Author of All

Seeing how Jesus’ authority is unique and universal

01/31/2021

Mark 1:21-28 Then they came to Capernaum, and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught. The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit; he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are— the Holy One of God!” Jesus rebuked him and said, “Quiet!  Come out of him!” The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him. 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.” His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.

This homily will hone in on just one word, namely, “authority.” Can you hear another little word hidden inside the bigger word “authority”? Of course, it is the word “author.” I am convinced that the most fundamental kind of “authority” is that which belongs to the one who is the “author,” like the author of a book. Only an author has full authority over his or her book, to change it as he chooses. Now, what is the opposite of being an author? Every high school student knows that is someone who plagiarizes; the person who copies someone else’s work and claims it as his own.

I have personally written three books of homilies (by the way, they are on sale in the church office). But I hesitate to label myself an “author” or "original creator" of those books Why?  Well, I cannot point to a single word, or sentence, or paragraph that was entirely original. I have learned everything I know from someone else, and so have you. I just assembled the words differently on the page, like taking legos someone used to build a plane but I used them to build a boat. But I did not make the legos. In the final analysis, there is only one Author of all, namely, God, and he has written the book called Creation. Compared to God the Author we are all in the position of plagiarists. C. S. Lewis said something similar about Satan. He wrote: “Evil is a parasite, not an original thing” (Mere Christianity, 45). The word “authority,” therefore, is intrinsically linked to the word “author.” And because God alone is the Author of all creation, he possesses authority over all creation. He wrote the book.

In the gospel today, Jesus’ authentic authority is on full display, and by contrast, everyone else is seen as a plagiarist, or worse, a parasite. We read: “The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.” The people could immediately see that Jesus enjoyed the authority of an Author, that is, God’s authority, while the scribes were merely plagiarizing someone else’s work. Even a high school student could have seen that.

A little later an evil spirit senses Jesus’ audacious authority, and exclaims: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” As Lewis observed, the evil spirit was a parasite, and he was suddenly face to Face with the Original One, the Holy One of God. In other words, Jesus’ authority is unique and universal: he is the Author of all creation, and therefore he has authority over all creation.

Now, you might be wondering: what does any of this have to do with the price of eggs in China? What does this mean for us today? Let me share three examples where we may be tempted to usurp some of that authority that belongs uniquely and universally to Jesus and falsely claim it as our own. First, God alone is the Author of life, especially human life. That is why abortion and capital punishment are so wrong. When we abort a baby or execute an inmate, we attempt to exercise an authority that is not ours over human life in the womb or on death row. Only the Author of the Book of Life has the authority to begin life and to end life. When we practice such a prerogative, we are plagiarizing and pretending we have an authority that we don’t.

Second, Jesus is the Author of love, and therefore our Lord alone possesses the authority to define love as well as marriage. I say this with great care and compassion to those in the LGBTQ community. When we try to rewrite the rulebook on romance, redefining marriage, we attempt to exercise an authority that is above our pay grade. Jesus said in Mark 10: “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Jesus was not expressing an opinion we can opt out of, but speaking with the same authority in Mark 10 as he had back in Mark 1 (today's gospel). How can he do that? Because only the Author of the Book of Love has the authority to define what love looks like.

And third, Jesus is the Author of liberty and therefore he alone enjoys full freedom. St. Paul said in Galatians 5:1, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” But freedom does not mean we can do whatever we feel like. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously pronounced: “Free at last, free at least, thank God almighty, free at last!” he did not mean that we are free to act like fools. Liberty does not mean license. This temptation is especially strong for us Americans, who feel there should be no limits to our freedom. Freedom is almost our national religion. But Jesus, the Author of the Book of Liberty, has the authority to place limits to our liberty.

Our seminarian last summer was Dc. Ben Riley. He loved to say: “Good poets borrow; great poets steal.” I am not sure exactly what that means, but it is a lot nicer to be called a “poet that borrows” than a “plagiarist” or a “parasite.” But in the end they all mean the same thing: we are all “readers” and God alone is the “Author” especially of life, love and liberty. That is why the gospel of Matthew ends with Jesus declaring: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt. 28:18). Jesus has all authority because he alone is the Author.

Praised be Jesus Christ!