A Reflection for Tuesday in the First Week of Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
Matthew and Mark both emphasize Jesus’ gift of “authority.” They use that word for two realities of Jesus’ ministry. First, Jesus offered a new synthesis of Israel’s traditions, one that centered its faith on the needs of the poor and the neighbor. It is not clear to us today who Jesus’ own teachers may have been who helped him develop this synthesis, but to the crowds that heard him preach, it seemed the work of a solitary genius drawing on his own storehouse of grace.
Second, the divine connection that filled Jesus’ words with authority similarly filled his actions. Jesus confirmed the words of his preaching with miraculous healings and exorcisms. These too were manifestations of the authority in him. In spite of the unclean nature of certain spirits, all of them responded to the commands of their divine creator. Somehow that divine voice came forth from Jesus’ throat. “All were amazed and asked one another,‘What is this?
A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him’” (Mk 1:27).
I have an analogue to this in my own life. When I was first recovering from drug addiction, I realized that I had to rebuild my own sense of right and wrong. Years of active addiction and the lifestyle that develops around it wrecked my good judgment and warped all my actions around unspoken selfish objectives. Once I surrendered and acknowledged this reality, I asked for help. I found a sponsor who lived his own recovery with care and intensity. I did what he told me to do, things like “Be honest!” or “Be humble!” or “Be willing to overcome your fears!” I did not know at the time (although I’ve figured it out now) from what source he drew this wisdom. But I did see him living it out in his own life. His honesty, self-discipline and courage were things I wanted for myself, so I did what he told me and found myself becoming, slowly, a man like him.
As a disciple of Christ, I find a similar dynamic at work, but one charged with the presence of the Spirit. Jesus’ words in the Gospel rebuild not just my mind but my heart and hands as well. I want to live differently at every level when I read the Gospels. And as my own life slowly conforms to the Christ of the Gospels, I find it easier to leave behind bad habits and self-destructive tendencies that had seemed annealed to my soul for the duration of my life. Even those unclean spirits obey him and drift away at the words of his authority.
The same authority that amazed Jesus’ first listeners can still exercise its effects on us today. All we have to remember is that he speaks with the Creator’s voice, teaching us how to become fully alive and fully the beings God dreamt of at our creation. In that great work, nothing unclean can find a place.
