PRESCRIPT: This sermon was preached in the context of a Baptismal service; hence, references toward the end of the sermon to Baptismal vows.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I am a great fan of the animated television series, South Park. Now, I know South Park is a controversial program, sometimes for very good reasons; but when they are done well, shows like South Park – along with other shows like The Simpsons or Family Guy – actually have important things to say. The extreme lives lived by their characters, the absurd situations by which they are confronted, and the often shocking tactics they utilise to resolve their conundrums, are often all-too-accurate reflections of underlying attitudes or processes that exist within “normal” society. Quite often, shows like South Park are controversial precisely because they hit a nerve: we recognise ourselves or our cherished values in the grotesque distortions of satire; and, stung by the recognition, we respond by attacking the program. We complain about bad language or depictions of violence, or allege disrespect for religious belief – anything, in fact, to avoid looking at the mirror being held up to our faces; anything to avoid looking at the reflection we know all-too-well. One of my favourite episodes of South Park occurs early in the second series, when one of the main characters, Cartman, somehow contrives to become a police officer. Now, for those of you who are unfamiliar with South Park, Cartman is a thoroughly obnoxious character: to say he was lazy, narcissistic, and bigoted would be to describe some of his better qualities! And once in a position of power, Cartman immediately begins to abuse it, bullying the townsfolk to his sadistic heart’s content and generally making everyone’s life miserable.
In this episode, Cartman fits a recognisable type: the otherwise utterly innocuous individual who, due to circumstances beyond their control, achieves a little power – and who immediately allows that power to go straight to their head. Cartman’s loss of control is symbolised by a catchphrase which became so popular it even entered the language; throughout the episode, Cartman shrieks at the top of his lungs: “I am a cop! You will respect my authoritah!” Indeed, so ubiquitous did this saying become that, all on its own, it came to symbolise the petty tyrant, the jumped-up nobody with an intolerable chip on their shoulder.
It would be fair to say that over the course of its history, the Church has had its fair share of Cartmans. Clergy and laity, high and low, there have been Christians who have viewed the life of faith as a matter of by-laws and regulations, of obedience to rules and to hierarchies – especially those rules which they have written, or those hierarchies which they control. Now, the life of faith is a disciplined life; and every faith tradition has its own internal ordering. But properly understood, this discipline and ordering is not about who calls the shots or who has to tow the line; properly understood, this discipline and ordering speaks to how a faith tradition understands the nature of God, how God’s nature informs the relationship between God and humanity, and how this relationship is embodied and reflected in the life of the worshipping community. In other words, the discipline and ordering of any faith tradition ought to be part of that tradition’s teaching ministry; it ought to reflect what that tradition teaches about God, about God’s relationship with us, and about our relationships with one another.
What this all means is that the discipline and ordering of the life of faith are as much theological issues as they are administrative or organisational issues. And when we understand discipline and the ordering of the Church as a theological issue, we understand that authority, in this context, is not about power or control, it’s not about “who’s in charge” or who must obey. Rather, authority, understood in a theological context, points us in the direction of service; we come to understand that it’s about enabling human flourishing by enabling people to enter into relationship with God.
This theological concept of authority is articulated in today’s passage from Mark’s Gospel through two key events: Jesus teaching in the synagogue; and the healing of the man possessed by an unclean spirit. Neither of these events is about power or “being in charge”, even though Jesus seems to appear front-and-centre in both episodes. Rather, the actions which Jesus performs point to the purpose for which they are performed; and it is this purpose which articulates Jesus’ understanding of authority as liberating service to others.
Mark says that Jesus taught in the synagogue as “one having authority, not as the scribes”. He also reports that everyone was “astounded” by his teaching. Now, Jesus “teaching with authority” does not mean that he merely stood up and put on a good show, interspersing his commentary with witty asides or displays of his scriptural erudition. That’s the kind of thing the scribes and religious authorities would have done; their teaching was aimed at ensuring their own standing in the eyes of the people. Rather, Jesus “teaching with authority” meant he touched the hearts and minds of his listeners in such a way as left them astonished, left them amazed by the new horizons, the new possibilities which Jesus’ words opened up to them – so that in the end, their response is not an acclamation of Jesus’ power, it is simply a recognition of who he is.
It’s an encounter that reminds me of Jesus’ appearance on the road to Emmaus, which is recounted at the end of Luke’s Gospel. Some followers of Jesus are hurrying away from Jerusalem he appears among them; they do not recognise him, even after he speaks to them; so Jesus chides them, and then, in Luke’s words, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.”
