Homily for 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
4th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Jan. 28, 2018
Mark 1: 21-28
Nativity, Washington, D.C.

“What is this?  A new teaching with authority” (Mark 1: 27).

Christ exorcising the demon from the man in the synagog at Capernaum

(11th-century fresco)

The demon who confronts Jesus in the synagog knows who he is.  It’s obvious that the devil believes in God.  Knowledge and faith do not in themselves make us holy, or the demons would all be saints.  Knowledge and faith do not in themselves have the power to save us.

Mark 3:31-35 records an episode in which Jesus’ mother and family come to him while he’s teaching.  Mark had mentioned earlier (3:21) that they think he’s lost his mind, and they’re coming to bring him home.  When he’s told they’re outside, he asks who are his mother and brother and sister.  He answers, “Whoever does my Father’s will.”  So even being a blood relative of Jesus is not sufficient for salvation. 

What does have the power to save us?  Recognizing the authority of Jesus and the authority he represents; one must submit to the will of God.  Obviously, the demons refuse to do that.  They choose—it’s their own decision—to reject God, to take damnation rather than submit their own will, their own pride, their own preferences to anyone else.

If the people in this Galilean synagog were so impressed by the teaching of Jesus, we may ask, why didn’t all of them become his followers?  We know, in fact, that many people who followed him initially in Galilee left him after he introduced his teaching on the Bread of Life, the giving of his own flesh and blood for us to eat for eternal life.  Many said, “This saying is too hard” (John 6:60), and they left him.  St. Peter spoke for the 12, however, responding to Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God” (6:68-69).  Accepting the teaching authority of Jesus, Peter and other disciples stayed with him.

But those who found his teachings too demanding didn’t stay.  Even if they admired some of his teachings, they weren’t willing to accept everything.  If it wasn’t the Eucharist they found too challenging, it was the call to be converted, to change their moral behavior, to change their internal attitudes, to put our heavenly Father first in their lives, ahead of their own comfort, convenience, addiction to pleasure or power or wealth.  As G.K. Chesterton once said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.  It has been found difficult; and left untried.” (What’s Wrong with the World, pt. 1, ch. 5)

The Gospel puts to us the question of Jesus’ authority.  Do we recognize it?  Do we accept it?

Perhaps we wonder where to look for his authority.  Obviously, he isn’t going to walk into Nativity Church as he stood and taught in the synagog at Capernaum.  But we have his authoritative teaching before us every time we listen to the Scriptures being read, or open them up at home—which we ought to do daily.  By the Scriptures, I mean not only the Gospels, which are our starting place as followers of Jesus, but the entire New Testament as well, and the Old Testament too.  We also find Christ’s authoritative teaching in what his Church teaches us, in the sacred liturgy, in the catechism, in the words of the Holy Father, in the words of our bishops, e.g., what they tell us about racism or capital punishment or the dignity of immigrants or sexual morality.  These teachings, too, we must take in, respect, absorb, and submit to even when they may be challenging or difficult.

For assuredly we don’t want to be like the demon whom Jesus cast out in the synagog, knowing who Jesus is but too proud to allow him into our lives, too stubborn to let him save us.