Authoring Authority

 Read Here! Mark 1:21-28

When I was a kid, the second worse thing we could hear our mom say was, “Wait until your father gets home.” Then, whatever we’d done — pushed a little brother, shoved our lunch off the table, scribbled crayon on the walls — we knew we were in for more trouble when Dad got home. My dad carried this kind of power over us. He could tell us, “come here, right now” and even though we knew we were walking towards our punishment, we’d do it anyway. Even if it was a rare-but-for-sure spanking, we knew that we’d be in for more trouble if we didn’t just do exactly as we were told in that moment. 

But the absolute worst thing I could hear from my parents, worse than any grounding or restriction or spanking, was the words “I am so disappointed in you.” It was enough to keep me in line, that fear, that thought that maybe, just maybe, my parents would be disappointed in me. That they would no longer like the person I was becoming.

Sure, my dad had the power to track me down and dole out all kinds of punishments, but it was his authority, his ability to form an image of me and of who I was, that had me quaking in my boots. I did everything I could to avoid that horrid and life-long sentence that was disappointment.

I think about this difference between power and authority while reading our scripture for today. Jesus teaches as one with authority, not like the scribes. This authority is emphasized twice in our short little passage for the day.

Jesus teaches with authority, not like the scribes. But the scribes were those in charge of interpreting Jewish law. They had the power to condemn or to bless, depending on how they deciphered and then enforced the commandments of God. 

And then Jesus also has the authority to silence and then cast out the unclean spirits. And these spirits that have control over this man not only have the power to force him into convulsions, but it also have the power of knowing who Jesus is, for, back then, knowledge of someone’s name or identity was thought to have power over that person. 

So here we have two extremely powerful entities: The scribes - those who have the power to interpret and carry out the law of God. And the demonic spirits - those who know the identity of Jesus, and could, presumably, have power over him.

And in comes Jesus.

And he doesn’t come in with power.

I suppose he could have. Maybe he could have come in to the synagogue with thunderclouds and lightning. He could have sent the earth quaking or toppled the temple or brought in a swarm of locusts. He could have doled out punishments and penance for those who had broken the Jewish law. He could have come with a million dollars for each of us, or a new convertible. He could have done some voodoo Jedi mind control tricks.He could have come in with power. But he doesn’t.

He comes in to the synagogue and he teaches. 

And then he frees.

And this isn’t power. 

This is authority. 

See, God doesn’t come to us with power. Oh, that I wish God would, sometimes. 

Sometimes I want God to send the evil into convulsions or punish sinners. Sometimes I wish God would come and give those who abuse and neglect and hoard and consume what’s coming to them. If only God could come with power. Then maybe the world would right itself and there’d be no more war or famine or child abuse. 

But this isn’t how God comes to us. 

God comes to us, not with power, but with authority. 

See, authority is different from power. Like my dad, who was bigger than we were, who could have chased us down and put us over his knee or locked us in our rooms or taken away our car keys at any point, he didn’t need to, because he had authority. He had the ability to see us for who we truly were and author for us our future stories of who we were going to be. 

See, people are amazed by Jesus, not because he comes with power, but because he comes with authority. Jesus comes to the synagogue on that sabbath day and tells the story of who these people are. You are beloveds of God. And you are free.

He doesn’t disburse punishments like the scribes.

He doesn’t control and command and overwhelm like the demonic spirits.

Both the scribes and the spirits, there is no doubt, are powerful. They both have the ability to control, manipulate, and abuse. But they don’t have the authority that Jesus has. 

Jesus comes in with the authority to author our lives. He comes in to the synagogue to say, “you are loved. And you are free.”

Think of all the things that have power of us. Money. Prestige. Stress. Comparison. Migraines or cancer or arthritis. Broken relationships. Fear. Depression. These are powerful things. They have the power to punish us, make us suffer, even force us into convulsions. So often they control what we think about ourselves, how we treat each other, how we view our future. 

But we must remember - these things may have all kinds of power over us, but they don’t have the authority. They don’t get to decide who and whose we are. 

These powers can overwhelm and control our entire lives. They can grab hold of our lives and shake us and bring us to our knees. 

But they don’t have the authority. Jesus does. 

Authority is the ability to author. It is the ability to see and create. It is the ability to tell the story. We are beloved. We can be freed from the  things that have so much power over us.

Jesus came to tell us the story of who we are and whose we are. Jesus knows that the possessed man’s story is so much more than that of being possessed. Jesus names and claims this man as more than the sum of the things that have power over him. 

Jesus came to the synagogue to tell him and the crowd and us that we are more than the powers that seem to have so much control over us. The folks around Jesus are amazed because Jesus is able to tell them who they are. He doesn’t tell them what they have to do, like the scribes do. And he doesn’t trick them into thinking they’re something “unclean,” like the spirits do. He comes and he teaches the people who they are. And who they’re not. Jesus comes and teaches us who we are. And who we aren’t. He is authoring us into being. He is naming who we are and who we aren’t. He’s creating us, authoring us.

He came to tell us that we are not our demons. We are not the sum of all those outside things that dictate who we are and how we spend our time. We are not our cancer or our depression or our broken relationships or our tendency to sleep in on Sunday mornings. We are not our bank accounts or our hedge funds or our political affiliations. We are not our jobs our our cars or our membership to some elite club or overflowing megachurch. To all those things that have so much power over us, Jesus says, “Be silent. Come out of him.” To all those things that make us feel like disappointments, Jesus says, “Be silent. Come out of her.” “This fear and judgment and resentment and jealousy is not who you are. You are a child of God, authored by the one who sent the galaxies swirling and the thunderclouds roaring.” 

Jesus doesn’t come with power, because power isn’t what we need. We need someone with authority. We need someone who authors us into being. We need someone to tell us that we are more than all those demonic spirits that have so much power over us. We need a God to write us into being, to word us into being, someone with the ability to see and tell and know our stories and then release us from all the oppressive forces that have us so trapped and powerless. 

Jesus is here, writing our story for us, authoring who we are with authority.

And like my parents, he doesn’t need power, he just needs love. That’s where the real authority comes from. 

Because could I ever really be a disappointment to my parents? Not if I’m living in to who they and God have authored me to be. On their best days, my parents didn’t use their power to manipulate and control. They used their authority, based on their love for me, to remind me who I am.

I am a child of God. And my story is written by God, who loves and cares for me. That’s authority. God’s authority states that you are a child of God, your story is written by God, and God wants to free you from all those things that seem to have so much power over you. The things that destroy can’t destroy when we remember who authors our lives. A man is healed, not with power, but with authority. Jesus authors his life. He writes a new story for him: you’re more than the demons that are controlling you. You’re you, child of God, beloved one, freed from the forces that had so much power over what you did and who you thought you were and what you thought your future might look like. 

Jesus doesn’t need power, because he has authority. And Jesus has authored us as whole, beloved, children of God.

Thanks be to God.