Epiphany
4B – February 1, 2015
Deuteronomy 18:15-20;
Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28
St
Stephen Lutheran Church
The
Rev. Maurice C. Frontz III, STS
Grace and
peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
‘When E.F.
Hutton talks…people listen.’
That’s one
which sailed right over the heads of a few of you
who were not
watching television in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
E.F. Hutton
was a stock brokerage firm,
and the
commercials often featured
a young
professional man at a party
who would
casually mention that his broker was E.F. Hutton,
and all the
conversation stopped as everyone turned to him.
Then the
voice-over:
‘When E.F.
Hutton talks…people listen.’
To whom do
you listen?
I’m not
asking you who you listen to every day.
We all have
to listen to people every day.
But to whom
do you grant authority?
Who makes
you sit up and pay attention?
Media
figures, athletes, musical artists,
talk-show
hosts, business leaders;
we grant
them authority over our opinions and attitudes.
We allow
ourselves to be shaped
by those who
are the ‘movers and shakers’ in our world.
So often it
is those who have a lot of money
who shape
our opinions and attitudes.
For example,
Bill Gates is a computer programmer
who has made
it bigger than a lot of computer programmers.
His net
worth is somewhere in the low $80 billion dollar range.
So when he
speaks, people believe he knows what he’s talking about.
This is
probably true no matter what subject he talks about.
But is this
necessarily true,
that he
knows what he is talking about on all subjects?
Could we
believe him on everything?
Or does what
he says always have direct relevance for our lives and for every life?
I could cite
thousands of examples of our world’s celebrity worship.
Most of us
know it’s wrong, but sometimes we can’t help ourselves.
How can we
help but give weight to the opinions of those whom the world admires,
whom the
world would emulates, the rich, the crème
da la crème?
Or does
authority come from somewhere else?
Already this
morning I said something absolutely incredible to you.
It is
something that is beyond the reach of Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey,
Rush
Limbaugh, Jon Stewart, Barack Obama, or Katy Perry.
Judge Judy
couldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.
What did I
say that was so amazing?
‘As a called
and ordained minister of the Church of Christ,
and by his
authority,
I therefore
declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins.’
When a
penitent comes to a pastor for private confession,
and the
penitent has poured out their souls before the pastor,
the pastor
says,
‘God is
merciful and blesses you.
By the
command of our Lord Jesus Christ,
I, a called
and ordained servant of the Word,
forgive you
your sins
in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’
Now of
course one can never claim this authority on one’s own.
This
authority is given to the Church by Jesus Christ himself.
But when a
pastor of the Church proclaims the word of forgiveness
to one who
has confessed sin,
we can trust
that word on the basis of Christ’s promise
and his own
authority as Son of God.
This is the
amazing and radical truth that the Church teaches.
Now that is authority!
That is power!
To declare
that before God,
your sins
and mine are forgiven
by the word
of Jesus Christ!
If we hadn’t
become so used to the words,
if most of
us hadn’t heard them over and over since our childhood,
we might be
bowled over by their force.
and moved to
tears by their impact.
And perhaps
more than a few of us
who have
heard these words over and over again
have come to
worship on a certain Sunday
when all was
going wrong,
when it all
seemed like it was coming apart;
and that day
we heard those words as if for the first time.
Maybe we
knew on some level that Jesus died to forgive sins,
but that day
we heard that he died to forgive our sins.
And we
grabbed and held those words
as if we
were a drowning person thrown a life preserver.
We were
carried by them
as if we
were a young child
being
carried from a burning house by a firefighter.
The
authority of Jesus is front and center
in these
first three chapters of the Gospel of Mark.
Jesus
teaches with authority,
he exorcises
demons with authority.
When he
speaks, people listen,
and the
powers that hold them in bondage listen.
The endless
babble about religion ceases
as the
carpenter’s son interprets the Scriptures on his own authority.
The unclean
spirit is silenced,
as the man
from Nazareth orders him to release the man he possesses.
The people
of Capernaum have never seen anything like this.
A few verses
later,
at the
beginning of chapter 2,
Jesus is
back in Capernaum,
and he is in
the house, teaching,
and everyone
is crowded inside
that can get
in there,
and there
are so many people
that they
are crowded in the door
and in front
of the house.
There is a
paralytic there
whose
friends have brought him to Jesus,
in hopes
that he might heal him.
There are
too many people.
So they
climb up onto the roof of the house,
and they
remove the crossbeams and the thatch and hardened mud,
not caring
whose house it was or who they inconvenienced,
only that
Jesus was there and was the only hope for their friend.
And they
lower the paralytic to Jesus,
and what
does Jesus do?
He says,
‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’
Any of us
could say that, right?
I just said
it in a few minutes ago!
We think
that the real miracle would be the healing of the paralytic,
which he
also does in order to confirm that he has the authority to declare forgiveness.
Which is
harder, Jesus asks?
Doctors and
surgeons can do these miracles.
But doctors
cannot release people from their past.
Doctors
cannot set them on their feet and face them toward the future.
Doctors
cannot say, ‘In the name of God, I forgive you your sins.’
Only Jesus
can do that,
because he
has authority from his Father.
And he has
given that authority to his Church.
You’d think
that Jesus’ authoritative teaching and healing and forgiving
would be
good news to everyone, right?
Well, the
Pharisees didn’t like it at all.
The scribes
didn’t like it all.
The Sadducees
didn’t like it either.
For in
Jesus’ authority they see that their authority is in question.
But even
more so,
the evil one
does not like this authority of Jesus,
because the
evil one can bind us to him
with the
knowledge of our sin and guilt.
The evil one
depends upon us believing that God cannot forgive our sins,
for then we
are forced either to deny that we’re that bad,
or to resent
God for his judgment.
It is in the
nature of authority to brook no competition.
And so it is
either Jesus’ authority or Satan’s,
Jesus’
authority or sin’s authority,
Jesus’
authority or death’s authority.
We hang in
the balance.
In whose
word do we put our trust?
Move over,
E.F. Hutton;
when Jesus
of Nazareth talks, people listen.
When Jesus
of Nazareth talks, the demons listen and obey.
When Jesus
of Nazareth talks, sin is forgiven.
When Jesus
of Nazareth talks, death must submit.
Jesus of
Nazareth has power, has authority from his Father,
to set free
those who are in chains
and to
reveal his Father to them.
Thanks be to
God!
