up in the era of the bumper sticker: Question
Authority. We also
grew up without mentioning a demon, let alone meeting a
demon.
And yet, here in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’ first act
of ministry was to encounter
authority and demons.
Thomas Cahill, in the third of his multi-volume
series, Hinges of History, describes
“The Jesus the Apostles knew” in this volume on Jesus,
entitled Desire of the
Everlasting Hills (p.
67ff.).
“Jesus,” Cahill says, “takes the tradition and
gives it a twist, develops it beyond what
might have been thought possible, and transforms it
into something new. It is a method
we will see [Jesus] use repeatedly throughout his short
life” (p. 70).
In one line Jesus moves from the symbolic margins of
the Galilean seaside to the
heart of the socio-religious order in the synagogue on
the Sabbath. Jesus’ first
confrontation takes place in the sacred space of synagogue
in the sacred time of the
Sabbath. In sacred time and space Jesus encounters authority
and demons. (Ched Myers,
Binding the Strong Man, p. 141)
Hearers then and now are confronted with two uneasy
matters in this sacred time and space:
authority and demons. Authority has to do with who’s in and who’s
out and who decides.
Demons have to do with the spirit and energy in us
that we hang onto and that is in need
of transformation.
Authority
has to do with responsibility and power. Exercising responsibility and power
is essential to conduct any kind of organized life and
leadership. But it is a great challenge
to exercise authority as responsibility and power with
life-giving integrity.
Encountering authority
Steeped in a skepticism that “questions authority” it
is not only a challenge to exercise
authority it is an even greater challenge to forge consensus
around exercising authority
in any given group or situation. This is as true in the church as anywhere in
this culture
Several times in recent discussions I have been part
of both here and in the larger church,
the struggle to come to a decision was acknowledged as a
question of authority. Most
conflicts and controversies in the church come down to
questions of authority. Various
discussions and documents on authority have been produced in the
past generation in the
church.
Some years ago, we experienced a year-long discernment
to call a leadership team in the
intentional community we were part of in Philadelphia. When we finally named that
leadership team, I shared my anxiety that this team “had been
given all the responsibility
and none of the authority” to lead. Believe me these were beloved people and this
was
our beloved community.
But this was the 1970’s and we were all champions of the
“Question Authority” tribe. Every struggle
we ever had somehow related to the question
of authority
It is not surprising that authority was
at stake in Jesus first encounter in the synagogue.
And it is not surprising that “people were astounded”
when a new young radical rabbi,
named Jesus spoke and acted with true authority in the
synagogue.
However we may struggle with or define authority, one
thing we gain for sure in this
first encounter of Jesus with authority, is that it
is most readily identified when it is
embodied. The people
recognized authority in Jesus – and they were astounded. That
is a very important revelation about Jesus and about
authority. That is an Epiphany
for this Sunday.
Ask yourself: Who embodies authority today? No one is Jesus to be sure.
Take a moment and ponder, where and in whom have you seen authority?
[Silence……Any responses?]
There are the public authority figures: Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa,
Desmond Tutu…..
Then there are our personal authority figures. I have seen authority in:
Grandfather….
Franciscan Sr. Norma Rocklage…..
John Rempel….
Hubert Locke….
One of the tragedies of our day is how few of us are
likely to name national leaders
or even church leaders.
Jesus encounters demons
If you think that authority is difficult
to encounter, try encountering demons! Or
talking about it.
Demons raise hell with recognition as the evil spirit did in the
encounter with Jesus.
Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the demons encountered
by Jesus in the Gospel! Jesus
never lets us get away with ignoring anything in our
lives. So we are faced with demons.
Demons are evil spirits, as this Gospel
story names them, that infiltrate and manipulate
our being and are a “source of evil, harm, distress, or
ruin” (Merriam Webster’s
Collegiate
Dictionary, Tenth Edition).
Demons also have to do with authority. Who and what has control in my life that
needs
exorcising? Demons, like
authority, are about who’s “clean” and “unclean.” Unclean
people, those with evil spirits, were not permitted in the
synagogue. Notice in this story,
we are that “there was in their synagogue a man
with an unclean spirit.”
In the synagogue the demon challenged Jesus and named
Jesus. The demon is the first
to recognize Jesus.
Jesus spoke to the demon, commanding, “be
silent and come out.”
That direct. That simple. With authority.
The demon knew and responded to Jesus’ authority. With a loud cry it convulsed the
man and came out.
Again the people were amazed at the authority
that Jesus embodied.
But, we say, that was then and this is now. We are far too sophisticated and skeptical
to believe in demons.
Yet we see much too much demonizing going on.
Lest we think demons are a superstitious remnant of
the ancient religions, a fascinating
new book is out to tell us otherwise. It is called: American Exorcism:
Expelling
Demons in the Land of Plenty, by Michael
W. Cuneo (Broadway,
2001). Bob Archer put
me onto this startling disturbing book revealing
book. Here in accounts as vivid as
Jesus’
encounter in the synagogue, are the stories of demon possession
and casting out demons
in the name of Jesus.
One of the exorcists is a reputable Mennonite that I am acquainted
with from Indiana.
Jesus performed his first exorcism in the gospel
today. American Exorcism is about
exorcising demons today.
Like with authority, we could have an endless
discussion over demons. It would
probably be as diverse and difficult as one on authority.
But perhaps we do better to speak of demons not so
much in terms of “possession” in that
way but rather in a more personal way. Dare we ask the question: What are my
demons?
When asked “What are your demons?” -- like me, you probably cringe. Or perhaps
you instinctively offer a furrowed frown or offended
smile: Demons! How weird!
Or worse, how dare you!
Encountering our demons
Ponder again for a moment the question: What demon
lives in me?
[Silence…..Anyone share?]
For me, one demon is impatience in driving the car. One day this week I was
driving west on 130th Street and turning north on
Aurora. I desperately wanted to
make the green light but the car in front of me was
creeping along slower than I
could walk. The cars
in front of her had long disappeared.
When we finally turned
on Aurora I muttered angrily and swerved into the middle
lane and around this car.
Only then did I realize the driver was an elderly
woman who appeared overwhelmed
by frantic traffic around her. Suddenly I had this sense of: What am I doing
adding
to the terror of this woman’s life. Is that a demon? Road rage is certainly a tragic
and dangerous phenomenon today. Is not the impatient angry energy within me
the
same energy that leads someone to more deadly and demonic
action on our roads.
In a conversation with one of you (Laura) a few days
ago, we talked about “What are
the demons we face in our time?” Her response was a good one: “One of the
great
demons is competition.” Think of all the harm done and the essence of
the energy
of competition.
Yes, competition can inspire some good things as well. But perhaps
the underlying energy and inner spirit of competition is
evil. Is not the current road
to war driven by the hell of competition?
Exercising Authority Exorcising Demons
The gospel story of Jesus’ encounter in the synagogue
today, leaves us facing a real
Challenge. It is the
challenge of exercising authority and exorcising demons. It is
probably more a challenge of submitting to Jesus than of
having any great wisdom
or experience to do either ourselves.
Jesus lives, speaks, acts with authority. People were astounded and amazed.
In the weeks and journey ahead we pay attention to
what happens to our being
astounded and amazed in seeing Jesus exercise authority and
exorcise a demon.
The abiding question is not a to “Question Authority”
so much as what are
disciples then and now to do to stay the journey and become discipled exercisers
and exorcisers with
Jesus?
We are not going to offer the opportunity for
exorcizing our demons today.
But I do want to remind us that Jesus of the Gospels
confronts all of our life
and offers the courage and healing we need for the
journey with Jesus.