FINDINGS III By Harry T. Cook

Epiphany IV 2012   

Mark 1: 21-28         

Harry T. Cook

The passage at hand depicts the onset of Jesus' public exposure/career according to Mark. Following upon the narrative of the calling of the brothers Simon and Andrew and James and John Zebedee, Jesus and his entourage are said to have gone to Capernaum -- the Galilean ground zero -- and to its synagogue where Jesus έδίδασκεν -- "taught," in the sense that a learned one would illuminate, probably in this case, a passage from Torah or Haftarah (see Luke 4:16ff). The Capernaum congregation perceived that he taught with έξουσία, i.e. with the authority that comes from the essential, inner self and not, as the text says, as the scribes. With that observation Mark sets up a confrontation the terms and intensity of which we can only approximate at this 2,000-year remove. The confrontation would not only have been a religious one but a political one as well. The scribes represented the establishment -- not its elite but its entrenched bureaucracy. Jesus represented the challenge of innovation and the upsetting of the applecart. It is, then, not in the least coincidental that Mark places in the synagogue a person with an unclean spirit (indicated, no doubt, by his bizarre behavior). The twisted entity within that man is depicted as recognizing exactly who and what Jesus was: "God's holy one." Mark depicts Jesus as shouting, not at the man, but at the evil entity and in some unknown words or phrase commanding it to leave the man (and supposedly the synagogue), which it did.

As it will turn out, people in general were not that clear as to who Jesus was -- Mark's sardonic humor in saying, in effect, that if an insane person can see Jesus clearly for what he was, what's the matter with supposedly sane people? Does one have to be unhinged in order to appreciate Jesus?

The fact that Jesus' fame (notoriety, actually) was spread around the areas is foreboding. It meant for Mark that Jesus had declared himself against the prevailing system (having spoken with authority, unlike the scribes) and had demonstrated sufficient power in the dismissal of an evil spirit that his presence became one with which the establishment would have to reckon, as reckon it would.

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Remembering now that the Gospel according to Mark made its appearance no earlier than the early 70s C.E., we ask what would it mean for Jesus or anyone to walk into a synagogue (an assembly of post-Temple Jews) and "teach." What was it in Mark's imagination that astounded the congregation and made its members think that the teacher spoke with an inner authority that seemed overpowering? What did he say? Or how did he say it? His exorcism of the evil spirit capped the event. His act put the seal of authenticity upon his teaching.

There is a homiletic direction worth following. It is one thing for the scholar or the theologian (it has long been my contention that you can be one or the other), or for the preacher or the catechist to be perceived as charismatic, to be able to speak in anchorman tones and look the part. It is one thing for him to be seen as wise and insightful. But what makes his teaching have authority is what he does. If he (or she) can banish the evil spirit of ignorance and reaction, can excite a community to innovative thought, and can engage said community in a consideration of what needs to be done to effect justice and attain and maintain peace, that person not only "has" authority unlike the business-as-usual bureaucracy but demonstrates it in the act of employing it to further such desirable ends.

Thus to effect such ends not infrequently entails the challenge of an entrenched establishment or bureaucracy. Such a challenge almost always turns out to ignite conflict between one authority and another. Sometimes the reactionary authority wins out through the application of massive force, as it seemed to in the story of Jesus' arrest, trial and execution. On the other hand, his name and story and ethic have lived on into a third millennium. That's έξουσία for you.