 |
| Mark 1:21-28 |
Authority
In Words and Deeds | Truth in Love
In today’s Gospel we hear about Jesus teaching in the synagogue on the
Sabbath Day and how the people were amazed that he was teaching with such
authority. Later in the Gospel of Mark he tells how a man with an unclean
spirit (he did not have God’s presence within Him but the spirit of evil) was
yelling at Jesus. Jesus commanded that the evil spirit come out of the man and
it did after the man convulsed (like having a seizure). The people who
witnessed this were amazed at Jesus because not only did He teach them with
certitude and authority but he was able to back it up by healing people,
performing miracles.
Jesus did not want people to follow him simply because they witnessed a
miracle (as though He were like a traveling magic show). Jesus asked those who
followed Him to live their lives in a different way, to allow God’s healing and
loving presence transform the world through their (and our) lives.
Jesus taught with authority because He is God. We should live our lives
with authority as well. We should not be afraid or timid to love radically or
to share our love with other people. Sometimes sharing our love with others
means speaking the truth which can be uncomfortable to those who do not have a
clean spirit to receive or listen to the truth. Speaking the truth is a
challenge because following Jesus is a challenge. Jesus asks us to be in the world but not of the world and to
be willing to go against the flow. When we do not do this we end up worshiping
other things besides God, we worship or honor political correctness, nice-ness,
or other people’s opinions of us instead of worshiping the God who loves us. To
follow Jesus we must be willing to do difficult things with great love, to
speak truth in our words and our deeds. If we prefer to only speak vocally or only
speak through our actions we need to look inside our hearts and figure out what
is motivating us? Fear? Pride? Not wanting to upset anyone?
Remember that Jesus is the King of the whole world, He is not just our
God, He is God of all! This does not mean we should be unloving or force our
faith in Jesus onto others, but it means that in a world that would rather not
listen to His message we must be willing to speak in our words and our deeds
with the strong and courageous authority of Jesus. We must live and speak truth in love.
Car-ride Questions for Reflection and
Discussion
-What do you do when someone does
something you know is wrong?
-How do you decide whether you should
say something or not?
-Who is someone who I need to love
radically this week, to do something so radically loving that they think I am
weird?!
-Where do I experience evil in the
world that I am called to heal (poverty, anger, judgment, bullying, gossip,
etc.)?
No comments:
Post a Comment