Authority
Commentary
What's become of authority? In our society, those who were once regarded as having authority are often treated without respect and sometimes with contempt. The authority of the law enforcement agencies seems weakened. School teachers and administrators appear to have far less authority than they once had. Even parents are granted considerably less authority than in the days we (the authors) were growing up. The cultural challenges by the young people in the 1960s and '70s set in motion a radical reassessment of authority that has not yet been settled in our culture. The protests against U.S. involvement in Vietnam set a powerful precedent for the questioning of authority. What's become of authority?
Many are asking this question. Consequently, we see a desperate scrambling to identify authority and to reinstate some definitive power for our lives. A quick perusal of some trends in contemporary culture suggests that many are in quest of something or someone they can regard as authoritative. Some forms of the family values movement include an effort to reinstate the authority of parents. One school district has recently introduced a regulation that every student address every teacher or administrator as "Sir" and "Ma'am." Police in the inner city are attempting to put officers on the streets on foot to associate with the neighborhood young people in hopes of renewing a sense of the authority of the friendly police officer. Many are scurrying to churches in which there is a clear and absolute authority to be accepted and never doubted, whether that be the Bible or a particular pastor's interpretation of the Bible. You could say that the recent infatuation with other world religions and new age thought are sometimes quests for some authority for life.
The truth is that we humans need some basis on which to live our lives, and that basis needs to prove itself authoritative. Otherwise, meaninglessness may overtake us, and life become utterly pointless. The desperation of the characters in the '70s movie, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is not a thing of the past. It is still very much with us in the form of a quest for something of commanding importance. These three lessons for the Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany all relate to the matter of authority in one way or the other, and that theme provides us one stream through the readings.
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Here Moses promises that God will provide a final and indisputable authority. The setting is the legislation for Israel's life in a new land (vv. 9-14). Israel will need to remain loyal to YHWH and not yield to the influences of other gods and other ways of thinking. The lesson promises that they shall not be left without a means of communication with their God. The reading has two distinguishable parts. In verses 15-16 Moses speaks of the promise of a prophet like him, and in verses 17-20 Moses relays the words of YHWH about this prophet.
The promise of a definitive authority is based on Moses' own authority. The prophet, he claims, will be "like me" and will arise from among the people themselves. That means that this prophet will be an Israelite. The people themselves have asked that they have such a prophet, and God is accommodating their request. Deuteronomy 5:25 reports that the people were frightened by the prospects of hearing God's voice directly, and God employs Moses as a go-between with the people. So, the prophet will be "like" Moses insofar as that spokesperson will function as a medium between God and the people. More importantly, that prophet will be like Moses in authority.
God's own words describe this prophet in greater detail in verses 17-20. God will use the prophet to replicate the divine words in the presence of the people. "Everything that I command" will be passed on through this agent. The people are responsible in effect for listening to this spokesperson for divine direction. If they do not, they will be held accountable for not paying attention. Now God deals with the matter of pretenders to this special role. They will simply be wiped out. Naturally, the next question is how are you going to tell the true spokesperson from the phony? Verses 21-22 provide a basis for making such a judgment.
Prophetic authority is based on the model of Moses' role at Horeb. Prophecy is not confined to an office of some sort but is a charismatic quality bestowed on Israelites by God's own choosing. This ancient promise provided the people with an assurance that God would not abandon them. Even though the voice of the prophets seems muted for years -- even centuries -- the people could cling to the promise that in due time God would send a "new Moses." The New Testament is dotted with implications of this kind of belief. For instance, the religious leaders go out to meet John the Baptist to determine just who he thinks he is. They ask him if he is "the prophet" (John 1:21). Some of the New Testament views of Jesus may reflect the idea that God fulfilled this old promise through Jesus (e.g., Matthew).
God promises that the people will not be left without an authoritative voice that speaks truthfully for God. Ah, that is a precious promise indeed! Did God fulfill that promise once and for all in Jesus of Nazareth? But that is getting us ahead of the story.
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Paul detours us for a moment. Detours us not from the issue of authority but from the issue of Jesus' being the prophet like Moses. Paul is the practical, the applied theologian, so his contribution to our passageway through the lessons is of the utmost practical and useful kind. On what authority shall we decide a mundane matter of daily behavior?
