Those with teaching authority are called to discern and convey truth. With that in mind, there also seems to be little consensus in our current society about what truth is, or even on what facts are. The notion of truth has been eroded away to grave effects.

This is a crisis, a burden, of our day, and perhaps during Jesus’ day, too. While many understandably and often rightly distrust those with teaching authority who have abused their powers, there is nonetheless a hunger for faithful teachers to help lead us to truth.

Our current circumstances, thus, give us occasion today to explore the nature of teaching and authority, or teaching authority, especially that which Jesus embodied which made for his listeners’ astonishment.

The word that is translated “authority” has to do with power, or control, often associated with those with governmental authority. It’s the ability, the capacity, the authority to make things happen.

Jesus as a teacher did not engage in mere pedantry. Jesus’ teaching was not reduced to merely offering information. Rather, Jesus’ teaching changed lives. As was the case with the person in the synagogue in Capernaum who had an unclean spirit.

Please note the significant point that it was in the context of Jesus’ teaching in the synagogue that he encountered the one with unclean spirits and released that person from captivity to those spirits. Which is to say, Jesus’ teaching and the release from demonic possession were intimately interconnected.

In short, Jesus’ teaching made things happen. The act of teaching was the setting for the act of an exorcism when Jesus rebuked the spirits saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”

Thus, Jesus’ teaching went beyond simply providing information. Jesus’ teaching resulted in transformation.

It’s also important to say that Jesus did not operate according to his own, individual authority. His authority emerged from God, his Father in heaven, as he himself emerged from that source as a member of the Trinitarian reality of the Godhead. In John’s Gospel, Jesus reports, “for I have not spoken on my own, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak.” (John 12:49)

So, that’s a bit about the nature of Jesus’ divine authority to teach in ways that changed lives.

We could say that about our own earthly teachers as well. Think about the teachers whom you have had in school and elsewhere, and I suspect you would report that your most remembered, effective teachers are the ones who influenced, if not to say, changed the course of your life in ways small and perhaps great.

Which is to say that we, too, have the gift and burden of the authority to teach. That’s especially true in the church. At the conclusion of Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jesus entrusted his authoritative teaching ministry to his followers, who would become apostles who were sent to teach to the assemblies of God’s people which would become the church. In these latter days, we are the ones sent into the world to teach with authority.

Listen to the concluding verses of Matthew’s Gospel: “¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”

This is an awesome, fearful thing, a gift given to us with great responsibility.

But let us not abuse that which is entrusted to us, taking our cue from Paul’s instructions to those at Corinth in today’s second reading: “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.”

And remember that we, like even Jesus, don’t operate on our own authority. In keeping with the prophetic promise recorded in Deuteronomy in today’s first reading, we are called to speak only in God’s name and offer only those words which we are instructed to offer. “But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak – that prophet shall die.” (Deuteronomy 18:20)

Thus, we are entrusted with a weighty, divine responsibility. Indeed, our authority as church is the direct result of Christ. Therefore, our teaching is divinely authoritative when we point to Christ, he who was crucified, he who was raised from the dead by God, the Father.

We, thus, at our authoritative best do not point to ourselves, but to the bath where the Trinitarian God washes us, and to the table where Christ feeds us with himself.

And all of this for the sake of the world and our share of God’s mission in the context of which the Holy Spirit is guiding us into all truth, as Jesus promised in John’s Gospel (cf. John 16:13).

Given the realities of the crises plaguing us, and the crisis of truth itself in a world of “fake news,” being entrusted with Christ’s teaching authority may seem to be too much to bear.

With the burden of this responsibility in mind, listen again to Jesus’ promise to his followers, to us – “remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20b)

We don’t go it alone, but in Jesus’ name, for Christ’s sake, and in the power of the Holy Spirit who assures us with Jesus’ presence. Amen.

And now for your reflection and holy conversation at home:

• Recall the teachers who have had greatest influence on your life. What made them such effective teachers for you?
• Recall the teachers in family and in church who have taught you the Christian faith. What made them effective teachers of the faith?
• What might be your share in the church’s authority to teach and proclaim the gospel in a world seeking truth?