Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Teachers. We’ve all had them. Good ones and bad ones. The bad teachers were those who used their authority to dominate. Who let us know how much power teachers have over us, over our lives, our minds. Some of us have yet to get over the damage caused.

The good teachers were those who taught with authority. Who opened our eyes. Who opened up mysteries. When class was over and the world was not the same anymore. Do you remember that? Like getting explained how the colors change in the leaves in the fall? How a bird stays in the air and surfs the current? What caused the Civil War? What the meaning of a certain word is? How one principle can be applied to so many things?
Do you remember how that felt? Suddenly your eyes were opened, you knew, you understood. The world was forever changed, and when you emerged from the classroom, a new time had begun.

We are still looking for teachers. We need teachers. Because we are still in search of a new time. In search of the knowledge and skill that will change our lives and make them whole, or even only a little more whole, purposeful, directed. We yearn to leave behind the confusion, the multitude of conflicting answers that we get. We yearn to leave behind the deception of political and economic answers that we have discovered do not provide clarity and wholesomeness. We yearn for deeper understanding to leave behind conflicting voices which let us make wrong decisions, decisions that in turn cause fear, loneliness, and all the silly and the bad and the stupid things we do and know are wrong.
We are still looking for good teachers, sisters and brothers, for someone we can ask our most important question and we would get an answer, be healed, whole.

Three teachers were presented to us this morning. Moses, Paul, and Jesus.
Through Moses the Lord promised a new teacher, a new prophet to teach Israel the commandments in the time after Moses would be gone. Moses who came close to the Lord in the fire and the Lord did not consume him, and a new time started for him.
Paul who was blinded by the appearance of the risen Christ and a new time began for him. As a believer and missionary he became teacher of theology and ethics to the congregations in Asia Minor.

And Jesus.
It is Sabbath in Galilee. The first day of Jesus’ ministry. The first thing he does is teach. In Capernaum. All of Galilee is focused in on Capernaum. All else drops out of view. Straight away Jesus goes into the synagogue, and as he does, on this Sabbath day he enters the straightened path that John talked about and prepared for him. Everything happens straight away now.

The Sabbath is a different time. It is always a new time. A day of rest and re-creation. It is the day when the people remember the kingship of God, when they lift up God’s purpose for creation, God’s rule over creation. On this Sabbath day in Capernaum Jesus teaches straight away a new time. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe in the good news.”

The time is fulfilled, the hour has begun, the day of God’s kingship and rule is here. There is no doubt this is what Jesus teaches and he teaches it with authority, power, and those with him in the synagogue are astounded for they could not teach like him the fulfilled time and the kingdom although they yearned for it.

“Straight away there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit and he cried out.” Now, this is no coincidence. It is silent in the synagogue. Those present, those astounded do not speak. Jesus’ teaching provokes a powerful counter force, who screams into the face of Jesus’ proclamation: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?!”

Teaching with authority cannot go unchallenged. It is scary, it threatens the existence of those who have no authority. The onlookers in the synagogue are astounded: The screaming voice seems like a wake up call, calling them back into the reality: What do we have to do with new teaching? Is this man Jesus here to destroy us? The people are confused now.
The unclean spirit even knows who this new teacher is: “I know who you are, the Holy One of God! The Holy One of God is in the synagogue, the One called and chosen by God, God is in our midst! Judgment is at hand, how terrible will it be, our God is a devouring fire!”

The unclean spirit brings on all the red lights of fear and threat. But Jesus has never presented himself that way. The inception, the beginning of God’s rule is the good news and always accompanied with the invitation: Repent, turn around and believe this good news.

Jesus quiets the screaming voice. He drives out the unclean spirit. And all of a sudden there is room. The exorcism, the driving out of the unclean spirit creates room for the others who were silent up to this point and overpowered. Now they can stir in amazement, they talk, their tension and nervousness can give way: “What is this? A new teaching, with authority!”

Straight away the word spreads throughout the surrounding region of Galilee: a new teaching, a new authority, a new time - on this Sabbath day.

The world is not the same anymore. Now the people in the synagogue are talking, brought out of silence to wonderment, recognition, knowledge. They have been given room, space. A new time.

We may wonder if this new time is still also available for us, if Jesus’ teaching with authority can still reach us because the Sabbath day in Capernaum is long gone. The good news is, dear congregation, that it is Sunday today. The Sabbath was followed by Sunday, the eighth day of creation, the day in which we live in the continued presence of our risen Lord who promised his disciples that he would go before them and meet them in Galilee.

A new time has indeed begun. We live in the presence of the risen Christ who goes before us and meets us in so many ways: in our baptism in the promise of new life. In the word that we hear and study and share. In bread and wine in the promise of forgiveness and healing.

Here is the space for us to begin to share our questions, experiences, our stories of disappointment and discovery. Here is the time to share in amazement and wonderment the discovery of the new teaching: The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near.
And in this new space and time we may be surprised to find ourselves teaching even if we are not teachers by profession. Teaching with authority in the presence of the Lord who went before us to Galilee to meet us. Amen.