Lectionary Reflection—28 January 2018
21-22Then they entered Capernaum. When the Sabbath arrived, Jesus lost no time in getting to the meeting place. He spent the day there teaching. They were surprised at his teaching — so forthright, so confident — not quibbling and quoting like the religion scholars.
23-24Suddenly, while still in the meeting place, he was interrupted by a man who was deeply disturbed and yelling out, “What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what you’re up to! You’re the Holy One of God, and you’ve come to destroy us!”
25-26Jesus shut him up: “Quiet! Get out of him!” The afflicting spirit threw the man into spasms, protesting loudly — and got out.
27-28Everyone there was incredulous, buzzing with curiosity. “What’s going on here? A new teaching that does what it says? He shuts up defiling, demonic spirits and sends them packing!” News of this traveled fast and was soon all over Galilee.
Other readings:
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Today we continue the whirlwind that is Mark’s Gospel. As we saw last week, Mark’s all about rushing us on to the next scene in telling his story about Jesus. Notice the wording: “Then … Jesus lost no time … Suddenly … News traveled fast … soon all over Galilee.” It’s like Mark doesn’t know where the brake is! It’s all just go, go, go! Nevertheless, let’s try and slow down and see what Mark’s trying to tell us.
The first thing that gets the spotlight is the difference between Jesus’ teaching and that of the “religion scholars” of his day. The Message tells us that Jesus’ teaching was “so forthright, so confident — not quibbling and quoting.” Tom Wright’s Kingdom New Testament states that Jesus “said things of his own authority.”2 Wright explains —
“Here is a man, not one of the recognized teachers, who begins on his own authority to tell people what God’s will is, how the kingdom is coming. The usual teachers — priests and scribes, the literate ones, with in some places Pharisees as well, the self-appointed scrupulous guardians of Jewish ancestral traditions — didn’t teach like that. They always said ‘as Moses said’, or ‘as Rabbi so-and-so said’. Jesus spoke with a quiet but compelling authority all of his own.”3
People being moved by Jesus’ teaching carries on throughout the Gospels. As we see, this is a marked difference from the religious leaders. I believe what Wright’s getting at isn’t that Jesus never quoted others (he clearly did), it’s that the religious leaders only quoted others. They didn’t have their own views about things; they would only stick with their traditions. And Jesus called them on it:
“Isaiah was right about frauds like you, hit the bull’s-eye in fact:
These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they’re worshiping me,
but they don’t mean it.
They just use me as a cover
for teaching whatever suits their fancy,
Ditching God’s command
and taking up the latest fads.”
but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they’re worshiping me,
but they don’t mean it.
They just use me as a cover
for teaching whatever suits their fancy,
Ditching God’s command
and taking up the latest fads.”
9-13He went on, “Well, good for you. You get rid of God’s command so you won’t be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions! Moses said, ‘Respect your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.’ But you weasel out of that by saying that it’s perfectly acceptable to say to father or mother, ‘GIft! What I owed you I’ve given as a gift to God,’ thus relieving yourselves of obligation to father or mother. You scratch out God’s Word and scrawl a whim in its place. You do a lot of things like this.”
The same is true about a lot of things we’re taught. We may be taught one way of seeing the world but, once we start to experience the world for ourselves, those things will be tested and choices will have to be made. We’ll either stick with what we’ve been taught or examine what we’ve been taught through our experiences.
Am I saying that all traditions are wrong? Certainly not! What I am saying, though, in this context, is that our traditions must line up with scripture and experience (reason). The New Testament talks about following “the tradition(s)” passed down, so let me be clear: there is a difference between Holy Tradition and human traditions or customs.
For example, I remember a story about a traveling minister who was asked to speak at a local parish. At one point during the service, the Lord’s Prayer was recited. Everyone in the congregation stood up and turned around with their backs to the altar. The traveling minister was a little surprised. Later that afternoon, while having lunch with the pastor, the traveling minister asked specifically what that was all about. “Oh that? We used to have the Lord’s Prayer written on the back wall. People are so used to turning around we haven’t stopped doing it and it would be a fight if we did!”
Human traditions. Or, as The Message calls them, the “latest fads” or “whims.”
Among the elements which make up the Holy Tradition of the Church, the Bible holds the first place. Next comes the Church’s liturgical life and its prayer, then its dogmatic decisions and the acts of its approved churchly councils, the writings of the church fathers, the lives of the saints, the canon laws, and finally the iconographic tradition together with the other inspired forms of creative artistic expression such as music and architecture. All of the elements of Holy Tradition are organically linked together in real life. None of them stands alone. None may be separated or isolated from the other or from the wholeness of the life of the Church. All come alive in the actual living of the life of the Church in every age and generation, in every time and place. As the Church continues to live by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Tradition of the Church will continue to grow and develop.
The Episcopal Church understands Tradition as one of the “legs” of the “three-legged stool” of authority:
The threefold sources of authority in Anglicanism are scripture, tradition, and reason. These three sources uphold and critique each other in a dynamic way. Scripture is the normative source for God’s revelation and the source for all Christian teaching and reflection. Tradition passes down from generation to generation the church’s ongoing experience of God’s presence and activity. Reason is understood to include the human capacity to discern the truth in both rational and intuitive ways. It is not limited to logic as such. It takes into account and includes experience. Each of the three sources of authority must be perceived and interpreted in light of the other two.