The issue under consideration may strike us today as a bit strange: "Food sacrificed to idols." Those Corinthians Christians had more than their share of problems, and apparently this was one of the issues on which they could not agree. We need to imagine meat appearing in the market that had once been offered to one of the numerous deities worshiped in Corinth. The question was whether the Christians ingested some idolatry when they consumed this meat, which we like to imagine was sold at reduced price in the marketplace -- "previously owned meat." Some said that in eating such food Christians contracted the sins of idolatry; others thought the whole idea was silly. How is Paul going to bring clarity to this confusion?
He begins interestingly enough with the question of knowledge. Note that the NRSV puts quotations marks around "all of us possess knowledge" (v. 1). The translators think this expression was probably one of the mottos of the "liberated Christians" in Corinth. This group used it to make their argument that to think it was wrong to eat the food first offered to idols was nonsense. Notice how Paul counters this argument, and the way he does it. He begins by contrasting love and knowledge. Those who claim to know are precisely the ones who do not know. It is being known, not knowing, that is important, and one who loves God is known by God. Paul will have none of the intellectual arrogance that apparently some of the Corinthian smart alecks exhibited. Paul tips us off on where his argument will go when he draws attention to the authority of love.
The second step in the Apostle's analysis of the problem is to make clear that Paul himself thinks that these idols are phonies. None of them exists. Here he quotes a fundamental of the Hebraic-Jewish tradition, going as far back as Exodus 20:4-5. However, he seems to contradict himself in the next verse (5). What he seems to be saying is that, of course, there are many gods worshiped in Corinth and elsewhere; but he thinks none of them are real. We and everything else have existence through one Creator. The sentence sounds like Romans 11:36 and may have been one of Paul's basic tenets or even an early Christian creedal statement.
Step three: Not everyone understands this (v. 7). Now, he seems to think that there is value in knowledge, that is, in knowing that none of the idols are real. Some Christians think they are real, however, because of what we (not Paul) would call their cultural conditioning. Given the background of some of the new Christians, he suggests, it is no wonder that they think they defile themselves when eating the food offered to idols.
Next step: Let's be clear about this. Whether we eat or not has nothing to do with our relationship with God (vv. 8-12). Paul thereby undercuts all the tradition about dietary laws and customs. However, this leads Paul to the real heart of his argument. Our liberty must not be at the expense of others who are weaker and as yet uninformed. Paul resorts to the superiority of love over knowledge. Loving others entails asking about their consciences -- what will offend them. There are enough stumbling blocks in this Christian life without our creating more of them for one another. Liberty is reigned in by concern for others and their growth in the faith. Christ died specifically for the weak (see Romans 5:6), so we who feel we have been freed by Christ should take care that we not destroy the faith of others. Since Christ died for them, you have no business sinning against them -- that is, by failing to love them and being sensitive to their needs. A sin against another Christian is as good as a sin against Christ.
The conclusion comes with the word "therefore" in verse 13, and takes the form of a personal opinion. Paul abdicates his freedom to eat meat, even though he sees nothing at all intrinsically wrong with it. The wrong occurs in the implications it has for others, the "weak." Paul will refrain from doing anything that causes another to lose faith.
What a brilliant and sensitive argument this is. It is based in the fundamental question of authority. Which is the more definitive, knowledge (and hence freedom) or love? Paul demonstrates that the real authority resides in love for others and concern for their well-being. That is so simple that there must be something wrong with it! However, for Paul that's the crux of it all. In trying to respond to a divisive and heated issue among the Corinthians, Paul has demonstrated very well how we had better have our priorities straight and know which is most definitive for us.
Mark 1:21-28
In the first lesson God's authority gets communicated through the prophet. In the second lesson, a principle (love) is the authority. Now the authority is embodied in a person. Jesus is in Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee. The story goes through three phases, each of which makes the simple point that people discerned in Jesus a most unusual authority.
The first part of the story reports Jesus' teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum and the response to his teaching (vv. 21-22). Already it appears Jesus has assumed the role of a wandering rabbi who is free to teach in religious gatherings. We are told nothing of what Jesus taught, only that the people were "astonished at his teachings." Presumably we are to look back at 1:14-15 to learn what the content of his teaching was. The people saw that his teaching was different from that of the scribes. The scribes were a part of the religious establishment of the day and among the official interpreters of Scripture, presumably because they were the ones who copied the Scriptures. In Mark they are associated with the Pharisees and chief priests and generally play the role of Jesus' antagonists (e.g., 7:5 and 8:31). The contrast of the authority of Jesus and the scribes makes us curious as to what the distinction is, and Mark leaves us only to draw our own conclusions. Could it be that the authority of the scribes was derivative and Jesus' was direct and personal? The scribes claimed authority on the basis of the Scriptures; Jesus claimed it for himself.
