“By What Authority”
Matthew 21:23-32
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
10/12/14
One of my favorite past times, when I am otherwise on duty
in my pastoral role, is to mess with impressionable minds in the youth group. I
love to throw out pure nonsense that for one split second the kids almost believe. There is a lifetime of
twisted joy in the momentary look of dismay on a roomful of young faces when
the preacher says in all seriousness, that in Georgia we consider salamanders a
delicacy – sautéed in herb butter and served with white wine. Or that no,
Marianne can’t come to the cookout at Bear and Heather’s house.
“Why not?” they ask.
“Because,” I say, “every first Wednesday evening she has to
meet with her probation officer.”
“Oh…wait…what?!”
Such foolishness has given rise to a mantra that comes in
the form of a warning: Don’t trust Pastor
Allen unless he’s wearing his robe.
Not only do I enjoy all of this, I am both encouraged and
humbled by the implied trust of the clerical robe. All the carrying on returns
to a foundational place, a place of identity and authority. For the kids to say
Don’t trust Pastor Allen unless he’s
wearing his robe is a kind of backhanded statement of faith in the spiritual
truth which stands behind the office represented by this garment. It reminds me
that I must choose my words carefully when wearing it.
Now, that does not mean that I should avoid saying
difficult things, or that I have to try to please everyone. It means that
whether I’m wearing this robe or not, my words must reiterate the words of
Jesus and my actions must reflect his challenging love and transforming grace.
And that’s dangerous work for me do, because I am not Jesus. Still, a robe like this lays on the one who wears it an
authority and a demand similar in gravity to the authority and demand laid on a
judge who wears a robe in a courtroom, or a doctor who wears a lab coat in a
hospital. It is, of course, most like the authority and the demand laid on all who are baptized and wear the name
Christian.
In the course of all faith traditions, there come, inevitably,
times of earthshaking collision between the authority of the robed institution
and its powerful defenders and the robeless masses who know that while they may
not hold power, they still hold the authority of ones who are named, loved,
and called by God.
In our story today, the robed keepers of institutional
power have had enough of the plain-clothes rabbi from Nazareth. Who is he to
claim the spiritual authority to bulldoze his way through the temple like that?
Who does he think he is calling the moneychangers robbers? Who is he to question, to judge, even to heal in God’s
name?
Jesus may be a Jew who knows the Torah. He may say and do
remarkable things, but the chief priests and elders do not regard him as one
who speaks with authority, because he
challenges their authority. And he
challenges the tradition, the scriptures, and everything familiar and
comfortable to robes, rules, and rituals. So they ask him, “By what authority
are you doing these things?”
“You answer my question, and I’ll answer yours,” says
Jesus. “When John baptized, was he doing God’s work or his own?”
John the Baptist was another un-robed speaker of daring
speech. He is dead now, but the chief priests and elders never had use for that
loose cannon who called them snakes and illegitimate children. But the people
consider John a man who spoke for God.
These powerful men now face a quandary. If they say that
John was doing God’s work, Jesus will
scold them for not believing John. But to say that John followed his own agenda
will get them more than a scolding from the crowds who revered John as a
prophet.
So, with authority, these finely-robed men say, “We don’t
know.”
“That’s what I thought,” says the robeless one.
“Well, what about this,” says Jesus. And he tells them the
quick parable about the man with two sons.
“Which one does the father’s will?” he asks.
“The first,” they answer, completely unaware that what they
thought was a softball was more like a bowling ball falling straight for their
toes.
“John came to you in the way of righteousness,” says Jesus,
“and you did not believe him.” Tax collectors and prostitutes are holier than
you are, he says. They trusted him, and even when you recognized his authority
you worshiped your tradition, your comfort, your institutional power instead of
the Spirit that animated John’s life and voice.
Do you see the sly, subversive thing Jesus does? He answers the initial question. “John came…in
the way of righteousness,” says Jesus. And John said “Blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord.” Jesus, who is known for his tradition-defying, robe-shredding
welcome of those whom the law condemns, is claiming for himself the authority
of the Blessed One of whom John
spoke.1
It is not included in today’s reading, but Jesus goes on to
tell the parable of the wicked tenants, and this parable infuriates the chief
priests and elders because they know he is talking about them. Seething, they want to arrest Jesus, but once again, “they
feared the crowds [who] regarded [Jesus] as a prophet.”
Where, then, does real authority lie? According to the
Gospel of God’s Christ, lasting authority lies not in the hands of the powerful, but in the hands of the powerless. It lies in the hands and hearts of
those who trust the one who comes robed not in gold-trimmed linen but in
fearless compassion and resurrecting love.
Our reformed tradition is a great gift, a thing to receive
and pass on with thanksgiving and hope. And it comes to us through the bold
faith of robeless ones who risked life and limb defying the abuses of the
corrupt robes of the medieval papacy. Nonetheless, Jesus’ ministry among the
keepers of an entrenched institution says that no tradition is immune from such
abuses. Even we who celebrate and participate in The Priesthood of All Believers can turn our long-historied practices
into ruinous idols.
Richard Rohr writes: “There are not sacred and profane
things, places, and moments. There are only sacred and desecrated things,
places, and moments—and it is we alone who desecrate them by our blindness…Our
only blindness,” says Rohr, “is our…lack of [reverence, our lack of] fascination,
humility, curiosity, [and] awe.”2
Traditions can be sacred and desecrated, as well. And when
a tradition becomes desecrated, it loses its sense of wonder, its sense of
expectation, and its connection with the holiness within all things. Those who
live in a desecrated tradition tend to become keepers of gates rather than
sharers of good news. We become wielders of power rather than tellers of a
story, and stewards of that story’s natural authority to transform and heal a desecrated
creation.
God has given us a wonderful story and a sacred community.
God has laid upon all of us the authority to receive and convey these gifts for
Christ’s sake, not our own. So, when we lay aside our quest for power, opting
instead to exercise the spiritual authority of humble gratitude, we will find ourselves in the very midst of
the breathtaking marvel of the redeemed and redeeming community of grace called
the kingdom of God. And in that community
we will discover, more and more, that we trust one another, whether we are
wearing robes or not!
1Lewis Donelson, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting
on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4. Westminster/John Knox Press, 2011, p. 119.
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