4th Sunday in
Ordinary Time
Cycle B
February 1, 2015 4:00
and 5:30pm
Saint
Margaret Parish, Bel Air
Authority
In the
life experience that you and I have, authority is almost always related to a
position or a title.
For
example, a business employer, a school teacher, an elected official, a parent,
a basketball coach, a priest – all of these people have a certain
authority. It is related to their
position or their title or to both.
This is
very different from Jesus because he has no position or title. But today’s gospel says that “The people are amazed at his teaching, for
he taught as one having authority.”
Jesus’ Authority
This
past week I came across an interesting insight about Jesus’ authority.
The
original word for “authority” in this
passage is Greek. It literally means “out of being” or “out of his own being.”
So
Jesus teaches and drives away evil in this incident “out of his own being.” He
does this from his inner self, from who he is as a person.
Now, it
is easy for us to think of Jesus doing this “out
of his own being.” After all, we
believe – as the unclean spirit says in this passage – that he is “the Holy One of God.”
He is
the Son of God. So no wonder he can
teach and cast out evil “out of his own
being,” out of his inner self, out of who he is as a person.
Our Authority
It is not so easy
to think of ourselves as having this kind of authority.
But, I believe,
Jesus calls us to this and it demands some work from us. It demands above all that we be quiet and
slow enough to look within ourselves and be aware of who we are.
It demands that we
know our strengths, like having a keen mind to understand things quickly or
having good relational skills. It also
demands that we know our weaknesses – like always wanting everything our own
way or not being very flexible.
Having and living
with the authority of Jesus also means that we allow Jesus and his presence
within us and his grace to empower us. It means that we try to really take in
and embrace his way.
And then, with
this inner self, we can act with the authority of Jesus. We can lead the business or coach the kids or
whatever out of our inner being and allow that to influence what we say and do.
Authority over Evil
Today’s gospel also shows Jesus using his inner authority to cast out
evil spirits from the man in the synagogue.
My thought is that there are evil spirits that Jesus can cast out today. And these are fairly prevalent, maybe in all
of us through the cultural air that we breathe.
I am thinking, for example, of the evil spirit of instant
gratification. This spirit is pretty
easy to identify: we want what we want
when we want it and that usually means right now.
This spirit can lead us to an inappropriate expression of sexuality. My pleasure right now becomes the driving
force above any other consideration.
Or this spirit can lead us to an overall impatience. We get impatient with slowed traffic or with
anything or anyone who interferes with what we want right now.
This cultural tendency to instant gratification is really an evil spirit
that needs to be cast out of our personal lives. It can have harmful effects.
Conclusion
So, today’s gospel has two lessons for us.
First, our real authority, the power to impact others for the good
doesn’t come so much from a position or a title but from our inner selves. We see this in Jesus and this can be true for
us too.
And second, we can allow Jesus to be alive within us and act with and
through us. If we do that, then evil
spirits can be cast out of us too.
