When someone says to me “you’ve just got to watch” a certain religious documentary or a movie or a TV show, my heart sinks.
I know the recommendation is probably a good one. But I only watch TV one night a week, on my day off, and I want to relax with old sitcoms or new political thrillers or the latest episode of The Crown.
Last week, Father Richard Conlin became the umpteenth person to praise The Chosen, the new TV show about the life of Jesus. I brushed him off with the explanation I’ve just shared with you. It didn't slow him down: he just kept on praising the program to the skies.
So, I gave up. On my day off, I watched episode one. Halfway through I texted Father Richard to say that I was dazzled by The Chosen. It wasn’t like anything I expected.
Jesus appears only toward the end of the first program, so it wasn’t that the King of Kings beat out The Crown. The supporting cast—Peter, and Andrew, and Mary Magdalene—were as real as any reality show.
But the star of episode one was Nicodemus, a chief Pharisee whom we meet three times in the Gospel of John, where he comes to visit Jesus at night, defends him before the Sanhedrin, and assists Joseph of Arimathea in embalming the Lord’s body after his crucifixion. By that time, we presume, he has become a disciple.
All that lies well in the future, though. As The Chosen begins, Nicodemus is teaching young rabbis and cracking jokes with the comic timing of Jim Gaffigan or Eddie Murphy. He’s obviously a very popular speaker.
He’s also a deeply spiritual man. But when he’s called to exorcise a woman possessed by demons—we later learn that she is Mary Magdalene, although scholars would have a problem with that—he finds he’s out of his depth. He’s quite shaken by the power of the demons and his inability to help.
His wife tells Nicodemus “You have authority.” But he isn’t so sure. This revered rabbi seems to be having a vocational crisis.
With these images fresh in my mind, I read this Sunday’s Gospel. What a different story! The unclean spirits are still at work, as horrible as those who oppressed the woman to whom Nicodemus went. But the story ends in a completely different way.
Let’s be clear: the encounter between the good Pharisee and the woman called Mary Magdalene on The Chosen is fictional. But it’s hard to imagine that today’s encounter between Jesus and the man with the unclean spirit—which is not fictional—didn’t reach the ears of Nicodemus and draw him to Jesus.
Because there’s nothing like knowing your limits to draw you to the Lord who has none.
This miracle isn’t high on the list for modern minds. Most of us are more impressed by Jesus changing water into wine at Cana, the first miracle he performs in the Gospel of John.
But think about it—this is the first miracle in the tightly-written Gospel of Mark. This evangelist thought an exorcism was an appropriate start for his account of the ministry of Jesus. You remember last Sunday—Jesus called the first disciples. Now, with them in tow, he works his first miracle by casting out an evil spirit.
Look at how Mark presents the drama in the synagogue. The worshippers immediately connect the healing of the man to something Jesus has—not just power, but authority.
This miracle is not about showing the new disciples and the Capernaum community the Lord’s power to heal and help. Jesus shows he has the authority to begin the mission announced in last week’s Gospel: to proclaim the good news of God.
Why does this matter? Why does it matter a lot? Because Jesus is using his authority for a purpose, described by the wonderful scholar Mary Healy as dismantling the powers of darkness and advancing his assault on the kingdom of Satan. (Mark, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, p. 45.)
Even at the time of Jesus, when the distinction between illness and demonic possession was blurry, there weren’t crowds of possessed people running around. This miracle healed a man, but its purpose was to show Jesus had come to heal the world.
There’s renewed interest in exorcisms these days; we priests have a study day on the subject this Wednesday. But on the list of important topics, it’s not high on the list.
Authority, on the other hand, matters now more than ever. It’s a subject we rarely discuss, mainly because we often focus on the authority of the Pope and bishops in the Church. But it’s not what we’re talking about today.
Nicodemus had plenty of that kind of authority. He was a powerful religious leader. Jesus had none. But Nicodemus lacked the authority that Jesus had, a unique power to command not only the demons, but to forgive sins; even the wind and waves obey him, as we learn a few chapters later in Mark’s Gospel.
This was the power and authority that caused the onlookers in the synagogue such amazement.
But if all we do today is join the crowd in admiring the Lord’s authority, we miss something that’s crucial for every disciple. That something is our call to share his authority, to exercise it in his name.
Whoa, I can almost hear you saying in your living rooms. Didn’t Jesus delegate his authority to the apostles and their successors, the bishops? So he did, and in a unique way. In Luke’s Gospel he tells the apostles “he who hears you, hears me” (Lk. 10:16).
However, Jesus also shared his authority with each one of us, the disciples called through baptism to share his mission.
In baptism we were all given a share in Christ’s threefold ministry as priest, prophet, and king. With that comes the authority needed to act in his name.
Have you ever thought about the authority you’ve been given? Certainly, parents should be aware of their authority over their children, but there’s much more.
In his prophetic new book, A Church in Crisis, Ralph Martin writes that “there is a sense in which every Christian, simply by virtue of being a Christian, has a responsibility to challenge false teaching and immorality, even when we are not directly responsible.”
It reminded me of something that happened in another diocese some forty years ago. A priest was leading a bible study in a parishioner’s apartment, but he was saying things that went right against Church teaching. The elderly lady hosting the meeting, stood up and said calmly “Father, the things you are saying are not true. I will have to ask you to leave now.”
That’s authority.
Ralph Martin’s book is itself an example of how authority is legitimately exercised by the lay faithful in the Church. He speaks with more authority than some bishops, not by virtue of an office, not by the grace of ordination, but because he is consciously and humbly sharing in the prophetic ministry of Jesus.
How can we tell? One way is that Dr. Martin roots everything he says not in opinion or human wisdom but in quotations from the Word of God, just as Jesus often underpinned the exercise of his authority with words from the Old Testament.
It’s understandable that we can think it’s the bishops, priests and deacons who carry on the prophetic mission of Jesus. After all, they're the ones officially charged with proclaiming his Word.
But Ralph Martin points out that this proclamation isn’t only about sound teaching and good homilies. All of us, he says, have “a particular call to participate deeply in the prophetic mission of Jesus.”
I’ve heard it said that Catholic parents or educators share in the infallibility of the Pope when they teach authentic doctrine to their children or students. But we all share in the authority of Jesus when we exercise the priestly, prophetic, and kingly calling we received in baptism.
I can’t tell you the number of times people ask me if it was okay for them to correct a serious error by someone close to them; maybe they’re afraid I’ll think they’re stealing my job. But it’s more than okay sometimes—it’s a duty.
Turning back to evil spirits, we also share Christ’s authority over them. Although exorcism in the strict sense is restricted to priests, any Catholic can tell the Evil One to get lost using the authority received from God in baptism. We are called to exercise authority even over our own minds and bodies when they oppose the law of the spirit with the law of the flesh, as St. Paul writes.
I was appointed pastor here in 2007, and head of the diaconate program in 2010, and a vicar of the archbishop in 2020. Each time, the Archbishop gave me the authority needed to accomplish the ministry he entrusted to me.
Important enough. But much more important, when I was baptized in 1955, God gave me the authority I need to take part in the Lord’s mission to overthrow the powers of darkness and to help build his Kingdom on earth.
So were all of you.
Father Richard Conlin shares more of his enthusiasm for The Chosen here. And if you don't mind a bit of a spoiler, you can find interesting blog posts about Nicodemus here and here.
No comments:
Post a Comment