Created Anew: As One With Authority

01/31/21 • -1 min

Sermons from Trinity Presbyterian Church of Charlotte

https://trinitypreschurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Created-Anew-As-One-With-Authority.mp3

Steve Lindsley
(Mark 1: 21-28)

Let me ask you something: if you were launching a new initiative – a business venture, a new years resolution, or, I don’t know, three years of ministry as the son of God – if you were beginning something new, what would you want to be your first act, your inaugural speech, your debut?

It’s interesting, the different ways each gospel does this with Jesus. In Matthew, a gospel that highlights Jesus as instructor, his public ministry understandably begins with the Sermon on the Mount. Luke’s justice-minded Jesus inaugurates his ministry with a clear mission statement of good news to the poor, release to the captives, and freedom for the oppressed. John, the most mystical of the gospel siblings, kicks things off with Jesus at a wedding where vast quantities of wine are created and, one would assume, consumed.

And what about Mark – how does Mark have Jesus starting off? Well, in Mark, Jesus begins his public ministry by wowing the temple authorities and getting into a screaming match with a demon. Talk about leaving an impression!

Our passage today comes fast and furious, as most things in Mark do. As the shortest of the gospels, it is known for cutting to the chase. Our story today begins at the 21st verse of the very first chapter; and in the 20 preceding verses Jesus has been baptized, tempted, and called his disciples. Mark does not waste a second getting to the heart of the matter

And what is that heart, exactly? There is no deep secret what Mark wants to focus on here: it is authority. Or, if you want to get technical about the actual Greek, “new authority.” This “new authority” will be a theme throughout the gospel, with references to Jesus’ teaching authority mentioned some 26 times. In our passage alone he brings it up twice, although they come from very different sources.

The first source were those in the temple that day who heard Jesus preach and teach. They were astounded at his teaching, Mark tells us, for he taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes. It’s interesting the way Mark phrases it; that it’s not what Jesus teaches that exudes authority but how he teaches it. It’s not the content that leaves an impression, it’s something else. More on that later.

It’s also worth noting that Mark throws more than a little shade here in the direction of the scribes. Scribes were trained, educated professionals in the religious order, entrusted with specific responsibilities of the temple. And yet it’s a carpenter from Nazareth who exhibits the greater authority.

Now this may not sound like a big deal to us now – it is Jesus, after all. But it might be worth looking at it from a more contemporary angle to see what our reaction might be. Imagine someone visiting a church that’s been around for a hundred years, very established; and after just a few weeks starts showing up at session meetings and the pastor’s study on a weekly basis, offering unsolicited advice on everything from hymn selection to staffing to restructuring committees. After worship every Sunday he’s telling anyone who will listen that he has all the answers and everything would be better if folks would just listen to him. How do you think that’d go over? That sort of misplaced authority rarely goes over well in the church!

And while it’s not an exact parallel, I imagine it’s along the lines of what those scribes and other temple hands felt about this “new guy.” When Mark tells us Jesus presents himself in a way that supersedes the Scribes, he is making a pretty radical statement about Jesus. And again, we’re only 21 verses in!

And if there was any lingering doubt still about the authority of Jesus, it’s certainly put to rest with the other source Mark mentions – this “man with an unclean spirit” who comes bursting into the temple shouting up a storm. Other translations refer to him as a “demon.” We don’t know what to do with this sort of thing in our Presbyterian piety; demons are seen as the stuff of horror movies and Halloween get-ups. What we do know is this man had been overcome by something outside of himself that was not of God. Which makes the fact that he calls Jesus “Holy One of God” all the more profound.

Holy One of God. We tend to skip over that part and cut straight to the convulsing demon coming out of the man because that is the stuff of horror movies. But let’s not forget that it is an unclean spirit – something not of God – that recognizes Jesus’ new authority. Authority greater than the ones typically seen as speaking for God. Authority great enough to be recognized even by something not of God.