Jesus has made a good first impression. Now that general impression of Jesus is confirmed by a specific incident reported in verses 23-26. This is the first of four exorcisms in Mark, and here "an unclean spirit" is synonymous with a "demon." (In 3:22 Jesus is accused of having a demon and in 3:30 of having an uncleaned spirit.) The ancient world understood the universe to be filled with both evil and benevolent spirits and accounted for numerous kinds of human afflictions through demon possession. The uncleaned spirit cries out, speaking in the plural -- "we" and "us" (see also 5:1-13). The demons were all playing on the same team, so that where there was one demon there were others as well. This demon pretends to have power over Jesus by claiming that it knows Jesus' name, since knowing another's name gave one access to control over them. In fact, however, the opposite will be the case. In Mark the demons recognize Jesus' identity, while humans are unable to do so. Here the demon calls Jesus "The Holy One of God." These evil creatures participate in the spiritual world, so they are privy to knowledge denied humans.
Jesus "rebukes" the unclean spirit. Mark regularly uses this verb when Jesus asserts his control over evil forces. Look at how it is used in Mark's story of Jesus' stilling the storm (4:39) and Peter's resistance to Jesus' prediction of his death and resurrection (8:32). Jesus silences the demonic being and orders it out of this man's life. When a demon has controlled a human life, its departure tears at the very core of one's body. So, the man is convulsed, and the demon cries out as it leaves this human soul. Christ's authority extends beyond this world and into that other realm of the forces of evil. Equally important, notice how Jesus uses his authority in this story. By his authority a human life is freed from bondage to the powers of the demon. Jesus' authority liberates.
The final part of the reading details the response of the witnesses to this exorcism. In verse 22 the people were "astonished" at Jesus' teaching; now in verse 27 they are "amazed" at his act of exorcism. The second word is the verb often used in describing the response of witnesses to a wondrous deed -- the evidence of God's power at work. First, they can only wonder at the authority that is greater than that of the scribes; now they marvel in the presence of an authority that commands demons. They can only ask what in the world this is and make guesses: "A new teaching -- with authority?" Then they run out to tell others what they have experienced, and this wandering Galilean prophet becomes known throughout the land.
Authority needs always to be embodied, or else it is some vague sort of power that is difficult to discern. God's authority gets embodied in the prophets; the authority of God's love becomes embodied in Paul's attitude toward the so-called weaker sister and brother. However, Jesus represents the full embodiment of divine authority. This is not an authority schemed up by humans to try to protect themselves from one another. This is not an authority that seeks to imprison and oppress humans. This is God's authority to liberate us from all that prevents our becoming full and mature children in the divine family, including other so-called authorities. This authority does not rule by threat or brute force, but, as Paul so keenly detected, by love and compassion.
Maybe we don't need an authority that makes us privy to some secret knowledge. Maybe what we need the most is an authority that enables us to live life out of a passionate concern to free one another from oppression. What's become of authority? It's available in God's love in Christ.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
We do not usually think of Moses as a prophet. Rather he is connected in many persons' minds with the crossing of the Red Sea (actually Reed Sea) and the giving of the Ten Commandments. For some, Charlton Heston and Hollywood have engraved those thoughts in their views. However, Moses was indeed a prophet. In fact, the Old Testament considers him to have been the first and the greatest of the prophets (cf. Numbers 12:6-8). He was the mediator of the Word of God to his people, and he fulfilled the prophetic functions of interceding with the Lord for his sinful people (cf. Deuteronomy 9:18-29) and of suffering for their sakes (Deuteronomy 1:37).
In his farewell addresses to the Israelites, which make up most of Deuteronomy, Moses therefore promises, according to our text, that God will not desert his people after Moses dies, but will instead raise up a prophet like Moses to continue to mediate the Word of God to the people.