Later, having been invited to stay with them, Jesus begins the evening meal by taking bread, blessing and breaking it; and in that instant, Jesus’ companions recognise him and he vanishes from their sight. And such is the shock of their sudden insight that they say to one another: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
Opening the scriptures to us. That’s the key phrase; because in today’s reading from Mark, you can imagine Jesus’ audience listening to him, their hearts burning within them, as suddenly, through his teaching, the scriptures are opened up to them. Suddenly, astonishingly, they are liberated from the stale, old rote exegesis that treats the Law and the prophetic writings as a kind of legal code or moral textbook; suddenly, they are given a glimpse of how liberating the scriptures can be, how they can be rich and accessible, and wondrous; how they can be, not dusty words from a distant past, but a portal into a life-giving relationship with the Living God.
And that’s what Jesus’ authority consists of; not the power of command over others, but the unique capacity to touch people’s hearts, to liberate them to an extent they had not previously thought possible. The people are astonished at Jesus’ teaching precisely because he does not fit any paradigm they are used to; unlike the scribes, whose teaching points toward their own exalted position, Jesus’ teaching points only toward God. Jesus’ teaching liberates the people from the oppressive power of the scribes and points toward the liberating power of God. And in response, their hearts burn with astonishment, with the sudden, unexpected glimpse of freedom.
And this is a liberation that is even more dramatically expressed in the episode of the person possessed by an unclean spirit. Now, how you interpret this “possession” is entirely beside the point; arguments about whether or not this passage is to be read literally or metaphorically are the same kind of pedantic arguments which the religious authorities of Jesus’ day used to spend all their time wrestling over. Because what this passage is concerned with is the purpose of Jesus’ ministry, whether teaching or pastoral. And that purpose is to set people free, to engage all the dimensions of human life that enslave and destroy, and through that engagement enable all people to live a fully human life in relationship with God.
But not every person is able to do this – indeed, not every person wants to do this. The capacity to enact this liberating ministry is a matter of authority. But as this episode from Mark’s Gospel reveals, this authority is not a matter of power or self-promotion; it is a matter of responsibility, of service to others for the sake of others. In Jesus’ time, and throughout the New Testament period, there were many people who claimed they possessed the power to cure illness or cast out demons; but these claims were made in pursuit of wealth and fame. They were made for the purpose of self-service, not service to others. By contrast, Jesus often instructed the people he helped to keep quiet about who he was and what he had done, for the very reason that fame and wealth would be impediments to his ministry. Jesus wasn’t interested in what he could get out of his ministry; he was interested only in what he could give to others.
In other words, Jesus’ authority was the very product of his selflessness, of the absence of any agenda except to point others toward God. And we would do well to remember that in our own ministry as a congregation today; because quite often when we talk about ministry, what we have in the back of our minds is not so much a question of who we can help, but how many people we can convince to come to church on Sunday , or how we can improve our finances, or rebuild our standing in society. We are motivated, not by a desire to point others toward God, but by a desire to point them through our front door.
And that is why the Baptismal vows we as a congregation have taken today are so important. Because in taking those vows, we have been vested with an authority to teach and raise the child we have baptised today in the life and faith of the Christian Church; but that is authority understood, not as power over that child, but as responsibility toward them. We are – and must remain – not this child’s elders and betters, but their servants; for ours is the responsibility to help this child grow and develop into a mature adult faith, a faith in which there is space to ask questions, and explore new horizons, and come at last into their own freely-entered into relationship with God.
In other words, unlike Cartman from South Park and his insistent demand that others respect his “authoritah”, we must exercise the authority of service. We must give up power and control and instead teach and guide; we must give up the temptation to oppress, and instead embrace the possibility of freedom. And we must give up the certainty of legal codes and moral textbooks and instead enter into the ambiguity of relationship. Because those who come after us will only follow in our footsteps if we enable them to draw on the richness of tradition in order to grasp new insights; and we will only be seen as authoritative by future generations if we help them live fully human lives that point away from us and our concerns and toward the liberating love of God.
Is it any wonder that Jesus washed his disciples feet as a means to express the nature of that Authority even to the point of rebuke to his disciples to get the point across. The Sacrificial Nature of God is revealed in that very act as if to intensify the point of what it really means to be a disciple and to magnify the cause of the requirements to illuminate Kingdom values in this way.