Word to the Wise
Saturday, April 10, 2021 - Octave of Easter - Sat
[Acts 4:13-21 and Mark 16:9-15]"Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard." [Acts] When Jesus had risen, early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalen, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After this he appeared in another form to two of them walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others; but they did not believe them either. But later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had been raised. [Mark]
One of the occupational hazards of being a religious authority is the distance that can arise between the institution the authority leads and the experience of those whom the institution is supposed to be serving. "Power corrupts!" as Lord Acton wrote in the 19th century.
In today's two scriptures from the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel According to Mark , the experiences first of Mary Magdalen and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus were discredited by the apostles!! Jesus rebuked them for their disbelief (as he often did during the Gospel According to Mark). Once the Holy Spirit put some energy into them, the apostles found that their experience would be disbelieved by the religious authorities in Jerusalem. But those authorities found themselves facing "the people who were all praising God for what had happened." (the healing of a crippled beggar).
Authority and leadership in the church require the power to make the kinds of decisions that the effective preaching of the gospel demands. At the end of today's gospel scripture, Jesus tells the apostles, "God into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature." But the power that is given from the Lord is given to human beings and discernment, challenging in most cases, can be clouded by power. I could cite any number of "issues" in our own church that could illustrate this. One thing we can all do is to pray for those who exercise power in our church that they pay attention to the voice of the Spirit speaking from outside as well as inside so that the common good of the church and the preaching of the gospel can be well served. AMEN