God’s Messengers

Jesus was baptized by John in the river Jordan and then was driven out into the wilderness where he was tempted for 40 days.  Then, after John is arrested, he comes to Galilee for the time has come for the kingdom of God to begin to be spoken into being.  As he passes along the Sea of Galilee, he calls Simon and his brother Andrew and James and his brother John to be his disciples.

Then, together, they go on to Capernaum and when it was the Sabbath, they went to the local synagogue.  Every town that had at least 10 Jewish families had a synagogue, and it was where teaching took place about the Word of God.  The Sabbath service consisted of a prayer, reading Scripture, and teaching.  The synagogue was very different from the Temple in Jerusalem.  On their way to the Temple Mount, hymns of ascent were sung.  At the Temple, sacrifices were made.  There was only one Temple, and that was where you went to worship.  The synagogue was where you went to learn.

There was a Ruler of the synagogue who was in charge of collecting the offering and distributing food to the poor.  There was a Chazzan, the minister, who was in charge of taking out and putting back the scrolls of Scripture and cleaning the synagogue.  But, there was no permanent teacher.  When they met, the Ruler of the synagogue would call on someone who was a scribe.  Scribes were able to explain and teach on the text.  (Barclay)  Scribes were men who had shown promise in the elementary education and had gone on to study with a rabbi before taking a secular job.

Scribes didn’t share a personal interpretation in their teaching.  They gave careful citations of interpretations from the past of the law.  Their interpretation of Scripture would start with “There is a teaching that says…”  Here is the text, this is what it means according to the rabbis.

But Jesus was different.  Jesus didn’t cite other sources of knowledge and interpretation.  Jesus taught with certainty and confidence.  He could say what the Scripture meant without buttressing his teaching with what others had said the passage meant.

If it happened today, there’d be cell phones down low with people texting each other things like: “What is he doing?”  “Are you ok with this?”  “What should we do?”  “I kind of like it.”  But, there weren’t cell phones, so the crowd was, Mark says, astounded.  I imagine they were exchanging some looks.  And all of a sudden, a man shouts, “What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what you’re up to! You’re the Holy One of God, and you’ve come to destroy us!”

Jesus wasn’t preaching like they’d always preached.  He wasn’t reticent to take a stand that was unpopular or controversial.  He wasn’t afraid to lean into the hard teachings of the Bible and let them speak hard truths.  He was an out-of-towner who showed up with his gang and spoke with authority.

And there was a man in the crowd who was deeply disturbed, he can’t take it any longer.  “What business do you have here with us?” he shouts.  Whenever someone speaks with authority, there are always those who resist.  There is something in us that loves what is.  It is safe to love what is; it is comfortable to love what is.  Even though the old message of the scribes was stale and distant from God, it was comfortable.  I can just imagine that this man had been stewing and had had all he could take.  This stranger has no right to come in here and challenge us and disturb the way we have always done things.  But, Jesus rebukes the man.  And the evil spirit, the motivation he had in him to contradict God’s will and God’s way, came out of him.

Jesus has authority over the Word of God, and Jesus has authority over anything hostile to the Word of God.

Rev. Dr. Lamar Williamson is Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Union Presbyterian Seminary, where I studied, and I love what he says about this passage,…see how I just did what Jesus does not do, that the people in the synagogue were used to…Dr. Williamson says of this passage, “The text invites interpreters of Scripture to reflect on how we can both acknowledge our scribal limitations and at the same time be channels for the living, authoritative word of Jesus Christ.”

We are still human, so we are a lot like the scribes.  We need to use good scholarship to interpret Scripture.  When we prepare to teach on a passage, the first thing we consider is the world of the author and the hearers.  What was being said?  What would they have known about that we need to know about to understand the passage?  Then we consider whether our reading of this passage matches the overall teaching of the Bible.  If it doesn’t, perhaps we have misinterpreted.  Then we study what others have said about this passage.  How have others interpreted this passage?  These are all scribal tasks.

But God uses us to be more than scribes.  We are channels of the living, authoritative Word of God.  The Gospel is good news not for its historical value, but for its challenge and hope for us today.  Rev. Chris Andrews says of this passage, “Jesus came to a world that was immersed in religion. But it was a very tired religion. It was a religion that had everything completely under control and that offered a God who did things exactly as they wanted them done.”

Jesus’ teachings were radical.  It was as though when he talked about justice and peace, he was saying God really wanted something to happen.  It was as though when he talked about loving your neighbor, he was saying God meant the one who lives in your neighborhood.  It was as though when he talked about loving your enemy that enemy had a name and you were supposed to learn it and look at him or her in the eyes.  It was as though when he talked about forgiving and showing grace he knew how hard it was and still expected us to do it.  It was as though when he talked about feeding the hungry and clothing the naked he meant for those kinds of activities to be more than good deeds, to be part of our lives.   It was as though he was talking about actually not just doing something different, but being something different.

“I read a story about a boy who was to be in a parade. He was in the clown group and his family had gathered themselves at a choice viewing spot to watch their son march along with all the other clowns. Except that when the clown group came by there was no sign of their son. The dad walked to the area where the parade assembled and found his son sitting on the curb still dressed in his clown costume. ‘What happened?’ he asked the young fellow. And the boy replied, ‘I just never took a step.’” (Rev. Chris Andrews, Jubilee Pioneers)

For most of us, we aren’t disturbed to the point of shouting like the man at the synagogue that Jesus is disturbing us.  We just like what already is, and we lean comfortably on past interpretations of Scripture rather than allowing the Word of God to be alive with authority.  We just don’t take the first step.

Jesus commissioned us to go into the world and proclaim the Gospel.  We are called to be God’s messengers.  When we come to this table, we receive the bread and the cup and we are incorporated into the body of Christ.  Christ’s authority is our authority.  We are God’s messengers, commissioned to speak God’s Word that is radical and alive – this word changes our lives.  What’s your first step?

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.