Sermon -- Astounding Authority (Mark 1:21-28)

²¹They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. ²²They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. ²³Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, ²⁴and 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. ²⁵But Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be silent, and come out of him! ²⁶And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. ²⁷They 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. ²⁸At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

(Mark 1:21-28, NRSV)

Once upon a time there was a church. It was a nice church. The building was in good shape, the congregation was stable and the preacher was well-liked. He preached good sermons — thought-provoking and intelligent. He knew his Bible well.

The church had pretty good theology, they thought. They knew what was important to them. They knew what they believed. They had programs that they enjoyed and a good religious education program for their children. They wanted them to know the Bible well, too.

One Sunday, they were having their usual services and a guest preacher showed up. Now this congregation liked guest preachers, people who were writing new books about the Bible, perhaps; people who were bright and interesting to listen to. So they were open to what he might have to say.

And when he started to talk, it blew their minds. This guy was amazing. He had a different style about him, a different spirit. He didn't just talk from his head, he spoke from his gut. You could tell he knew what he was talking about. Not just that he knew the Bible, though he certainly did. No, it seemed he knew inside the text or underneath it. Seemed he knew more than what was written on the page. He seemed to have it written on his heart.

But while he was talking, something happened. Something unseemly. One of those things you never expect to happen in your church. Somebody stood up and talked back to the preacher. Just right in the middle of things stood up and said, What are you doing here? Are you trying to destroy us? We know all about you!

Now, this man, this interrupter, the one who embarrassed the congregation, they knew him. He was a strange man, troubled. But he didn't usually cause problems. In fact, he and the regular preacher seemed to get along all right. The regular preacher knew how to avoid the pitfalls, how not to upset him, how to keep him happy enough so that nothing like this would ever happen. No, they knew the man, but this was a first.

But that guest preacher, he just stopped and looked that man straight in the eye and said, Be silent and get out of him. That surprised the congregation as much as the interruption! Surely he could have found away to quietly put this man off, let him down easy. But no, he just out and shouted at him right there in the middle of church. The man was thrown into spasms, he shouted and screamed and fell on the floor. And then he got very quiet. He looked around at the congregation and they looked nervously at him and then he looked at the preacher and the preacher looked back. Now the preacher was quiet, too, not shouting, not saying anything. And kind, with a tender look on his face. And the man looked back with love and peace in his eyes.

At chat and chew, the place was buzzing. What was that all about? That man taught like no preacher I ever heard! Even demons listen to him and do what he says! This is something fresh. This is something else.

In Mark's gospel, Jesus shows up, and gets baptized and tempted in the first 13 verses. Then he picks a couple of disciples and shows up in a synagogue by verse 21. It is his first public act following his baptism. And his teaching blows them away. The people at the synagogue had never heard anything like it. And when he's interrupted by a man with an unclean spirit, he commands the demon to leave and it goes. Not quite silently, as he had requested, but still, it obeys. Afterwards the people, still astounded, say, This is some new kind of teaching all right! Not at all like our scribes.

Now the scribes were the respected, scholarly interpreters of Scripture. They were, essentially, what a preacher is to a congregation in terms of Biblical interpretation. So when this text says, Jesus taught with authority not at all like the scribes, it's preachers like me who should get nervous. They're talking about me. It's fine to know the Scriptures and share my knowledge, but if I want to be a follower of Jesus, I need to remember that he was up to something completely different. He wasn't just teaching the Bible, he was dwelling in it. His authority came from his connection to the source. His knowledge wasn't external, it was internal.

Now, clearly, I'm not Jesus. I don't think there's anyone here who is confused about that, least of all me. But I — and other ministers and priests and lay leaders in congregations — am given the responsibility of speaking a word. And words matter. Not just which words I speak, but how I speak them. Do I speak them as something I've studied or something I've lived? Do I speak with knowledge or with authority?

Jesus spoke with authority and this is the thing that caught everyone's attention. He wasn't just confident. He was the real deal. They recognized this as soon as he began to speak. So when this strange interruption occurs, when a man with an unclean spirit shouts out at him in the synagogue, and when Jesus commands the spirit to leave and it does, this is not the event that gives him his authority. It simply confirms it. His authority was already clear to everyone that day. Even to the unclean spirits.

