Text: Mark 1:21-28
Our gospel lesson for today begins with Jesus teaching in the synagogue.
And the people of Capernaum were astounded by his teaching.
It wasn’t simply what he taught, but how he taught it.
Jesus exuded authority: power, freedom, ability…
The words were not simply something he had read, but something he possessed.
They brought into being the reality they proclaimed.
As the Message translation describes it, “They were surprised at his teaching – so forthright, so confident – not quibbling and quoting like the religion scholars.”
I must admit, I almost start to take offense to that.
After all, I’m one of those religion scholars, those teachers, trying my best to make sense of the text and what I know and what I don’t know.
You are a scholar, too.
You are a theologian, taking the scriptures and your prayers and studies and doing the best you can to make sense of it all.
And we all quibble and quote.
We have our favorite texts and verses and we rely upon the teachers and leaders who have formed us.
We turn to people whom we believe have the authority to guide us… and we trust them to help us gain knowledge.
But it is also a world of social media and fake news that is so polarized it feels like we are living in alternate realities.
Something happens in the world and we interpret the events completely differently.
What is truth?
In college, I took a class on epistemology. Epistemology simply is the study of knowledge and it explores what is a justified belief and what is simply opinion.
C. I. Lewis claimed that knowledge, or truth, comes from our experiences, but those experiences are always interpreted through our definitions or concepts.
For example, two people might experience an hour very differently… for one it passes quickly and for another it drags on. But because they share the concept that an hour is sixty minutes and have devices that monitor that span of time, they can meet after an hour has passed.
We come to share concepts and definitions, “by the business of living together and the methods of naming, pointing, and learning by imitation,” Lewis writes.
And so, we come to understand together, collectively, that this is green…
The sky is blue… tomorrow is Monday…
An action is good…
But when I follow one teacher, and you follow another…
When my social media feed is filled with one perspective and yours looks completely different…
When I get my news from one source, and you another… are there any concepts or definitions or knowledge that we share?
We used to have something called the fairness doctrine in broadcasting. It was introduced by the FCC in 1949 and it required broadcasters to do two things: One, they had to present controversial issues so that the public could be informed. Two, they had to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced.
In effect, it created shared concepts because we named and pointed to the same issues in the world and at least had the same language to talk about them, even if there were differences of experience.
However, the policy was ended in 1987 and it is just one example of the many ways we have stopped living together.
We are swimming in a world of relativity, separateness, and disconnection.
We no longer share the same concepts or definitions.
Racism…. Socialism… sexism… accountability…
What do those words mean? What is true and real and good?
Maybe we, like the people of Capernaum, are longing for a greater authority.
Some truth with a capital “T.”
Words that have power to not simply fill the air, but to name and change reality.
As we read last week, Jesus came into Galilee announcing, “Now is the time! Here is God’s kingdom! Repent, change your hearts and your minds, and trust this good news!”
The gospel is good news.
It is truth and knowledge and proclamation of reality.
He entered the village and, on the Sabbath, sat down in the synagogue and began teaching.
And God’s Kingdom began to become real for them.
It had power and life and being and it was present in their very midst.
And the people were compelled by this reality to repent, to change their hearts and minds.
After all, Jesus was calling them to relinquish the knowledge that could be quibbled over to embrace something that was really and actually true.
But what happens to the power of ignorance or division when the Kingdom takes hold?
What happens to the power that denies life and sows misinformation?
The power that diminishes the value of another person?
Mark names that power… that spirit… “unclean.” “Evil.”
And when confronted with the words and the teaching of Jesus, that spirit began to fight.
Right there in the synagogue it cried out, throwing the community into chaos, “What have you to do with us? Have you come to destroy us?”
We don’t know how long that evil spirit had held power over that person and that community.
We don’t know the kind of damage it inflicted.
What we do know is that Jesus acts.
Jesus rebukes the spirit, stops the harm and expels it from their midst.
God has given us “the freedom and power” as our United Methodist baptismal vows proclaim, “to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.”
How can we fight back against forces that have separated and trapped us in cycles of misinformation and suspicion?
So what can we learn from Jesus about how to resist the power of division in our midst?
Jesus takes away its voice and drags it into the light of day where it dies.
Jesus rebukes it, shouting, “Silence! Come out!”
Now, today, in this moment, we see that silencing happening all around.
Cancel culture, after all, is rampant from people on all sides.
If we don’t like what someone has to say or what they believe, we simply unfollow them.
We ban them.
We scroll past.
We end friendships.
I want to start by saying that boundaries are important.
If you are being harmed by what another person is saying or doing, it is absolutely appropriate to separate yourself and to no longer allow their words to have power over you.
But so much of the kind of silencing we experience today simply reinforces our echo chambers. It drags us deeper into our separate spheres and we begin to see other human beings not as full and complex people but as a sound byte that can be dismissed.
And that is why I think we have to pair Jesus’s command to be silent with his call to come out.
To place our experiences and our knowledge in the light of day where we can hold it up to God’s intentions for our world.
Where we can truly compare our sources and our information with humility, an understanding that we might not have the full picture.
It is a call to re-engage.
To be present with one another.
To listen and seek to understand those we disagree with.
Jesus never asks us to set aside our experiences and perspectives, but to allow them to interact as we discern together where the authority of God our Creator and Redeemer is active and moving.
It is a call to share life with one another.
This week, our daily devotions will explore scriptures relating to God’s authority.
We’ll think about people who spoke God’s word into our midst and times when we had to set aside what we thought was true based on new information. We’ll think about what it means to humbly remember we are not the center of the universe.
But perhaps the most important scripture about authority we will read is the last one.
Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians that we can have all of the right words and all the right answers, but if we have no love for others, all of that knowledge and truth and experience is for nothing.
Love is the force that created us.
Love is the power that unites us.
Love is the reality that truly offers life.
There is an organization called Braver Angels that is working to try to bring people together in these incredibly divisive times. This week in its newsletter, they highlighted a relationship between a Quaker and a QAnon-believer in Maryland.
Their goal is not to change the other person, but to understand where they are coming from. The author notes:
“They don’t agree on much, though both believe in the importance of integrity in elections and media. But their definitions of integrity differ… [One of them] suggested they decide on a glossary, so that they actually speak the same language.”
These two people are taking the time to listen to one another and to build a common life.
That is the kind of Kingdom that Jesus calls into being.
It is an invitation for people who are radically different to build a common life.
Jesus calls sinners and saints.
Young and old.
Jews and Gentiles.
Blue-collar fisherman and white-collar government workers.
Men and women and people of various ethnic backgrounds.
Pharisees and Zealots.
And we come to learn that we need one another.
We are called to reorient our lives under an authority greater than any of our own experiences.
An authority that created the world and everything in it.
An authority that commands us to love.
So maybe in the coming days and weeks, wherever the forces of division or hatred rear their ugly head in this world, accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist.
Speak out loud if you have to: “I see you. I know what you are. And I refuse to let you separate me from others.”
Choose instead to cast it into the light of God’s love.
Love that puts others first.
Love that doesn’t hold grudges or delight in others mistakes.
Love that seeks the truth.
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