Why is such mediation necessary? I had a friend once who objected to the thought that we need prophets or priests or similar officials to mediate for us with our Lord. "There is something wrong," she said, "when I can't talk to God directly." And of course there is in fact something wrong. Our sin has stained us, so that it is impossible for us to stand before a wholly pure and righteous God. As another prophet says of God, he is of purer eyes than to behold evil (Habakkuk 1:13), and were we to approach him in our unclean state, we would be destroyed (cf. Exodus 33:3). God takes sin seriously. Therefore we need a God-appointed mediator to speak with God for us. That is the reason that every prayer we utter is prayed in the name or through the mediation of Jesus Christ, for he is, as Hebrews says, our righteous high priest, and because of his sacrifice and through his mediation, we can approach God's throne with confidence to find help in time of our need (Hebrews 4:14-16).
Our text gives a further reason why the Israelites need a prophet to mediate the Word of God to them after they have heard God speak the Ten Commandments to them at Mount Sinai. The people are so overwhelmed by the awesome, overwhelming glory and voice of God that they beg Moses to become their mediator, lest they die (v. 16). Mere mortals cannot bear the thunder, lightning, and fire that accompany God's transcendent presence on earth (cf. Exodus 19:16-20). A prophet must be appointed by the Lord to speak his word to the people, and Moses is that prophet. But he also promises in our text that after he is gone, God will raise up other prophets like him to speak God's word to them.
It is very likely that several of the prophets of the Old Testament, in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., considered themselves to be this promised prophet like Moses. Certainly Jeremiah did, as has been shown by scholarly examination of Jeremiah's call. However, through the centuries, this promise of a Mosaic prophet took on eschatological proportions; that is, the Jews considered that the Mosaic prophet would appear in the new age of God's coming kingdom. In the New Testament, therefore, in the Gospel according to John, we hear the Jews talking about "the prophet" to come. "Are you the prophet?" they ask John the Baptist (John 1:21). "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world," the people exclaim, after Jesus has fed the 5000 (John 6:14). "This is really the prophet," they later say of him (John 7:40). Then Acts confirms that identity of Jesus (3:22-26). Jesus Christ, proclaims the Apostle Peter, is the fulfillment of this ancient promise of Moses' and God's new age of the coming kingdom has begun in the person of our Lord. Jesus Christ is now the one who speaks God's Word to us, who mediates and intercedes for us before the throne of God, and who suffers on our behalf that we may live. To be sure, Christ is much more than a prophet, much more than Moses, much more than a mere mortal. He is also the Son of God incarnate. But the prophet like Moses he also surely is.
It is significant, therefore, is it not, that our text says, "Him you shall heed"? God speaks his words to us through our Lord Jesus Christ -- through all of Christ's commandments and sayings and actions preserved for us in the New Testament. Christ's words and deeds are those of the living God. "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), Jesus tells us. Through him, God speaks, commands, guides, corrects, strengthens, judges, forgives. To listen to Jesus Christ, to obey him and follow him and live in him is to listen and obey and follow and live in our transcendent, overwhelming, loving heavenly Father. And surely, good Christians, that is life everlasting.
But our text is very adamant about our loyalty to God in Jesus Christ. "Whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name," God says, "I myself will require it of him" (v. 19). In other words, our relation with God is determined by our relationship with Jesus Christ. "He who rejects me, rejects him who sent me," Jesus teaches (Luke 10:16), and God will judge us in the final reckoning as to how we have believed and acted toward his Son our Lord. That sounds very frightening, doesn't it? And yet, it is a gracious invitation to enter into fellowship with our God through the loving forgiveness and abundant mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. We need have no fear, fellow Christians, when we accept our God in the person of his Son.
Our text does take on a fearsome tone, however, in its last verses (vv. 19-20). It says, first, that whoever pretends to be speaking in God's name when God has not sent him to do so is a false prophet worthy of death. The Lord is very hard on fakes, on all of those persons who claim to be speaking God's word when what they are really doing is speaking out of their own minds and according to their own wishes. We have all known preachers and teachers and assorted gurus like that, haven't we? Our text says that God wants no part of them.
But then second, our text comes down very hard on those who speak in the name of other gods. They too are worthy of death, it says. And we know religious speakers like that too, don't we? The Sophia devotees, or the Mother Earth worshipers, the followers of some mystic divine, or those who trust only their inner selves. There are thousands of sects, cults, New Age religionists in our time and society, and all of them are bent on luring us away from our discipleship to Jesus Christ, promising us a dolce vita. They all seem very attractive, because they ask of us so little. But our God asks of us a lot, good Christians. He asks that we love him as he loves us. He asks that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. He asks that we give up our selfish selves and let him live in us to direct our ways. And through all of the asking, he constantly gives -- his faithful love that never ends, his mercy toward all our failings, his succor in every distress, his guidance through all our difficulties, and finally abundant life and eternal life in communion with him and the faithful of every age. Why on earth or in heaven would we ever turn aside from such love?
