LEADING FROM WITHIN
Mark 1:21-28
Facing authority starts very early in our lives
Richard Fairchild , the web-master of a web page entitled Sermons and Sermon-Lectionary Resources comments on hearing some of the voices of authority at an early age:
” Did your mother ever say any of the following to you?
– I could plant potatoes in those ears.
– I’m not your maid.
– If your friends jumped off a cliff does that mean you have
to jump too?
Perhaps these phrases are familiar to you as well
– Just wait till you have kids of your own
– Don’t talk with food in your mouth
– You weren’t born in a barn, so stop acting like you were
And of course I am sure you have heard, if not uttered, the all
time classic – ‘Because I’m your mother, that’s why!’ “
(Richard Fairchild Sermons and Sermon-Lectionary Resources)
These are all voices of authority – parental authority. They come from our position of being parents.
We face other authority figures in our life. We have all known the authority of the police officer, the doctor, the teacher, and to some extent even a priest. The list seems endless. Sometimes people with this kind of authority can give us anxiety. I remember a police officer catching me with some friends when I was a kid and reprimanding me for putting a metal slug, the size of a nickel in a parking metre. A trip to the Doctor can be scary. There is what they call the “white coat syndrome”. All I need to do is go into the doctor’s office and my blood pressure rises. We can probably relate to being uncomfortable when we haven’t met the expectations of a teacher. Even priests can make us feel ill at ease. My Sister-in-Law who grew up in a small Anglican village in Newfoundland where there was only one church has told me stories of the kind of influence the parish priest had in the community. The young people ( and undoubtedly the older people as well) often felt the severe judgement of the priest. For example, if they were seen violated the town curfew on Friday night they would be mentioned by name in church the following Sunday. I have never had that experience as a young person or as a priest. Even though I have been a priest for 35 years I have never claimed that authority. Although I have noticed that when I am with group of people who don’t know me very well, there is a uncomfortable feeling when they discover that I am a minister. Their language changes for some reason. They are not completely “themselves” in my presence.
This kind of authority that we have been talking about comes from the position that a person has been given. The anxiety comes from the fact that these people exercise some control over our lives in one area of another.
I believe that it is the kind of authority that the Pharisees and the scribes had in Jesus time Their authority was derived by the position that they had been given and they exercised some control over peoples lives.
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In the Gospel this morning we have Jesus teaching in the synagogue. And the people were astounded because “he taught them with authority and not as the scribes”. I believe that this was a different kind of authority. It was an authority that people recognized as coming from God. It was an authority deriving from the spirit within. It was an authority that did not have to proclaimed but was recognized by the hearers because it touched them within. It is much the same as a beautiful piece of music. No one needs to tell us how beautiful lit is. We know from listening. It touches us deeply within. The authority of Jesus was a powerful charismatic. authority
There are dangers to this kind of authority as you well know. As someone has said, “Authority is a wax nose, it can be twisted in different directions.” (Alonus of Lillie Revelation and Response)
This powerful authority can be used to control others. We have witnessed some of the disturbing results that have come to people following a charismatic leader of a cult. All we have to do is mention the name of “Jonestown” and images come to mind of mass suicide of the followers of Jimmie Jones. I remember one of our bishop’s remarking at the time that this was the extreme consequence of people handing over their minds to another person. This one of the abuses of charismatic authority.
Jesus did not use his authority to control others. He used it primarily in compassion for others. It’s main source was love. While he taught in the synagogue on this morning, he not only touched the people with his words. They also witness his authority in his action of reaching out to releasing a person from an “evil spirit”.They saw a person who was seen as being possessed, who was trapped, frustrated and unable to act on his own. Jesus reaches out in compassion to that person and releases him. The authority of Jesus has its basis in his word of liberation. It sets free. Sometimes need to hear the words, “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.” Jesus’ authority is that which sets free, enlarges life beyond the current parameters. It has to do with new possibilities.
Jesus authority did not go in the direction of control but went in the direction of humility and service. Do you remember when there was an argument between the disciples as to who should be first, Jesus answered them:
“You know that among the Gentiles those who they recognized as their rulers lord it over them, and their great one are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wants to be first among you must be your servant… For the Son of Man came not be served but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many” Mark 10:42-45
True Christian Leadership is a servant leadership. Like Jesus we lead from within.
The other problem with this charismatic authority is that it can become completely self focussed.
In an article in the Washington Post a few years ago entitled Believers in God, if not the Church, Hanna Rosin, brings to our attention that there are many people in America today who have become so disillusioned by authority of the Church that they seek direct access to God and are forming their own religions. There are some thoughtful reaction to this trend. Some of the church leaders have pointed out that our demand for direct and personal access to God without any authoritative mediators can lead to seeing God as existing only to meet our needs.
“This should be called the ME-lennium,” said Rev. Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches, an umbrella of traditional Protestant denominations concerned with civil rights-era causes. “They’re not building community, they’re building individual comfort zones.”
“We’ve trivialized God,” said Larry Crabb, a Christian psychologist and popular author. “Most of these books assume God is the butler who serves you for one reason,” he says of the list of current bestsellers. “To give you a happy life. We’ve turned Him into a divine Prozac.”
Washington Post, Jan 18th, 2000
When I think of my faith, I can’t possibly experience personally the height, depth, width, and length of the total Jesus experience. Sometimes when I read the scriptures I cannot say with all honesty that what the author is talking about is part of my experience, so I say “this is the way they experienced it, and perhaps in my growth in faith, I may some day experience it that way”. The view of Jesus’ life and work in the scriptures challenges me to grow beyond by present experience. So does the understanding of the church over the years challenge me. I have to rely on the experience of many people who have known Jesus over the past two thousand years. I have to put my experience beside the experience of a much larger authority.
Also, God is interested in our lives and our every need and situation but God also demands of us responsibility. Jesus authority included the demand to follow him as true disciples and that there was a cost in that discipleship. Recently I read somewhere of a person who had been involved in a particular congregation for some years. He intimated to the young clergy assistant that he was thinking of leaving the congregation because as he put it, he wasn’t being fed enough. He mentioned that although the young minister had probably forgotten his answer, he had always remembered it and it had a profound effect on his life. He said, “Bob, you have been fed quite a bit over the years. Don’t you think it is about time you started to feed others?” Some of us want the benefits but we don’t want the responsibility. The church teaching, the rituals and the way of life can help us to keep a balance. It need not be authoritative in a controlling way but authoritative in a nurturing and loving way.
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The authority of the church and the authority of all Christians is ultimately derived from Jesus, and the authority of Jesus is always derived from Love. It is an authority from within. It is an authority the reaches out to us at our deepest need. It is an authority that teaches us, nurtures us and at the same time challenges us. Yet it is an authority that once we have experienced cannot easily turn our backs on and ignore.
Do you remember the story of Helen Keller, who struggled with her blindness and all the challenges that her physical limitations presented her with. It was a teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan that made the difference in her life. She became her teacher and loving authority when Helen was about 7 years old. Here is how she describes the meeting Anne Sullivan:
On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb, expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother’s signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps…. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and deep languor had succeeded this passionate struggle.
Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding -line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was.
I felt approaching footsteps. I held out my hand. Someone took it, and I was caught and held close in the arms of her who was to reveal things to me, and above all things else , to love me.
Helen Keller The Story of My Life
It is similar to the way that we experience the authority and teaching of Jesus. We don’t know the marvels and the surprises that await us in the future for He has many things to reveal to us. And above all, he loves us as if we were the only ones on earth.
The quesions for all of us are : “On a scale of one to ten: what authority does Jesus have in my life?”. “How can he free us so that it might be a 10?”
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