"What Have You To Do with Us, Jesus of Nazareth?"

A sermon by The Rev. Keenan Kelsey
Noe Valley Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA)
January 29, 2006

Mark 1:21-28

²¹ They went to Capernaum; and when the Sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. ²² They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. ²³ Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, ²⁴ and 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." ²⁵ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" ²⁶ And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. ²⁷ They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching--with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him." ²⁸ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

"What have you to do with Us, Jesus of Nazareth?"

This is an important distinction - Because it is a fair question for us today.

What have you to do with us, Jesus? What are you doing to us, with us for us? What do you want from us? How is it we are so sure we must follow you?

Jesus' first days in ministry had been eventful, if not dramatic: baptism in the Jordan, with heaven being torn apart, God's Spirit and Voice descending; 40 days of temptation and struggle in the wilderness, ending with angels tending to him; the terror of a cousin in prison, and then his death; and just prior to where we enter the story, the "follow me" thing where people dropped what they were doing, left fathers standing in the boats, and responded immediately.

Probably in need of some sanctuary by then, the newly formed entourage withdraws to Capernaum, the home of Peter and perhaps some of the other disciples. On the Sabbath, quite appropriately, they go to worship. Now Synagogues, unlike the temple in Jerusalem where people went to offer sacrifices, were primarily teaching institutions. The law prescribed that there was to be a synagogue in any community that had ten or more Jewish families. Each synagogue had two primary officials: the Distributor of alms who dispensed the daily offerings of food and money to the poor, and the Ruler, who was in charge of administration and arrangements for the services. It was up to the Ruler to call on a different speaker each week to teach and expound on the scripture.

As a visiting rabbi, perhaps as a friend of Peter's, it would not be unusual that Jesus was invited to speak.

And then it begins! The stir that already accompanied Jesus is provoked as soon as he begins to speak. "In these few verses," scholar Leonard Sweet points out "Jesus' role as an authoritative, compelling, charismatic preacher is defined; the kernel of the gospel message is expressed; and drop-everything-discipleship -- the result of seeing Jesus and hearing his message -- is described." What is this? A new teaching, with authority!

Just what was this authority? Why did people sit up and listen, with amazement? Why did the Man with the Evil Spirit cry out? We all have different ideas about authority.... For many of us, anyone in uniform represents authority - In Steve Martin's LA Story, the street signs themselves became larger than life. And then there's 11-year old Nate who wrote, in Children's Letter to God: "Dear God. My dad thinks he's you. Please straighten him out."

There's another great story from former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey. When attending a political dinner in Washington a waiter came around with the butter. "I'd like two pats of butter, " said Bradley. "Sorry, sir," the waiter replied, "it's one to a customer." "Well," said the senator, "I guess you don't know who I am. I am a senior member of the United States Senate. Before that I was an All Star basketball player for the New York Knicks. And before that I was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. I think I can have two pats of butter."

The waiter retorted "I guess you don't know who I am," "No I don't," said Bradley. "Who are you?" The waiter drew himself up to his full five feet five inches, and said proudly: "I' m the guy with the butter."

In the case of Jesus, it seems that it wasn't so much what he said - his content is not even recorded - it's how he said it.

He taught "not as the scribes." That is, cited no legal precedents and quoted no theological experts. He did not equivocate or argue or present opposing viewpoints. It was not that the scribes didn't have any authority. They were the elite, the literate ones, keepers of both written law and oral law. Their teachings would quote chapter and verse, they would tell you everything that previous rabbis had written and argue different viewpoints, often teaching out of a rigid past and unimaginative present. What the scribes would never have done was give their own opinion. Jesus was different.

His teaching involved commitment, not just comment. He took the risk, entered into the situation, moved beyond the outdated rigidities, and spoke to the present need with clarity, insight, and conviction. Whether recognizing an unclean spirit or accusing the Pharisees, Jesus spoke truth to power.

As New Testament scholar B. Harvie Branscomb puts it: "Herein was Jesus' contribution -- himself. By virtue of the fact that he embodied his ideal, what he said was living and vital and impelling. For religion is a personal thing. It can never become an abstract principle. It is a way of life."

Jesus' regarded his hearers with concern, not with contempt. He used simple stories drawn from the experiences of daily life to illustrate his deepest truths. Far from withdrawing to an inner circle of intellectual elitism, he ventured out into the countryside and marketplaces and synagogues to make known his views. He spoke as plainly as possible. No wonder, then, that "the common people heard him gladly."