Many are asking this question. Consequently, we see a desperate scrambling to identify authority and to reinstate some definitive power for our lives. A quick perusal of some trends in contemporary culture suggests that many are in quest of something or someone they can regard as authoritative. Some forms of the family values movement include an effort to reinstate the authority of parents. One school district has recently introduced a regulation that every student address every teacher or administrator as "Sir" and "Ma'am." Police in the inner city are attempting to put officers on the streets on foot to associate with the neighborhood young people in hopes of renewing a sense of the authority of the friendly police officer. Many are scurrying to churches in which there is a clear and absolute authority to be accepted and never doubted, whether that be the Bible or a particular pastor's interpretation of the Bible. You could say that the recent infatuation with other world religions and new age thought are sometimes quests for some authority for life.
The truth is that we humans need some basis on which to live our lives, and that basis needs to prove itself authoritative. Otherwise, meaninglessness may overtake us, and life become utterly pointless. The desperation of the characters in the '70s movie, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is not a thing of the past. It is still very much with us in the form of a quest for something of commanding importance. These three lessons for the Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany all relate to the matter of authority in one way or the other, and that theme provides us one stream through the readings.
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Here Moses promises that God will provide a final and indisputable authority. The setting is the legislation for Israel's life in a new land (vv. 9-14). Israel will need to remain loyal to YHWH and not yield to the influences of other gods and other ways of thinking. The lesson promises that they shall not be left without a means of communication with their God. The reading has two distinguishable parts. In verses 15-16 Moses speaks of the promise of a prophet like him, and in verses 17-20 Moses relays the words of YHWH about this prophet.
The promise of a definitive authority is based on Moses' own authority. The prophet, he claims, will be "like me" and will arise from among the people themselves. That means that this prophet will be an Israelite. The people themselves have asked that they have such a prophet, and God is accommodating their request. Deuteronomy 5:25 reports that the people were frightened by the prospects of hearing God's voice directly, and God employs Moses as a go-between with the people. So, the prophet will be "like" Moses insofar as that spokesperson will function as a medium between God and the people. More importantly, that prophet will be like Moses in authority.
God's own words describe this prophet in greater detail in verses 17-20. God will use the prophet to replicate the divine words in the presence of the people. "Everything that I command" will be passed on through this agent. The people are responsible in effect for listening to this spokesperson for divine direction. If they do not, they will be held accountable for not paying attention. Now God deals with the matter of pretenders to this special role. They will simply be wiped out. Naturally, the next question is how are you going to tell the true spokesperson from the phony? Verses 21-22 provide a basis for making such a judgment.
Prophetic authority is based on the model of Moses' role at Horeb. Prophecy is not confined to an office of some sort but is a charismatic quality bestowed on Israelites by God's own choosing. This ancient promise provided the people with an assurance that God would not abandon them. Even though the voice of the prophets seems muted for years -- even centuries -- the people could cling to the promise that in due time God would send a "new Moses." The New Testament is dotted with implications of this kind of belief. For instance, the religious leaders go out to meet John the Baptist to determine just who he thinks he is. They ask him if he is "the prophet" (John 1:21). Some of the New Testament views of Jesus may reflect the idea that God fulfilled this old promise through Jesus (e.g., Matthew).
God promises that the people will not be left without an authoritative voice that speaks truthfully for God. Ah, that is a precious promise indeed! Did God fulfill that promise once and for all in Jesus of Nazareth? But that is getting us ahead of the story.
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Paul detours us for a moment. Detours us not from the issue of authority but from the issue of Jesus' being the prophet like Moses. Paul is the practical, the applied theologian, so his contribution to our passageway through the lessons is of the utmost practical and useful kind. On what authority shall we decide a mundane matter of daily behavior?
The issue under consideration may strike us today as a bit strange: "Food sacrificed to idols." Those Corinthians Christians had more than their share of problems, and apparently this was one of the issues on which they could not agree. We need to imagine meat appearing in the market that had once been offered to one of the numerous deities worshiped in Corinth. The question was whether the Christians ingested some idolatry when they consumed this meat, which we like to imagine was sold at reduced price in the marketplace -- "previously owned meat." Some said that in eating such food Christians contracted the sins of idolatry; others thought the whole idea was silly. How is Paul going to bring clarity to this confusion?
