Who is in control here?
When, in our reading from Deuteronomy this Sunday, God tells
Moses he will send prophets to communicate his will to the people, the answer
to this question is quite clear: God is
the author of the Word and the authority
behind it: he shall tell them all that I command him. And woe to the man who does not listen, and
to prophet who tries to usurp the authority of the Almighty: I
myself will make him answer for it, God says.
In our Gospel text from Mark, Jesus – the Son of God – naturally
speaks with the authority of his Father.
When he rebukes the unclean spirit
who tries to drain his power by naming him (aloud!) the Holy One of God, Jesus’s authority is evident in all he does;
the people exclaim: What is this? A new teaching
with authority. Like the unclean spirit, we sometimes challenge
the authority of God over our lives; we struggle with our own demons: our fears, our efforts to assert control, to
assert ourselves over others and over our own life. But the Lord calls us to surrender that
control to God, to leave power where it belongs, so that if we have any
authority at all, it is because God is at work in us.
Paul similarly asks the Corinthians to allow God to rule
their lives, to remain singleminded about who is in control, exhorting them to adherence to the Lord without distraction. In marriage or in the celibate life, God is
there with you all along, in love – and we are to remain focused on the Lord,
our endpoint, no matter what track our life has taken. Psalm 95 suggests we do just this, first,
through songs of praise and adoration: to acclaim the rock of our salvation, to bow down in worship and kneel before him is to focus on the
source of power in our midst before all else.
And most importantly, we must listen, we must hear his voice, because, whether we’ve recognized it or not, God is
always the one in control, always the author (and authority) of all
that we are, and all that we do.
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
Image source: Wordle
No comments:
Post a Comment