Homily Ordinary 4B: A new teaching with authority: Jesus’ and ours

 Homily for 4^th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B 2021

Deuteronomy 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 · Mark 1:21-28

Introduction

“A new teaching with authority.”  That is how the people at the synagogue describe the teaching of Jesus.  But what gives a teacher authority?  What gives my homily today authority?  There are generally four things that give authority.

1. 1.    Who a person is: a celebrity, a politician, a professor, a priest etc.
2. 2.    What they say: the content, the substance of their teaching.
3. 3.    How they say it: their style, their manner of speaking gives them authority.
4. 4.    What they do: for actions speak louder than words.

Let us reflect on how Jesus fulfils all these four qualities.

Scripture and Theology

First, what is it about Jesus, about who he is that gives him authority?  After all, isn’t he Joseph’s boy, the carpenter’s son?  A carpenter’s opinion might carry some weight with regard to furniture, but not with regard to preaching.

And yet in our first reading today, we heard Moses tell the people of Israel: “A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen.”  Here is Moses, an important figure among the people of Israel, much like Abraham Lincoln or George Washington for this country.  And yet he is saying that God will raise up a prophet like him from the among the people.  And he asks them to listen to that prophet when he comes.  Jesus is that long-promised prophet, to whom the people must listen.

But of course, we know that Jesus is more than a prophet.  Even the unclean spirit whom Jesus drives out of the man acknowledges as much saying: “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!”  Yes, Jesus is the Holy One of God.  Jesus is the Son of God.  Jesus is God. That is what gives his words authority.

Secondly, besides being God, Jesus also taught with authority because of what he taught.  The gospel does not tell us what he said in his homily on that Sabbath, but we can assume that it was a powerful message.  For elsewhere, he teaches God's truth, and there is a freshness in the message that he teaches.  Being the prophet promised by Moses, he is the one of whom God says I “will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him.”  In his teaching Jesus fulfils the promises God made in the Old Testament and raises them to new heights.  For example, he teaches not just about love, but also love of enemies as in the story of the Good Samaritan; he teaches about the indissolubility of marriage, bringing an end to the possibility of divorce; he teaches about the need to reach out to sinners and lepers; in the Beatitudes he teaches about what brings about true blessings, true happiness; and in the Bread of Life Discourse, he teaches about his Flesh and Blood, the bread of Life.  Jesus’ teaching has authority, because what he says is true and profound.

Besides who he is, besides his powerful message, the third quality of Jesus’ teaching is his style.  Like any faithful Jew, Jesus went to the synagogue every Sabbath.  The synagogue was run by lay people, unlike the temple which was run by priests.  And so the synagogue service on Sabbath did not consist in offering sacrifice, but rather in reading from the Bible and preaching.  Think of Bible Study or in the mission churches without priests that have a service of the Word on Sunday.  And so anybody from the community could be chosen to read and to preach.  On this particular Sabbath, perhaps because he was already getting famous as a teacher, Jesus was chosen to read and teach.

And they were surprised.  When he taught, he taught them as one having authority, not as their scribes.  For when the scribes taught, they did so by quoting other authorities, like past rabbis and authors known for their wisdom.  They would say things like: “As Rabbi Shammai taught . . . or as the Prophet Isaiah prophesied.” They taught the way priests like me teach.  I don’t preach on my own authority; I make reference to what Jesus said, what the apostles said, what the Popes said.  Essentially I teach by name-dropping, relying on people with more knowledge and expertise than I have.  The scribes taught the way students write essays.  If you are writing an essay about American history, for example, you will try to bolster your argument with quotes from authorities like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King.  For these people add weight, add authority to your teaching.

But Jesus does not teach like that; he does not rely on any other authority. He is his own authority.  In today's passage, for example, when he drives out the demon he does say “in the name of God I command you to leave this man.”  He simply says: “Quiet! Come out of him!”  He teaches with authority.

The fourth reason that the teaching of Jesus had authority was that it was accompanied by powerful actions.  As we have just seen, after teaching, Jesus healed a man possessed by an unclean spirit.  He translated his words into actions.  When they saw that miracle, they said: "What is this?  A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him." 

Throughout the gospels, Jesus performs miracles and wonders, not only to make people better, but also to convince them of his message.  In John's gospel, for example, he says: "even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize [and understand] that the Father is in me and I am in the Father" (Jn. 10:38).  The healing of this man had the same effect on the people.

Christian Life and Conclusion

I would like to draw two lessons from this message for us.  First, does the teaching of Jesus still command any authority over us today?  Are we as impressed by what Jesus tells us through his Church, as were the people in that synagogue on that Sabbath?

A recent survey revealed that on many moral issues, American Catholics are not that different in their beliefs from their non-Catholic brethren.

·        Catholics are just as likely as non-Catholics to choose against the life of the unborn, the sanctity of life from natural conception to natural death.

·        Catholics are just as likely as non-Catholics to support the death penalty.

·        Catholics are just as likely as non-Catholics to support policies that adversely affect the poor and most vulnerable, refugees and immigrants.

In other words, does the teaching of Jesus on these things, even when delivered by less perfect instruments like the men who serve as our Popes and Bishops, affect us at all?  Do we take seriously the words of Jesus to those he sends out: “Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Lk. 10:16)?

A second take-away message is how we deal with authority in our ordinary lives.  Apart from Jesus and his Church, who wields authority over us?  How do we wield authority over others?  There is a crisis of authority in our society today.  On the one hand people don’t listen to those who have authority to teach by virtue of their training and expertise, children don’t listen to teachers and parents, patients to medical personnel, citizens to law enforcement.  On the other hand, those in authority don’t exercise it well, sometimes abusing it, but more often simply abdicating their roles as when parents or teachers choose to be friends rather than mentors of those under their charge.

May we learn from Jesus, how to exercise authority well, by living up to who we are, by teaching substance, by teaching in a style that convinces others, and by doing what we say. But first, we ourselves must first obedient to Jesus, the Son of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life.