That is the kind of a...

https://trinitypreschurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Created-Anew-As-One-With-Authority.mp3

Steve Lindsley
(Mark 1: 21-28)

That is the kind of a...

Previous Episode

Reluctantly Created Anew

https://trinitypreschurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/r-sermon.mp3

Rebecca Heilman
(Jonah 3: 1-10)

It was a summer day, I was probably around seven or eight years old, and I had had enough of my older siblings bickering and picking on me. They were driving me nuts and apparently my mom too. While they were sent to their rooms as punishment, I hid in my closet listening and infuriated by everyone! Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? So, I grabbed a duffel bag and packed up a few important items – my beanie babies and my blanket. I peeked around the corner of my room. The coast was clear, and I snuck out the back door. I remember opening my arms wide, feeling the warm, humid breeze on my face. I was running away, and no one was going to stop me! I made it as far as our giant magnolia tree around 200 yards from our house. I climbed to the branch shaped enough as a recliner, hung my duffel on the branch and thought, yes, I could make a life for myself here. No siblings, no bickering, no nuh-uh I won’t be bothered here. I closed my eyes, reclined back and the guilt started to sink in. I didn’t last 10 mins before I was dragging my duffel behind me back up our driveway and into my room. Until now, my parents never knew. I’m sure we all have our stories of running away from or towards something. Maybe your story also comes from your childhood, maybe it’s a story from your adulthood, maybe it’s a story you’d rather not talk about. Whatever it is about running away, we’ve all been there in some shape or fashion, notes written or leaving the door hanging wide open behind us. Jonah is a classic example of a beloved child of God, running as far away from God and God’s call as humanly possible.

Now, we might expect more from Jonah if we knew the meaning of his name and his father’s name. Jonah means dove and throughout the Hebrew Bible, a dove is a sign of God’s peace. Jonah’s father’s name is Ami-ttai, which means faithfulness.[1] So, the first line of Jonah reads, “Now the word of the Lord came to dove, son of faithfulness...”[2] With these names and their meanings, we might expect an eager and willing prophet ready to go and do God’s work... that’s exactly what we do not get. Jonah is called as a, one tiny prophet to go to Nineveh, the most powerful, militant, full of wickedness metropolis of the Ancient Near East. And Jonah is supposed to tell them to turn towards God for change or risk destruction. Jonah instead flees and boards a ship in the opposite direction of Nineveh. While he is fleeing, a severe and dangerous storm crashes into his means of transportation. As Jonah sleeps through the raging storm, the captain desperately shakes Jonah awake and says, “Perhaps, your god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”[3] At this moment, Jonah still does not speak, Jonah still does not act. So, the crew cast lots and it fell on Jonah. They interrogated him, asking him question after question about what he has done to cause this storm and although, Jonah has been called as a prophet to speak God’s words, it’s not until this point that Jonah, the dove, speaks. He says, “I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land...Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.”[4] So, they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, yet, another opportunity for Jonah to escape God. This is when our children’s Bible storybooks show us that God used a large fish to swallow Jonah from the depths of the sea. And Jonah sits in the belly of the fish for three days bellowing out his prayer to God, “I called out to the Lord in my distress, and YHWH answered me. From the belly of the underworld I cried out for help; you have heard my voice.”[5]

If we are not challenged by Jonah’s story yet, more is still to come. The Lord spoke to the fish and it spewed Jonah out upon dry land. So God spoke to Jonah for the second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city....”[6]

Covered in sand, dirt, fish guts, and probably embarrassment and guilt, Jonah trucks the three days to Nineveh, preparing with shaking knees to face the wicked Assyrians. One theologian writes about the great city, “Nineveh would have evoked powerful impressions of the Assyrian empire that dominated the ancient Near East as the ruling superpower...Nineveh remained for centuries a powerful symbol of an evil empire.”[7]So, no wonder, no wonder, Jonah, a small prophet, call by God was reluctant to go t...