Sermon 64a: 4th. Sunday of Year (B)
(Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1st. Corinthians 7:32-35;
St. Mark 1:21-28)
We have just heard that when Jesus began His
Public Ministry the most striking aspect of His teaching was the authority with
which He spoke:
The people were
astonished at His teaching for He taught them as One having authority and not
as the Scribes.
What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits and they
obey Him!!
What was the significance those words, ‘A new
teaching with authority’?
The scribes usually taught in the synagogues by
quoting recognized authorities: after the Scripture reading, they would quote
what various rabbis thought about the reading they had just heard. The Scribes themselves were not direct authorities
on the Scriptures, they were merely authorities on what some rabbis had said
about the Scriptures concerned. And those
very rabbis quoted were not themselves presented as being decisive
authorities, but simply as scholars having generally-accepted ‘authoritative
opinions’, opinions, that is, fit to be quoted alongside other such accepted ‘opinionative’
teachings ... pardon the word!
Now Jesus Himself did, of course, have opinions
about earthly happenings: for example, about the tower falling at Siloam, about
giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; and, indeed, He had very strong
opinions concerning the Pharisees and Scribes themselves (!), as St. Matthew tells
us:
The Scribes and the
Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things
whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but
they do not practice. They tie up heavy
burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not
lift a finger to move them. (23:2–4)
However, when Jesus taught about God, or about God’s
will for His Chosen People:
He
taught them as One having authority, most Personal and quite
individual, as we have just heard and as St. John tells us even more clearly in
his Gospel (8:55):
You do not know Him
(God), but I know Him. And if I should say that I do not know Him, I would be
like you a liar. But I do know Him and I keep His word.
When speaking of Israel’s understanding of and response
to their God, Jesus was surprisingly authoritative in the eyes of ordinary worshippers
in the synagogue, because He frequently used words like: ‘Moses says’, ‘the
Law says’, ‘the ancients were told’, that you should do this or that, but I
say to you .... ‘. He was just as authoritative as regards the Sabbath, saying
the Sabbath is for man, not
man for the Sabbath; but it was His attitude to the ever present and
pressing social questions and attitudes with regard to divorce and adultery
that was most surprising and provocative.
He was equally authoritative concerning true moral virtue in His
Beatitudes, but that was less provocative, indeed it was sometimes quite lovely
to hear them. Authority was unmistakeably
part and parcel of His very being, concerned as He also was about, and critical
of, Israel’s every-day religious culture, with regard to matters such as clean
food, multiple washing of hands and vessels, eating ears of corn in the fields
... but, of course, in these matters He was always coming up against the
Pharisees!
Moreover, Jesus also used authoritative power
to back-up His teaching and to set men free ... most strikingly when casting out demons ... in
order that they might be able to obey His teaching:
What is this? A new teaching with authority? He commands even the unclean spirits and they
obey Him!
Why was Jesus so authoritative? As He said, a house built on sand will
crumble, just as a life built on mere opinion is at the mercy of changing tides
and times; without light ... without commitment, knowledge, faith, hope ...
there can be no purpose, no prospect in life; and above all, Jesus wanted His
followers to have that light of life which would lead them to eventually sit at
the banquet table in the Kingdom of heaven before His heavenly Father.
Jesus was authoritative in His teaching for our
security and well-being: we can
only commit whole-heartedly to the known Truth; we can only stride-out confidently
along the known Way, we can only endure securely to the end thanks to Life-giving
strength.
Dear People of God, today’s world has
whole-heartedly embraced a pseudo-morality of almost total freedom for anyone
to be what they want, and to do what they want within the
limits of a merely human, criminal, legislation; and in Mother Church today
likewise, we must recognize that Jesus’ continuing authoritative attitude is an
absolutely essential aspect of His concern for WHO we are,
and of Mother Church’s love for God’s People: authority was not just adopted by
Jesus, it was and is needed to serve and save God’s People.
You Samaritans
worship what you do not know... We Jews know what we worship for salvation is
of the Jews! (John 4:22)
And that Samaritan woman – who had had five
‘husbands’ and was at that time living with one not her husband – was obviously
served, and hopefully on the way to being saved, by her first experience of that
authority:
She left her
waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men. ‘Come and see a Man Who
told me all that I have done, this is not the Christ is it?’
She was able to accept Jesus’ reproof that
The
one whom you now have is not your husband,
and still, was both willing and eager to accept and
proclaim His authority by suggesting to herself and the men of her city, ‘Could
He possibly be the Messiah? ‘
Our world rejects Jesus’ authority because of His reproofs
and will no longer see Him, no longer accept Him, as Saviour because our
world’s teaching (Yes!) leaves its
hearers with no idea what ‘salvation’ might mean? What can be better than what we have already? Of course, we want more of it, but what could
be better?? And yet, what is this pandemic
that afflicts us all now, what if other pandemics are to come? Why??
What if??
Dear People of God, be at peace, Jesus’ teaching
then and now (in His Church) is both authoritative for our good and leads to
life which is eternal for our beatitude, and those words are not unknown to you:they promise a beauty and joy beyond any earthly measure.
