Homily from the Parish Priest for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Septuagesima Sunday
Deuteronomy 18:15-20; I Corinthians 7:32-35; Mark 1:21-28
Authority. Not always a positive term. We either respect it or we rebel against it, believe in it or question it, use it well or abuse it. And it was of course the same in Jesus’ day. The crowds around Galilee judged who had authority behind them and those who didn’t. The scribes come in for it quite badly here. And the crowds recognise how Jesus is so different to them. He teaches them with authority. So in this gospel we don’t have simply just another story about Our Lord’s teaching in the synagogue – just another exorcism – we know there are plenty of them in the Gospels – but there’s an important point to this Gospel: ‘he taught them with authority’. So what does this mean?
Jesus is invested with the power of God. His authority is different to earthly expressions of power. And that clearly changes the lives of the people around him. The Jews in Capernaum realise there’s something different going on here; and that’s why word about this exorcism spreads around the Galilean countryside. This is something different “with authority behind it”, with the power of God because this is no mere prophet, no mere man, but this man is the fullest expression of God’s authority in the world.
And so it is under his authority we form his Body, the Church. United under his authority. What – on earth – does all that mean to me today? What does divine authority mean to me? Maybe at first sight not a lot. After all in western democracy we’ve done away with the divine rights of monarchs and thank God we don’t believe presidents and prime ministers are invested with divine authority like Roman emperors. Whenever that’s happened in history it seems to have failed. And yet we do make these divine claims about the Jesus who for many people in his own time was another good man – a guru perhaps. And we claim also that the Church he instituted has a teaching authority which in various degrees is binding. And we do believe that in the sacraments Jesus gave us divine power is at work – and that’s important. It’s not my or our authority through which this bread and wine becomes the Body and Blood of Our Lord – no, it’s through the real presence of God in the power of the Holy Spirit that these gifts are transformed for our salvation and the salvation of the world.
So when it comes to Jesus, the teaching authority of the Church, our sacramental lives as Catholics, we believe divine authority is present, even if working through very human means.
And I suggest that for many that’s quite difficult to accept at times. As a society we’re not always tuned into equating religious matters – or spirituality – with divine authority. Authority for us is more to do with democracy or bureaucracy – consensus – at least in theory. How dare someone tell me what to do with my life? Or that the belief I have in God, in Jesus, in the Bible, in the teaching authority of the Church, is not just one way of navigating my way through the need for ‘authority figures’. Indeed, for some, religious faith is still seen as a neurosis. And in an age when we know painfully how much as a Church we have failed in leadership and through which authority has been so badly abused I suggest we’re wary of claiming through the Church that the message of Jesus Christ in its basic form contains a blueprint for living in society. In addition we’re frightened of any kind of authoritative statement about what the Gospel teaches us as fundamental because it may sound like fundamentalism to a society which mistrusts – and with good reason – the authority of organised religion and its associated hierarchy.
So what is the authority of Jesus Christ for us here and now in 21st century London as we continue to be locked down at the mercy of this dreadful pandemic which has so much power in a world where we are increasingly powerless? Maybe we are tuning in this Sunday and looking for comfort from the Church. Maybe we are turning to God to pray in our desperation. Maybe our horizons are being extended to life beyond this passing world. Maybe many of us I wonder are finding we are being brought back to basics in a world where life, mortality, death, love, suffering, forgiveness, kindness, justice, love, good and evil, are the bywords for the age. Maybe, as Pope Francis is inviting us, we are being called to dream dreams of a world which acts under and through the authority of the God who has a human face and whose name is mercy, that is the Jesus who teaches us with the authority we recognise as the divine authority, that of God our creator and redeemer who is present even through our sin and failure to follow him as his flawed disciples in his Church of sinners and saints.
As both Jews and Romans had to discover Jesus is no political ruler. He cannot be tied down to any ideology or agenda. We cannot claim him for our own views and standpoint – left, right or centrist. His authority is not of a modern figurehead in a democratic system or even of an inspiring leader of minds and hearts from the sidelines. Rather he teaches us how to lead by his example as his word in the world. As the very fulfilment of the revelation of God he completes and he transcends all division, all fear, all that is of the bad spirit which binds us as a human race yearning to be free. His power is present in each one of us equally, regardless of our background, race, gender, sexual orientation, and of whatever we’ve done and are. He is present in his Word we hear and are called to make our contemporary story here and now, and he is present in a very special way in his Body and Blood now miraculously present on this altar, an authority which transcends our world yet enters into it with power – the person of Jesus Christ to whom all authority bows.
Fr Dominic Robinson SJ