And finally, out of that concern, Jesus; authority brought not just consolation, but cure. There is a great deal of literature available about authenic leadership, what it consists of and how to recognize it. Much is writen about the importance of authentic action instead of words. Jesus recognized the man possessed by an evil spirit. More significantly, the man recognized Jesus. As often is the case with demoniacs, the sensibilities and perceptions are greatly heightened, almost to the point of a divine madness. What was his demon? We can't tell, because the ancient word labeled any disorder, physical or psychic, as a demon. Quite likely, he wrestled the same demons we do today: fear, guilt, envy, lust, negativism, slander, deceit, revenge, greed, hatred.

Perhaps he was trapped by resentment or self loathing or victimization. Perhaps he was bound by first-century additions or self accusations. But in his terror, he recognized a greater power. Out of a mixture of fear, anger, and even hope, he cried out. It seems he could not help himself - for there, in the middle of the temple, he exposed himself as unclean. Anyone possessed by any diseases, physical, mental or spiritual, was unfit to be present! Yet he cried out, "Have you come to destroy us? Holy One of God."

It is noteworthy, I think, that Jesus had just come from the wilderness, struggling with his own demons and temptations. He knew man's pain and struggle, because he had just experienced his own. As a wounded healer, deeply conscious of the inner workings of the psyche, Jesus named the demons, and ordered them out. The man was at peace.

Jesus spoke for God, as if he were God. No wonder they were amazed. No wonder his fame spread and they followed. His teaching had a self-validating power. His movements and gestures, his eye contact, his physical presence, declared that he was empowered to say what he was saying. His authority clearly came from the Author, that is, from his connection with God. "Jesus, what have you to do with us ?"

I like the way Joy Jordan-Lake put it in an article in the Christian Century. "Jesus makes me nervous," she writes. "It's that lack of ordinary predictability that makes me nervous. Other people have the grace to smile and politely mumble something vague when you make a social faux-pas that sends you stumbling into the mop closets of their private lives. Jesus, on the other hand, strides in quite intentionally, and before he has so much as set his backpack down asks another guest how her fifth husband--or was he just a live-in?--is proceeding with the delinquent child support payments to his former wife..."

The authority of Jesus makes us nervous in the same way that the authority of the famous Roman Catholic social worker Dorothy Day made Psychiatrist Robert Coles nervous. Day was kind of the American version of Mother Teresa. Coles was at that time a medical student at Harvard, who had volunteered to work at the Catholic Worker He young and very proud, full of his own self importance.

Coles arrived at the Catholic Worker office and asked to see Dorothy Day. He was told she was in the kitchen. Coles went into the kitchen and saw her sitting at a table talking to someone. He thought the man she was talking to was probably addicted to something. He looked pretty disheveled, Coles figured he was a homeless street person. Dorothy Day was sitting there at table with him listening closely to what he had to say. She is so intent on what she is doing that she doesn't notice Coles come into the room. He stands there beside the door and waits for her to finish. When she finishes her conversation with the man she stands up, that's when she notices Coles and she asks, "Do you want to speak with one of us?"

Coles had never seen anything like this kind of humility. He said this little encounter changed his life. He saw and understood in an instant what it means to humble oneself as Jesus did when he washed his disciple's feet, when he touched a leper, when he went into the homes of sinners and outcasts and ate with them, when he emptied himself of all human ambition and picked up a cross, when he who had all of the power of God and the angels at his command yet lived as a servant. Coles understood authority in a new and genuine way, a deeply humbling epiphany.

I don't think Jesus, or any teacher, teaches us in order to amaze us. He teaches us so that we might be different, so that we might learn, change, be more like Dorothy Day, more like Jesus himself.

The Greek word that is translated authority is exousia. It suggests: "Taking all that is (the power of the universe) and shaping it, focusing it, in a particular place."

In Mark's view, the creative stuff of the universe was focused through Jesus ... and the result was an authority that healed, that lived with passion and compassion that revolutionized human life. He was a new prophet with the new authority to offer a new teaching. A successor to Moses had arisen.

We too can, by the grace of God, live out of exousia, out of the creative power of God, right here in this church, in this city, in this time. We just have to be open to be moved by his authority, his presence. Whatever irrational forces we battle; Jesus Christ is stronger. His mere presence causes the demon to cry out. Knowing about Jesus is not the same thing as experiencing his liberating power, trusting to it, and then incorporating it as our own. Maybe that's why the people in Capernaum were amazed Something happened in the process of Jesus saying words to them. It was an encounter. It was a meeting. Jesus met them where they were. Jesus touched them deeply and they were amazed.

May it be so for you as well.