RBWords

[1 Corinthians 2:10b-16 and Luke 4:31-37]

     Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee.  He taught them on the sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching...."What is there about his word?  For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out."    [Luke]

     Having been rejected in Nazareth, Jesus establishes his base of operations in Capernaum, a fishing village near the north end of the Sea of Galilee.  His teaching and ministry seem well-accepted.  In Jesus' day, teachers usually taught in a derivative way, i.e. by quoting other famous teachers.  Healers usually spoke by summoning another powerful authority to cast out evil spirits.  Jesus did neither of these.  He spoke on his own authority, which accounts for the reactions we see in today's gospel scripture.  This may be what St. Paul is getting at in the first scripture for today when he speaks about the authority of the Spirit of God in contrast to the spirit of human wisdom.  The Spirit of God enables us to see things in a different way.

     In our own time, human "wisdom" is cloaked in the authority of "science" and secular knowledge, which often claim to be the ultimate authority in all things human and material.  In the more aggressive forms of this, all religious belief and practice is considered mere superstition.  Any reality incapable of being measured by instrument and experiment is illusory.  People of faith are dismissed as yearning for pie in the sky by and by.  The kind of faith that Jesus inspired and the Spirit of God inspires has to stand up to these forces and point out the whole world of transcendent values, indeed the world of love, that cannot be "proven" by experiment or measurement.  Our faith stands on the witness of centuries of experience.  Jesus' word is powerful and the Spirit of God which continues his presence in our midst enables us to see creation as more than mere matter.  Elizabeth Browning's poetic words come true: "Earth's crammed with heaven and every common bush is aflame.  But only he who sees removes his shoes...."  AMEN