He begins interestingly enough with the question of knowledge. Note that the NRSV puts quotations marks around "all of us possess knowledge" (v. 1). The translators think this expression was probably one of the mottos of the "liberated Christians" in Corinth. This group used it to make their argument that to think it was wrong to eat the food first offered to idols was nonsense. Notice how Paul counters this argument, and the way he does it. He begins by contrasting love and knowledge. Those who claim to know are precisely the ones who do not know. It is being known, not knowing, that is important, and one who loves God is known by God. Paul will have none of the intellectual arrogance that apparently some of the Corinthian smart alecks exhibited. Paul tips us off on where his argument will go when he draws attention to the authority of love.
The second step in the Apostle's analysis of the problem is to make clear that Paul himself thinks that these idols are phonies. None of them exists. Here he quotes a fundamental of the Hebraic-Jewish tradition, going as far back as Exodus 20:4-5. However, he seems to contradict himself in the next verse (5). What he seems to be saying is that, of course, there are many gods worshiped in Corinth and elsewhere; but he thinks none of them are real. We and everything else have existence through one Creator. The sentence sounds like Romans 11:36 and may have been one of Paul's basic tenets or even an early Christian creedal statement.
Step three: Not everyone understands this (v. 7). Now, he seems to think that there is value in knowledge, that is, in knowing that none of the idols are real. Some Christians think they are real, however, because of what we (not Paul) would call their cultural conditioning. Given the background of some of the new Christians, he suggests, it is no wonder that they think they defile themselves when eating the food offered to idols.
Next step: Let's be clear about this. Whether we eat or not has nothing to do with our relationship with God (vv. 8-12). Paul thereby undercuts all the tradition about dietary laws and customs. However, this leads Paul to the real heart of his argument. Our liberty must not be at the expense of others who are weaker and as yet uninformed. Paul resorts to the superiority of love over knowledge. Loving others entails asking about their consciences -- what will offend them. There are enough stumbling blocks in this Christian life without our creating more of them for one another. Liberty is reigned in by concern for others and their growth in the faith. Christ died specifically for the weak (see Romans 5:6), so we who feel we have been freed by Christ should take care that we not destroy the faith of others. Since Christ died for them, you have no business sinning against them -- that is, by failing to love them and being sensitive to their needs. A sin against another Christian is as good as a sin against Christ.
The conclusion comes with the word "therefore" in verse 13, and takes the form of a personal opinion. Paul abdicates his freedom to eat meat, even though he sees nothing at all intrinsically wrong with it. The wrong occurs in the implications it has for others, the "weak." Paul will refrain from doing anything that causes another to lose faith.
What a brilliant and sensitive argument this is. It is based in the fundamental question of authority. Which is the more definitive, knowledge (and hence freedom) or love? Paul demonstrates that the real authority resides in love for others and concern for their well-being. That is so simple that there must be something wrong with it! However, for Paul that's the crux of it all. In trying to respond to a divisive and heated issue among the Corinthians, Paul has demonstrated very well how we had better have our priorities straight and know which is most definitive for us.
Mark 1:21-28
In the first lesson God's authority gets communicated through the prophet. In the second lesson, a principle (love) is the authority. Now the authority is embodied in a person. Jesus is in Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee. The story goes through three phases, each of which makes the simple point that people discerned in Jesus a most unusual authority.
The first part of the story reports Jesus' teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum and the response to his teaching (vv. 21-22). Already it appears Jesus has assumed the role of a wandering rabbi who is free to teach in religious gatherings. We are told nothing of what Jesus taught, only that the people were "astonished at his teachings." Presumably we are to look back at 1:14-15 to learn what the content of his teaching was. The people saw that his teaching was different from that of the scribes. The scribes were a part of the religious establishment of the day and among the official interpreters of Scripture, presumably because they were the ones who copied the Scriptures. In Mark they are associated with the Pharisees and chief priests and generally play the role of Jesus' antagonists (e.g., 7:5 and 8:31). The contrast of the authority of Jesus and the scribes makes us curious as to what the distinction is, and Mark leaves us only to draw our own conclusions. Could it be that the authority of the scribes was derivative and Jesus' was direct and personal? The scribes claimed authority on the basis of the Scriptures; Jesus claimed it for himself.