Sitting here in 2006, we are at a slight disadvantage. We don't get to see Jesus in the flesh. We don't get that skin-tingling sensation you have when you are in the presence of greatness, when you hear somebody speak and you know you're hearing the truth. We have to trust in his authority without that up-close encounter.

On the other hand, we do have some advantages. We know the whole story — we know what happened later: how he taught and healed and changed lives all over Israel, how he faced the powers that be and let himself be killed rather than take up arms and fight back, how he died and was buried, but didn't stay dead, how his disciples — an unlikely crew of evangelists if ever the world saw one — became the leaders of a movement that changed history, how 2000 years later, the power passed down through those generations of disciples has reached around the world and through history and still has the power to touch us. We know the story.

At least we know it in our heads. But the question this text asks of us is: do we know it in our guts? Have we allowed ourselves to not just hear Jesus, but to be astounded by him? Have we recognized in him something fresh, something real, something mind-blowing, as that first audience did? Do we accept the authority of Jesus into our lives?

I know that everyone here has been praying for Carl and his family this week. We pray for health and strength and recovery. Perhaps we've even prayed for a miraculous cure. And I can give testimony today, as I bet many of you can, that Christ is able to heal us. I know it not just in my head, but in my body. I have experienced the astounding, mind-blowing healing of Christ and I have been privileged to witness it in others.

I have seen a recently adopted baby with AIDS lying at death's door, while his parents and his church prayed through the night for him. And I have seen that child grow up into a lovely young boy with the HIV infection so reduced as to not be discernible in his blood.

I have seen a marriage strained to the breaking point, where friends and family assumed there was no hope left, but when those two people turned it completely over to God for forgiveness and healing, something deep and lasting changed and today, they are as loving and committed a couple as I know.

I have seen a woman battle inner demons of anxiety and generational mental illness and emerge with not only her mental health, but her faith restored.

And, like all of you here, I have seen people of deep, abiding, loving faith endure horrible things. I have watched them get sick and suffer and die. This is also true and if we don't acknowledge it then we are left wondering, Why, God? Why him, why her? Didn't they have enough faith? Didn't you care enough to rescue them?

In today's story, there is nothing said about the faith of the man with an unclean spirit. He didn't ask to be healed. Nor did his friends or family asked for him to be healed, as happened in some other healing stories in the gospels. But Jesus spoke to that part of him which was unclean, which was bullied by inner demons. Jesus said to that part of him, Leave him alone! and the man was restored. Maybe he had faith, maybe he didn't. We don't know. The story doesn't tell us. What the story does tell us is that Jesus has the authority to speak directly to whatever is most difficult in our lives.

Christian healing is not magic. It is not about manipulating God into giving us the outcomes we desire and it is not proof of our faith or holiness. Christian healing is about surrendering ourselves to God's love and trusting that God is with us at every stage of our living and dying. Whenever we are truly open to God, some kind of healing takes place, because the Holy Spirit is at work in us, clearing aside the debris, so that the stream of our lives can run clear.

Trusting in the authority of Jesus means inviting him to speak directly to us, just as he spoke directly to that unclean spirit. We cannot predict the outcome or even the process. The man in the story was convulsed and we're told that he cried out, loudly. Receiving healing was neither painless nor predictable. We aren't told what happened to that man next, but I would guess it wasn't easy. I bet he had a lot of fences to mend, a lot of relationships to rebuild, a lot of catching up to do. Maybe it would have been easier for him to stick with his demons.

I suspect that each of us has a demon or three that might be easier to hang onto than to be healed of. We get comfortable with familiar patterns in our lives, even if we know they are not constructive to us or those around us. The question is not whether Jesus will prove his authority and take charge of our lives. The question is whether we have yet recognized his authority. The demon in the story recognized Jesus and declared him to be the Holy One of God. And because it first recognized him, then it also obeyed him. This, it seems, is the real crux of the story. Not to ask Jesus for what we need. But to recognize that Jesus is who we need and to listen and surrender. Amen.

Sources:

Lamar Williamson, Jr. Mark: The Interpretation Series. Louisville: John Knox Press. 1983.
Tilda Norberg and Robert D. Webber. Stretch Out Your Hand: Exploring Healing Prayer. Cleveland: United Church Press. 1990.

The foregoing sermon was preached at the United Parish of Bowie on January 28, 2006, by Rev. Laura Collins.