Gospel Mk 1:21-28
Then they came to Capernaum, and on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are? the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet! Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this?
A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
Homily
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In the gospel reading for this weekend, Jesus is described as a person with authority; Jesus got others to do his will. In this case those who did his will were the unclean spirits of whom everyone at that time was afraid. Unclean spirits were more powerful than humans but less powerful than God. Spirits readily interfered (or intervened) in human life, sometimes benevolently, sometimes capriciously, and sometimes malevolently. Spirits had power to control human behaviour. In this story Jesus is confronted by an unclean spirit but much to the amazement of the people, Jesus is not controlled or cowed by this unclean spirit. Instead, Jesus shows that his power is stronger than that of the spirit. Jesus commands the spirit to come out of the man, and it does! In this act of Jesus the people have an answer to their question. Jesus teaches with authority because he has power far superior to that of their scribes. “He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” The Spirits obey Jesus because they know who he is. “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are? the Holy One of God!” The question then becomes; do we really know the people to whom we give power over us? Because of the compartmentalization of our lives we give many people power over us, but there has to be a hierarchy of values by which we live and therefore a hierarchy among those who epitomize these values. For us disciples of Jesus there are the values of the gospel and the person, Jesus Christ. It is to Jesus Christ that we have to give authority over us before any other person or guru in the world today. We cannot be true disciples of Jesus if we give authority over us to others before Jesus Christ. If the medical gurus or health gurus or soca stars or any other person is listened to and obeyed before Jesus Christ, we have in fact transferred our allegiance, and we are no longer true disciples of Jesus.
In our age there are many voices calling for our allegiance and some of them in extremely subtle ways. We need therefore to be extremely focused or we are likely to be misled. When we look at the lives of the saints, our models of Christian living, we find that they were extremely focused. Jesus and his message topped their hierarchy of values. St. Paul in the letter to the Philippians tells us; “to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Nothing mattered to him but preaching Christ Jesus. The age of the martyrs also tells us true disciples also lived only for Christ and were willing to give up everything, even earthly life, for Christ. The lives of all the saints proclaim this to us loud and clear. For us Christians, disciples of Jesus, the person who must top our hierarchy of those to whom we must give authority over us is Jesus Christ and his message has to be the yardstick of our lives, no other guru with his/her message must be at the top. May God give to all of us the wisdom to put Jesus at the top.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, there are many voices out there calling us to give them our allegiance. Give us we pray the grace of discernment so that amidst all these voices we may clearly hear that of your son Jesus whose message is the only one to bring us true freedom and happiness. We ask this through the intercession of Mary our mother and the same Jesus, your son. Amen