As we can see, this is the difference that Wright mentions above. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day seemed to place more value in their own customs than in a balanced interpretation of them in light of scripture and reason.7 The power and authority of Jesus was this balance and something so much more. Which leads me to the second point.
For some time now, people have dismissed the miracles in the Bible, especially in the stories about Jesus, as legend or myth — made up stories to raise the status of Jesus into something he (supposedly) wasn’t. “There are no such things as miracles,” we’re told. “Jesus was just a man; a prophet, at best.” But this view can’t seem to explain the quick spread of Jesus’ fame (Mark 1.28) or that of his followers after his death and resurrection. Truly, this view doesn’t even acknowledge the resurrection of Jesus at all. “Dead people don’t come back to life.”
This view holds that human experience as verified in the scientific method is the pinnacle of human evolution. That is, science now explains away all of those silly, old, “obviously” made up miracle stories. As one scientist put it, “A miracle is nothing more than a natural law not discovered.”8 This is hubris at its finest. To assume that it’s only been since the Enlightenment that we’ve finally put to rest the supernatural world is to not understand history. It doesn’t take the scientific process to prove the dead don’t come back to life. Ancient people have known this for millenia. Heck, we even read about it in the Bible itself (Acts 26.21-24).
But, as I stated, our current views of miracles doesn’t do justice to the spread of Jesus’ fame as a miracle worker and healer. Eusebius (roughly 364 CE) quotes from Josephus in his work, Church History.9 Josephus wrote (emphasis added):
About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.10
Although this is a contested passage, it’s broadly accepted as authentic … mostly.11 Please note that even Josephus stated that Jesus was known as someone “who performed surprising deeds” and “a teacher.” I may be reading too much into this but I think the order is quite telling. Josephus mentions the deeds first and then teaching. To me, this indicates that Jesus may have been known more for his miracles than his teaching. And the miracles, especially the healing miracles, seem to be what made Jesus famous.
If it were only the healing miracles that caused such a commotion in the regions and caused the widespread fame of Jesus, we would understand, then, why this would be disconcerting to the religious leaders. But it wasn’t just Jesus’ healing ministry. From the very beginning, Jesus’ message about God’s promised Realm finally being established (Mark 1.15) would mean that then current power structures of the religious establishment would no longer be tolerated. And the fact that Jesus’ teaching was one of authority and not like their own teachers (Mark 1.22) would also pose a threat to their power. However, it was the combination of all those things that caused the most trouble. Jesus really was a triple-threat to the establishment of his day — both politically and spiritually. Because everyone was flocking to Jesus, the influence of the religious establishment was diminishing. In turn, when the religious power structions decreased, so, too, would the political powers fade. And if there’s one thing that those in power will not tolerate it’s losing their power.
But Jesus wasn’t only dealing with the corrupt political and religious powers of his day. His battle was deeper than that. We see from today’s reading that his very appearance confronted the “defiling, demonic spirits” that kept the world under lock and key. We see that Jesus’ confrontations with the “natural” powers were a manifestation of his battle with the “supernatural” powers behind those corrupted systems.
All of this is leading to Mark’s climax of the story. Jesus is confronting evil — political, religious, and spiritual — on its own turf. Things will continue to build and build until the bloody, final act.
And it’s right here where this lesson meets us today. Once we who claim to follow Jesus step up and start being Christ to the world as is our vocation (John 20.21), then, and only then, will real change start to happen. Jesus has already won the battle that released the cosmos from captivity, but the working that out in the here and now is up to those of us who follow him.
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In the Love of the Three in One,
Br. Jack+, LC
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1. Scripture quotations marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
2. Wright, N. T., (2011). The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation [Kindle Version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.
3. Wright, N. T., (2001). Mark for Everyone [Kindle Version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.
4. I later learned that this pastor lost his job anyway and, from the way he told the story, it was a direct result of him not following the leading of the Spirit.
5. Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from The Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible.
6. Although some (most) of my Protestant readers will greatly disagree with some of the items listed here, one would do well to appreciate (and learn from) the rich history of the Orthodox Church. For a full explanation of Orthodoxy, I highly recommend this link that reproduces the complete series, The Orthodox Faith, by Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko.
7. The Protestant view of Tradition is, basically, all tradition is bad. That all of them are just “human customs” trying to crowd out the Reformer’s cry of Sola Scriptura, “Scripture Alone.” But Sola Scriptura is a dangerous bedfellow that masquerades as the only ruling factor. Everyone knows that this isn’t true. Most of the time when people claim Sola Scriptura, they’re pushing back against another form of Christian doctrine and/or Holy Tradition as laid out above. They claim the high road but are quick to show their hands are full of human customs and then force them into the text to try and prove their point. Just a cursory glance at various “What We Believe” pages of Protestant churches will show this to be the case (think of those churches who only serve grape juice during communion or won’t allow women to teach / lead or think that the King James Version of the Bible is the only translation one should use).
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