Jesus has made a good first impression. Now that general impression of Jesus is confirmed by a specific incident reported in verses 23-26. This is the first of four exorcisms in Mark, and here "an unclean spirit" is synonymous with a "demon." (In 3:22 Jesus is accused of having a demon and in 3:30 of having an uncleaned spirit.) The ancient world understood the universe to be filled with both evil and benevolent spirits and accounted for numerous kinds of human afflictions through demon possession. The uncleaned spirit cries out, speaking in the plural -- "we" and "us" (see also 5:1-13). The demons were all playing on the same team, so that where there was one demon there were others as well. This demon pretends to have power over Jesus by claiming that it knows Jesus' name, since knowing another's name gave one access to control over them. In fact, however, the opposite will be the case. In Mark the demons recognize Jesus' identity, while humans are unable to do so. Here the demon calls Jesus "The Holy One of God." These evil creatures participate in the spiritual world, so they are privy to knowledge denied humans.
Jesus "rebukes" the unclean spirit. Mark regularly uses this verb when Jesus asserts his control over evil forces. Look at how it is used in Mark's story of Jesus' stilling the storm (4:39) and Peter's resistance to Jesus' prediction of his death and resurrection (8:32). Jesus silences the demonic being and orders it out of this man's life. When a demon has controlled a human life, its departure tears at the very core of one's body. So, the man is convulsed, and the demon cries out as it leaves this human soul. Christ's authority extends beyond this world and into that other realm of the forces of evil. Equally important, notice how Jesus uses his authority in this story. By his authority a human life is freed from bondage to the powers of the demon. Jesus' authority liberates.
The final part of the reading details the response of the witnesses to this exorcism. In verse 22 the people were "astonished" at Jesus' teaching; now in verse 27 they are "amazed" at his act of exorcism. The second word is the verb often used in describing the response of witnesses to a wondrous deed -- the evidence of God's power at work. First, they can only wonder at the authority that is greater than that of the scribes; now they marvel in the presence of an authority that commands demons. They can only ask what in the world this is and make guesses: "A new teaching -- with authority?" Then they run out to tell others what they have experienced, and this wandering Galilean prophet becomes known throughout the land.
Authority needs always to be embodied, or else it is some vague sort of power that is difficult to discern. God's authority gets embodied in the prophets; the authority of God's love becomes embodied in Paul's attitude toward the so-called weaker sister and brother. However, Jesus represents the full embodiment of divine authority. This is not an authority schemed up by humans to try to protect themselves from one another. This is not an authority that seeks to imprison and oppress humans. This is God's authority to liberate us from all that prevents our becoming full and mature children in the divine family, including other so-called authorities. This authority does not rule by threat or brute force, but, as Paul so keenly detected, by love and compassion.
Maybe we don't need an authority that makes us privy to some secret knowledge. Maybe what we need the most is an authority that enables us to live life out of a passionate concern to free one another from oppression. What's become of authority? It's available in God's love in Christ.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
We do not usually think of Moses as a prophet. Rather he is connected in many persons' minds with the crossing of the Red Sea (actually Reed Sea) and the giving of the Ten Commandments. For some, Charlton Heston and Hollywood have engraved those thoughts in their views. However, Moses was indeed a prophet. In fact, the Old Testament considers him to have been the first and the greatest of the prophets (cf. Numbers 12:6-8). He was the mediator of the Word of God to his people, and he fulfilled the prophetic functions of interceding with the Lord for his sinful people (cf. Deuteronomy 9:18-29) and of suffering for their sakes (Deuteronomy 1:37).
In his farewell addresses to the Israelites, which make up most of Deuteronomy, Moses therefore promises, according to our text, that God will not desert his people after Moses dies, but will instead raise up a prophet like Moses to continue to mediate the Word of God to the people.
Why is such mediation necessary? I had a friend once who objected to the thought that we need prophets or priests or similar officials to mediate for us with our Lord. "There is something wrong," she said, "when I can't talk to God directly." And of course there is in fact something wrong. Our sin has stained us, so that it is impossible for us to stand before a wholly pure and righteous God. As another prophet says of God, he is of purer eyes than to behold evil (Habakkuk 1:13), and were we to approach him in our unclean state, we would be destroyed (cf. Exodus 33:3). God takes sin seriously. Therefore we need a God-appointed mediator to speak with God for us. That is the reason that every prayer we utter is prayed in the name or through the mediation of Jesus Christ, for he is, as Hebrews says, our righteous high priest, and because of his sacrifice and through his mediation, we can approach God's throne with confidence to find help in time of our need (Hebrews 4:14-16).
