4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the cut-throat world of job interviews, with pressure on candidates to curate impressive CVs, there is an inevitable tendency for people to over-sell themselves. Having over-sold ourselves in the interview and secured the job, we then need to “fake it till we make it.” We need to pretend we know what we’re talking about even when we don’t. We go into management meetings exuding confidence and rattle off the latest research and stats that we were able to look up on google just before the meeting. Our authority is not based on our experience, rather it is based on someone else’s, hastily digested and all too rapidly regurgitated, before we have had a chance to really assimilate it and integrate it with our own experience. It is no small wonder then, that many of us experience imposter syndrome, constantly afraid that one day we will be exposed for the frauds that we are. In order to overcome the fear that comes with our imposter syndrome, we double down our opinions, convinced that if we express them with enough conviction people will take us seriously. The problem is that people do take us seriously, because people gravitate naturally towards people of conviction. The reason someone like Donald Trump is so attractive is because of the certainty and conviction with which he speaks. However, if our authority derives from a contrived sense of conviction, then we risk misleading people when they are attracted to our artificial certainty.

In the absence of anyone who can speak with real authority, we as human beings decide to put up with a counterfeit authority. But when we come across someone who speaks with real authority, we instantly realize how far short the counterfeit falls of what we really aspire to. This is what happened in the synagogue at Capernaum in our gospel today. The Jews in Capernaum were used to listening to their scribes and rabbis teach who would draw their authority from quoting the scriptures and the Talmud, which was a collection of interpretations of the scriptures. Often they would combine various different scriptural passages that would mutually interpret one another in a style called rabbinic midrash. So when Jesus bursts on the preaching scene of Galilee, and does not cite any great rabbis and only cursorily makes reference to the Scriptures, but talks about life and God in powerful arresting parables and images drawn from everyday life, people are amazed at his authority. Now one could say that the authority of the scribes is based on the rock of the Scriptures, and it was probably not something that they had hastily looked on the Friday evening before the Sabbath gathering on Saturday. They had probably spent much of their lives studying the scriptures. The difference between them and Jesus was the manner in which they integrated what they read into their own lives and their own experience. Without this, their teaching sounded hollow. Jesus on the other hand taught with conviction – a conviction that arose from integrating his prayer, his experience and the Scriptures.

Now I think that we would be wrong to think that Jesus’ authority came from the fact that he knew everything and therefore didn’t need to quote any authorities. Jesus did not have knowledge of sub-atomic nuclear physics – Jesus was a human like us in all things but sin. He was also divine, but his divinity did not prevent him from having a full experience of humanity – part of which would have included learning things for himself. If Jesus never had to learn anything, then we cannot claim that he had a full human experience like us. We know that Jesus got tempted like us, got tired like us, and so I think that we have to be prepared to accept that Jesus also had to learn like us. And Jesus excelled at learning – he would have been the best learner ever to have walked the face of this earth. Every little experience he had, he reflected on it, and then asked himself how such an experience led him to further communion with God his Father. The authority that Jesus preached and taught with came from this conviction – 30 years of life experience, distilled into parables and pithy adages. It came with utter conviction – because he knew the way that led to the Father – he had walked it himself. He could tell people about forgiveness, because he had watched people die inside from unforgiveness, and he had himself experienced the liberation that came with forgiving other people. And so when he went against the conventional wisdom prevalent at the time and taught by most rabbis that you need only forgive someone 3 times, and instead he said seventy times seven – Jesus knew what he was talking about. And the crowd were in awe of him because of the power of his conviction and the authority with which he spoke. If we ourselves want to speak with authority and led other people to God, then there is no substitute for prayer and deep reflection. This is the only way we will be able to talk with conviction and passion. Questions for reflection

1. Have I ever been in awe of someone’s authority? Where did that authority derive from?
2. What are the values or issues that I am most passionate about? Can I speak with conviction and authority about these issues? In the cut-throat world of job interviews, with pressure on candidates to curate impressive CVs, there is an inevitable tendency for people to over-sell themselves. Having over-sold ourselves in the interview and secured the job, we then need to “fake it till we make it.” We need to pretend we know what we’re talking about even when we don’t. We go into management meetings exuding confidence and rattle off the latest research and stats that we were able to look up on google just before the meeting. Our authority is not based on our experience, rather it is based on someone else’s, hastily digested and all too rapidly regurgitated, before we have had a chance to really assimilate it and integrate it with our own experience. It is no small wonder then, that many of us experience imposter syndrome, constantly afraid that one day we will be exposed for the frauds that we are. In order to overcome the fear that comes with our imposter syndrome, we double down our opinions, convinced that if we express them with enough conviction people will take us seriously. The problem is that people do take us seriously, because people gravitate naturally towards people of conviction. The reason someone like Donald Trump is so attractive is because of the certainty and conviction with which he speaks. However, if our authority derives from a contrived sense of conviction, then we risk misleading people when they are attracted to our artificial certainty.

In the absence of anyone who can speak with real authority, we as human beings decide to put up with a counterfeit authority. But when we come across someone who speaks with real authority, we instantly realize how far short the counterfeit falls of what we really aspire to. This is what happened in the synagogue at Capernaum in our gospel today. The Jews in Capernaum were used to listening to their scribes and rabbis teach who would draw their authority from quoting the scriptures and the Talmud, which was a collection of interpretations of the scriptures. Often they would combine various different scriptural passages that would mutually interpret one another in a style called rabbinic midrash. So when Jesus bursts on the preaching scene of Galilee, and does not cite any great rabbis and only cursorily makes reference to the Scriptures, but talks about life and God in powerful arresting parables and images drawn from everyday life, people are amazed at his authority. Now one could say that the authority of the scribes is based on the rock of the Scriptures, and it was probably not something that they had hastily looked on the Friday evening before the Sabbath gathering on Saturday. They had probably spent much of their lives studying the scriptures. The difference between them and Jesus was the manner in which they integrated what they read into their own lives and their own experience. Without this, their teaching sounded hollow. Jesus on the other hand taught with conviction – a conviction that arose from integrating his prayer, his experience and the Scriptures.

Now I think that we would be wrong to think that Jesus’ authority came from the fact that he knew everything and therefore didn’t need to quote any authorities. Jesus did not have knowledge of sub-atomic nuclear physics – Jesus was a human like us in all things but sin. He was also divine, but his divinity did not prevent him from having a full experience of humanity – part of which would have included learning things for himself. If Jesus never had to learn anything, then we cannot claim that he had a full human experience like us. We know that Jesus got tempted like us, got tired like us, and so I think that we have to be prepared to accept that Jesus also had to learn like us. And Jesus excelled at learning – he would have been the best learner ever to have walked the face of this earth. Every little experience he had, he reflected on it, and then asked himself how such an experience led him to further communion with God his Father. The authority that Jesus preached and taught with came from this conviction – 30 years of life experience, distilled into parables and pithy adages. It came with utter conviction – because he knew the way that led to the Father – he had walked it himself. He could tell people about forgiveness, because he had watched people die inside from unforgiveness, and he had himself experienced the liberation that came with forgiving other people. And so when he went against the conventional wisdom prevalent at the time and taught by most rabbis that you need only forgive someone 3 times, and instead he said seventy times seven – Jesus knew what he was talking about. And the crowd were in awe of him because of the power of his conviction and the authority with which he spoke. If we ourselves want to speak with authority and led other people to God, then there is no substitute for prayer and deep reflection. This is the only way we will be able to talk with conviction and passion. Questions for reflection

1. Have I ever been in awe of someone’s authority? Where did that authority derive from?
2. What are the values or issues that I am most passionate about? Can I speak with conviction and authority about these issues?