January 30, 2009
Sunday Scripture
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
BY FATHER DONALD DILGER
Jesus chose disciples at the beginning of his preaching ministry. With his disciples as witnesses he now begins his healing ministry. The first takes place in a synagogue. It is on the Sabbath, a day of complete rest. By depicting Jesus in the synagogue on a Sabbath, Mark tells us that Jesus remained a faithful Jew. He prayed in the synagogue, heard the readings from the Hebrew Scriptures, and sometimes participated in homilies and discussions that followed the Scriptural readings. The fidelity of Jesus is not the only point Mark wishes to make in this story of Jesus in the synagogue.
The second point is the authority of Jesus’ teaching. The people recognized that he was not the usual homilist who only quoted previous scribes or teachers, or perhaps bored them enough to put them to sleep or to stay away from the synagogue. He preached by his own authority, as we see in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, “It has been said, but I say to you, etc.” In Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ first sermon at Nazareth arouses such intense and lively interest that they rush him out of town to kill him.
What Paul will write years later in the Second Letter to Timothy describes Jesus’ preaching, “Preach the word. Be urgent, whether it is welcome or unwelcome. Convince, rebuke, and exhort. Be unfailing in patience and in teaching.” Mark notes: “He taught them as one who had authority, and not like the scribes.” Parishioners may want to bring the above comments to the attention of their homilists to encourage them to preach the Scriptures from the readings as Jesus did, to move them beyond sweet little stories, and away from preaching themselves, their travels, or their current feelings.
Mark’s third point is the climactic moment of this story. On this Sabbath there is a sick man in the synagogue, “a man with an unclean spirit.” The evil spirit recognizes Jesus as “the Holy One of God.” Jesus commands silence from the demon with the words, “Put a muzzle on yourself! Come out of the man?” The sick man experiences a convulsion and the evil spirit flees. The battle with Satan, a major theme of Mark’s gospel, even to the point that Satan seems to conquer by Jesus’ death on the cross, has begun in this incident. The people are totally astonished, even alarmed. The exorcism itself is called a teaching, when they say, “What is this? A new teaching? With authority he commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him!” Even though healing was one of the works forbiden on the Sabbath, no one objects. The novelty of this exorcism overwhelms them. Objections to Jesus healing on the Sabbath and threats of assassination will follow soon enough.
What was the novelty of this situation? The practice of exorcism in the time of Jesus was a long drawn out batle between the exorcist and the demon. Here is an example from a first century Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus. Josephus says exorcism is “a useful science.” He had seen a man named Eleazar releasing people from demons. This man put a ring up to the nose of the possessed. The ring had no power, but attached to the ring was a piece of a powerful root. When this root was brought close to the possessed, the demon could be extracted through the man’s nostrils. To make sure the demon fled, Eleazar put a cup of water at some distance. He commanded the fleeing demon to upset the cup as a sign that he was leaving. Then everyone kew the demon was gone. The Lord of all does not need such “Hollywood” productions. A simple command will do it.
This passage from the Torah is an important background to the New Testament description of Jesus as a prophet, that is, a spokesperson for God. The Israelites were anxious about what would happen to them after Moses’ death. Moses assures them with the words of the Lord, “I will raise up a prophet like you from among them. I will put my words in his mouth. He shall speak to them all I command you. Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, will answer for it to me.” This passage is reborn in the New Testament scene of Jesus’ transfiguration, when the voice from the sky says, “Listen to him!” Luke is the only one of our four gospel authors who more explicitly identifies Jesus as this “prophet like Moses.” He does so in Acts 3:20-23.
Paul is deeply affected by parousia-fever. The Greek word parousia was the Christian term for Jesus’ return at the end of time. Paul’s expectation of Jesus’ impending return, which did not happen, is the motivatoin behind his call for virginity or celibacy in this reading. When Pauls writes, “An unmarried man (or woman) is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he (or she) may please the Lord. But a married man (or woman) is anxious about the things of the world, how he (or she) may please his wife or husband, and he (or she) is divided.” Has this been our experience? Are Paul’s words, motivated by expectation of an imminent parousia, still a valid argument for mandatory celibacy?