Our text gives a further reason why the Israelites need a prophet to mediate the Word of God to them after they have heard God speak the Ten Commandments to them at Mount Sinai. The people are so overwhelmed by the awesome, overwhelming glory and voice of God that they beg Moses to become their mediator, lest they die (v. 16). Mere mortals cannot bear the thunder, lightning, and fire that accompany God's transcendent presence on earth (cf. Exodus 19:16-20). A prophet must be appointed by the Lord to speak his word to the people, and Moses is that prophet. But he also promises in our text that after he is gone, God will raise up other prophets like him to speak God's word to them.
It is very likely that several of the prophets of the Old Testament, in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., considered themselves to be this promised prophet like Moses. Certainly Jeremiah did, as has been shown by scholarly examination of Jeremiah's call. However, through the centuries, this promise of a Mosaic prophet took on eschatological proportions; that is, the Jews considered that the Mosaic prophet would appear in the new age of God's coming kingdom. In the New Testament, therefore, in the Gospel according to John, we hear the Jews talking about "the prophet" to come. "Are you the prophet?" they ask John the Baptist (John 1:21). "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world," the people exclaim, after Jesus has fed the 5000 (John 6:14). "This is really the prophet," they later say of him (John 7:40). Then Acts confirms that identity of Jesus (3:22-26). Jesus Christ, proclaims the Apostle Peter, is the fulfillment of this ancient promise of Moses' and God's new age of the coming kingdom has begun in the person of our Lord. Jesus Christ is now the one who speaks God's Word to us, who mediates and intercedes for us before the throne of God, and who suffers on our behalf that we may live. To be sure, Christ is much more than a prophet, much more than Moses, much more than a mere mortal. He is also the Son of God incarnate. But the prophet like Moses he also surely is.
It is significant, therefore, is it not, that our text says, "Him you shall heed"? God speaks his words to us through our Lord Jesus Christ -- through all of Christ's commandments and sayings and actions preserved for us in the New Testament. Christ's words and deeds are those of the living God. "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30), Jesus tells us. Through him, God speaks, commands, guides, corrects, strengthens, judges, forgives. To listen to Jesus Christ, to obey him and follow him and live in him is to listen and obey and follow and live in our transcendent, overwhelming, loving heavenly Father. And surely, good Christians, that is life everlasting.
But our text is very adamant about our loyalty to God in Jesus Christ. "Whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name," God says, "I myself will require it of him" (v. 19). In other words, our relation with God is determined by our relationship with Jesus Christ. "He who rejects me, rejects him who sent me," Jesus teaches (Luke 10:16), and God will judge us in the final reckoning as to how we have believed and acted toward his Son our Lord. That sounds very frightening, doesn't it? And yet, it is a gracious invitation to enter into fellowship with our God through the loving forgiveness and abundant mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. We need have no fear, fellow Christians, when we accept our God in the person of his Son.
Our text does take on a fearsome tone, however, in its last verses (vv. 19-20). It says, first, that whoever pretends to be speaking in God's name when God has not sent him to do so is a false prophet worthy of death. The Lord is very hard on fakes, on all of those persons who claim to be speaking God's word when what they are really doing is speaking out of their own minds and according to their own wishes. We have all known preachers and teachers and assorted gurus like that, haven't we? Our text says that God wants no part of them.
But then second, our text comes down very hard on those who speak in the name of other gods. They too are worthy of death, it says. And we know religious speakers like that too, don't we? The Sophia devotees, or the Mother Earth worshipers, the followers of some mystic divine, or those who trust only their inner selves. There are thousands of sects, cults, New Age religionists in our time and society, and all of them are bent on luring us away from our discipleship to Jesus Christ, promising us a dolce vita. They all seem very attractive, because they ask of us so little. But our God asks of us a lot, good Christians. He asks that we love him as he loves us. He asks that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves. He asks that we give up our selfish selves and let him live in us to direct our ways. And through all of the asking, he constantly gives -- his faithful love that never ends, his mercy toward all our failings, his succor in every distress, his guidance through all our difficulties, and finally abundant life and eternal life in communion with him and the faithful of every age. Why on earth or in heaven would we ever turn aside from such love?
