Homily for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

“The people were astonished at His teaching . . . for He taught as one having authority and not as the scribes.”

The people in today’s Gospel would have been accustomed to hearing the preaching and teaching of the scribes and rabbis. They would also have heard any number of itinerant preachers, just like Jesus, as they made their way through Capernaum. They may even have gone out into the desert to hear John the Baptist preach his message of repentance.

And yet these people notice something crucially different about the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth: “He taught as one having authority and not as the scribes.”

Just what is the nature of Jesus’ teaching and authority that makes it so noticeably different from that of the scribes?

If we think about it for a moment we have all known teachers, bosses, police officers, coaches, sadly even priests and religious, who don’t carry authority well. Insecure in who they are, their authority and power rest solely in their title or office.

As a result, they can wield authority like a weapon, lest anyone sense their vulnerability. They are quick tempered and difficult to please and as a result are feared by many. They insist on the black and white of the rules and are always suspicious that others are attempting to undermine their authority.

Or, on the other hand, they might quickly cede the authority of their office to others, lest something be expected of them personally. In these instances they are incapable of making decisions themselves and are desperate to be everyone’s “friend,” instead of their teacher, coach, boss, or parent.

Perhaps, if we’re honest with ourselves we might even recognize in these descriptions some patterns of leadership or parenting that we too fall into from time to time.

But, you and I have also known teachers and bosses, and coaches and priests who do carry authority well. Graced with good self-knowledge, they’re comfortable in their own skin and confident in the role they have been given. Everyone knows that they’re in charge and yet everyone feels encouraged and supported as well.

Their authority comes from within, from who they are, not just from the title they have been given.

Friends, this is the crucial difference in Jesus’ teaching that the people in today’s Gospel immediately perceive. Unlike the authority and teaching of the scribes, which comes from the Law – a reality external to who they are – Jesus’ authority and teaching comes from within Himself, from who He is.

A few weeks ago we celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. The Scriptures we heard proclaimed that day recounted that Jesus came up from the waters of the Jordan and heard a voice from Heaven saying: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

I said then, and I say again now, that Jesus’ awareness of this central reality of His life was what defined everything else about Him – everything else He said, and everything else He did. It was the source of Jesus’ true identity and thus the source of the authority and power of His teaching.

To make just this point, in today’s Gospel, Mark interrupts his synagogue scene to record another event, which gives answer to the people’s question. A man possessed by an “unclean spirit” is brought forward and the demon, recognizing who Jesus is, says: “I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

The answer to the people’s question is that Jesus’ authority, power and teaching come from who He is, from His identity as God’s beloved, and from the centrality of His relationship with His heavenly Father.

I also said a few weeks ago, that by Baptism we share in Jesus’ relationship with the Father, and that we need to come to know the deepest reality of who we are as God’s beloved.

We need to drown out the many contrary voices within ourselves and around us and concentrate solely on the divine voice that calls us beloved.

When we don’t concentrate on that central reality of who we are, we get ourselves into all sorts of trouble. We search desperately for the contentment that only living as God’s beloved can truly bring. We try to fill the hole that’s left behind with all sorts of other things: drugs and alcohol, sex, possessions and power.

But, increasingly cut off from our true selves, we become divided, like the possessed person in today’s Gospel. Notice the demon says, “What have you to do with us?”

And so in today’s second reading, St. Paul says to the Corinthians, and to us: “I should like you to be free of anxieties,” and adhere to the Lord “without distractions.”

Friends, we certainly cannot expect that we will be able to exercise leadership or authority of any kind in an appropriate way, if we are anxious or internally divided.

If we want to be better supervisors or employers, better teachers or parents – or more to the point, if we want to have true self-confidence and exercise authority gracefully – then like Christ Himself, we must ground our identity in our relationship with the Father, and then see that everything we say, and everything we do, comes out of our identity as the beloved of God.