Epiphany 4 B

In each of the four Gospels, Jesus has a different ‘first day on the job.’ What Jesus does on his first day on the job is symbolic, and it says a lot about that Gospel and what it’s trying to tell us.

In Matthew, on his first day working Jesus teaches the Sermon on the Mount. His words are important.

In John, on his first day of work, Jesus turns water into wine. Jesus wants us to have life and have it abundantly.

In Luke, on Jesus first day, he preaches a sermon in his hometown about God’s love for other people — and the people try to throw him off a cliff!

You might remember that last week I said the Gospel of Mark is like an action movie… well, on his first day on the job in Mark, Jesus faces off with a demon.

The general theme of this action movie, as we quickly move from one scene to the next: anything that stands in the way of the reign of God — whether it’s a demon, or a rule, or a tradition, or even a fig tree (at one point) — anything that stands in the way of the reign of God is broken down.

The sky is ripped apart at baptism; rules and restrictions are broken; expectations about who is important and who isn’t are shattered; the temple curtain is torn — and all is done, not for the sake of destroying, but in the name of God’s new actions — the Kingdom of God, the reign of God breaking into the everyday lives of the people that God loves.

There is one barrier, in particular, that has to be dealt with right away in the story of Jesus — it’s the question of authority. Who is this Jesus, and why should we believe him?

This was an especially important question in Jesus’ day. Where you came from and who your parents are played a really big role in what kind of authority you had. And anyone hearing the Gospel then, would have really wondered, why Jesus? And especially, why Jesus of Nazareth?? (Jesus of Ruskin?)

• Matthew and Luke do it through genealogies

Mark doesn’t bother. In order to prove the authority of Jesus, he gets right into the action. And the first day on the job for Jesus follows right on the heels of picking up recruits — in last week’s Gospel we heard Jesus walk about to 4 guys and say, ‘hey, follow me.’ And they said, ‘sure, OK.’

And immediately Jesus finds himself in the synagogue, teaching. Altho we don’t actually get to hear what he says, we know his teaching is exceptional for a couple reasons. For one, the people present are amazed that he teaches ‘as one with authority’. His teaching is different from the scribes — and they were ones at the time primarily responsible for interpreting scripture and teaching it. Again, we can’t know exactly how his teaching was different, but we get a clue from the other way that his teaching that day was exceptional:

Something that Jesus says raises the anger of an unclean spirit in the synagogue. An unclean spirit or a demon that we are told is possessing some poor guy who was there that day. Now, we don’t usually think of people these days as having unclean spirits (or at least we use different words) but it fits the theme of the Gospel to say that this man possessed some barrier, something that affected his body and mind that stood between him and the reign of God. Something in him was in the way of God’s love.

And whatever Jesus was teaching about smacked right up against this barrier.

And the unclean spirit cries out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” In other words, “why are you here? Why are you not letting things just stay as they are?” The unclean spirit realizes that Jesus isn’t going to let him keep haunting, holding back this poor guy. Whatever it is, it realizes it’s no match for Jesus. Jesus commands it to leave and it does.

If you or I had been there, we might be a little perplexed about what just happened… I mean, really, a demon just left the man? Where did it go?

But the people there that day knew exactly what happened. It’s all about authority.

You see, when Jesus confronts this ‘unclean spirit,’ this barrier, this evil in the life of the man, he doesn’t obliterate it. It doesn’t disappear. It just loses its power, it loses its authority.

Whatever was binding this man, whatever was standing between him and the love of God doesn’t cease to exist, but instead gets broken, ripped apart so that God’s love can take hold of this man — so that God’s love now has authority.

Ahh, now the meaning for us becomes clearer. Because I think we, in our time, can identify with this. With the fact that pain and suffering still do exist in this world. And nothing that we do can make them not exist.

Evil is ever present, and all around us. We continue to be shocked by acts of violence in places that should be safe. We are surprised by broken relationships in families where there should be peace. And no matter what we do, death is always knocking at the door — it never goes away, altho we often pretend it’s not there, until something calls our attention to it again. Death is a reality, but the question again is authority.

Jesus himself faces the reality of death on his last day on the job. And in his most important healing, his most important miracle, Jesus shows us that not even death need not have authority over us. Not even death can hold back the love of God, and the final barrier is ripped apart so that we can see that in all things, in life and in death, God’s love has authority for us. Not pain, not suffering, not death.

This must be the teaching that amazed the people that day. Jesus taught with authority and about authority, and about love breaking down barriers. He taught that the everyday decisions we make need not be about evil, about death — they should be about love, about life.

This action movie Gospel has this good news for us, too. That whatever barriers come between you and the reign of God will be broken down by God’s love. That the evil in our world is inevitable, and it will not disappear. But God’s love for us means that that stuff has no authority over us. God’s love not only heals, and brings us wisdom, but it also breaks apart every rule, every barrier, every evil thing that would try to have authority in your life.

Hospital rooms are changed into holy places. People born with disabilities aren’t defined by them. People who live with violence are given hope. People who grieve are also given joy. And even the most cold hearted of us are given courage to do the craziest thing which is to love our neighbors as ourselves.

The Gospel is that in Christ, God does all this not be magically wiping everything away, but by facing every evil, every barrier, and even death itself head on so that we can live life under a new authority: the love of God.