Yet I also weep and rage at the chaos of this moment. A death toll and a lostness that could have been a different story if we had a different sense of the authority o,f the well being of the community, and the authority of following the directions of experts. For a while now, we have tended to give authority on important matters to whims or momentary feelings or Pinterest finds or who has the boldest choice of font. We might be better off if we were just a bit harder to impress and more willing to consider the sources.
The authority debate in our Gospel lesson is about a multitude of issues. Yet I want to focus on two things: source and righteousness. Where and what is Jesus’ source of authority - why is he followed, hailed, how can he do such wonders? He should be a nobody. There are no degrees on his wall. He may have royal lineage, but he is 149th from the throne and nearly penniless. If he is of God - if his authority is from God - like John the Baptizers, and we don’t follow him, if we - the local leaders - don’t like that what he proclaims is the good news of God, then if we are honest: we know where this is going.
These days authority is spoken of through influencers and leadership and privilege and education and status. All of those facets dance in the anxieties of the local leaders in our Gospel lesson. Then in the Old Testament, Moses’ authority was from God, but it is also from the accident of tragedy. From being placed in a basket in the river in a crisis, of being found by the princess, being raised in the royal household. Moses’ authority starts a few rungs up the ladder. Access, education, understanding of the opposing party. The source of his authority was a mix of earthly and holy.
Our Sunday paragraph selections of Gospel hardly ever give us the context. We are in the 21st chapter of 28 in Matthew. The hearty hosanna praises of Jesus’ royal welcome into Jerusalem, where this king of nothing and everything entered the royal city on a work a day donkey - that is what began this chapter. Then Jesus turns the tables at the halls of power: and now the verbal dance with the local religious leaders. Religious leadership in a culturally-based religion is a balancing act of authority. Civil and sacred. Your civil leadership is based on the understanding that you are commissioned and called by God. Your sacred authority is based in righteousness: which is doing God’s will, living with God’s intentions: mercy, compassion, duty, steadfast love. And your earthly anxiety may lead you to actions that are contrary to God’s intentions.
The authority debate in our Gospel lesson is about a multitude of issues. Yet I want to focus on two things: source and righteousness. Where and what is Jesus’ source of authority - why is he followed, hailed, how can he do such wonders? He should be a nobody. There are no degrees on his wall. He may have royal lineage, but he is 149th from the throne and nearly penniless. If he is of God - if his authority is from God - like John the Baptizers, and we don’t follow him, if we - the local leaders - don’t like that what he proclaims is the good news of God, then if we are honest: we know where this is going.
Secondly, righteousness is about repentance: And the implication is that these sacred and civil leaders have not repented, Whereas the unworthy “other people” have repented - are righteous. Like we - the leaders (insiders) - claim to be. It isn’t what we say that matters - it is what we do. Many of us like to cozy up to the ‘other people’ of this story, even if we have never gotten a penny in similar ways. Yet do we like our place on the ladder - our authority - and maybe we have not thought about it much? I know I don’t on an everyday basis. And when we are confronted with the unsettling righteous holy witness of the nobodies - what do we feel? And what about that holy call to let go of our rung of power and authority - what do we really do?
Authority has the word author in it. Our clinging to a rung is what is writing our life. Who or what is writing your life? Who or what is writing theirs? The good news for the local leader and the tax collector and the everyday schmuck is that the call to repent and get to work in the ‘vineyard’ this is a neverending call. We can choose to let go of our rung and reach a hand back to help the person below us on the ladder. How else do you sum up the activity of that Phillipians poem in today’s epistle?
To be one with Christ, to let him be our leader and influencer and author and therefore authority: is to live as he did - in humility and service. It is to embrace the holy and unsettling risk of not clinging so white-knuckled to our rung, not ignoring our own need to repent. The way of Jesus is the way of steadfast love and duty to a mission more essential than any earthly authority, we can hold onto.
September 27, 2020
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