A Curious Authority Matthew 21:23-32, Philippians 2:12-13
I am a student of authority.
From very early in my life I learned how to enter a room
and immediately discern who IN that room had authority OVER the room.
I’ve always been able to tell pretty quickly the one to whom I should defer.
I grew up with a pretty clear idea who in my life had authority over me.
and that gave me a certain sense of security.
My parents, of course – I said “Yes sir” and “Yes ma’am” without exception.
In fact I said “Yes sir” and “No ma’am” to anyone ten years or more older than me.
Certainly anyone in a uniform or wearing a badge of any kind had authority,
even if it was an 18 year old security guard at the Mall – if he had a badge….
Now, just because I’m very good as spotting the authority in the room
that doesn’t mean I’ve not had my share of opportunities to BE the authority.
In my Boy Scout troop I was a patrol leader, an assistant senior patrol leader,
a senior patrol leader, even an assistant scout master.
And the scouts were great because if you were the one in authority everyone knew it.
They had a little ceremony, gave you a special patch to wear on your sleeve.
If you gave an order and some rabble-rousing Tenderfoot
came back at you with, “Oh, yeah, sez who?”
You could point at the patch on your shoulder and snarl, “Sez me!”
All this is to say that I can really understand where the chief priests were coming from
in this morning’s passage from Matthew.
They were among the elite few in the Jewish religious system who had authority,
ESPECIALLY in Jerusalem.
They had the uniform, they had the fringes and phylacteries showing their rank.
They had the manner, the bearing, the confident stride
that comes with being the alpha male, the top dog.
So you can imagine Jesus was like fingernails on a chalkboard to their existence.
He was a rambling, shambling accident waiting to happen,
threatening to demolish the delicate balance
the chief priests and elders had worked so hard to achieve.
Remember, the events of this passage fall on the Monday
of the last week of Jesus’ life.
Just a day earlier he had entered the city with shouts of “Hosanna” ringing in his ears.
He rode a donkey and he might as well have had a bumper sticker
plastered across that donkey’s backside that read “Question Authority”
He came into town and had people buzzing about him
louder than anybody had EVER buzzed about the chief priests and elders.
Not only does Jesus enter the city in this provocative way
but he immediately climbs the high steps of the temple mount
enters the Hulda gate up through King Herod’s portico
and comes into the temple court – the chief priests’ HOME court .
There he turns over the tables of the money changers and drives them out.
Jesus heals some people and then leaves
before the chief priests and elders can decide what to say to him.
But when the chief priests come to work the next day
Jesus has gotten there first and he’s already set himself up in the temple court.
He’s drawn a crowd and he’s teaching them.
That’s when the chief priests and the elders of the people
come to him and DEMAND to know the very thing I would have wanted to know…
They asked the very question that would have been bugging me to death.
“By what authority are you doing these things,
and who GAVE you this authority?
In other words, where’s your badge?”
Jesus just did not compute for them.
He didn’t fit anywhere in their chain of command.
He wasn’t even on the organizational chart!
“By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?”
That’s a question from someone who finds great comfort
in keeping the pecking order straight.
It’s a question designed to protect turf and dampen innovation
and maintain the status quo.
It’s a question from someone who for too long
has lived his life according to carefully interpreted external social cues
instead of the internal movement of the Spirit.
“By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?”
The problem with the chief priests
is that they seem to only recognize one kind of authority.
In their system authority is bestowed on you by being born into the right family,
jumping through the appropriate hoops;
conforming to a certain role, mastering all the code words, the secret handshake.
And if you are INSIDE the elite circle you’ve got juice.
If you are OUTSIDE the elite circle you’ve got Zilch. Nothing. Nada.
They didn’t know what to do with Jesus whose authority was NOT a family legacy,
NOT earned through years of jumping through hoops.
They didn’t know what to do with his kind of authority that didn’t come with a uniform
but which simply infused his being,
bubbling up from within and instantly recognizable even to his enemies.
“By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?”
In typical fashion, Jesus answers the chief priests’ question with a question.
He asks them if John’s baptism was from heaven or was of human origin.
He traps them in their own narrow definition of authority
and they can’t, for the life of them, figure out how to wiggle away.
To drive his point home, Jesus tells them a parable,
just a little story that gets directly to the difference between their kind of authority
built on knowing the right words
and his kind of authority built on doing the right thing.
Don’t leave here thinking Jesus was an anarchist.
He certainly questioned hollow authority,
the kind of empty authority that’s based on privilege and bullying.
But he was all for the organic kind of authority that puts God’s will into action.
That’s the key here, putting God’s will into action.
That’s the source of genuine authority;
the kind of authority that is instantly recognizable in every culture
in every level of society.
Jesus’ tells the chief priest that this kind of authority is available
even to traitors and prostitutes once they catch a glimpse of God’s kingdom
and begin to live accordingly.
Basically, Jesus’ seems to have a view of authority
that says, “You’ll know it when you see it.”
Of course, this makes me nervous because it seems to have nothing to do with age,
or social position
or uniforms or badges.
When I walk into a room, If I go by Jesus’ definition of authority
I can’t simply look for the usual external cues
that let me know to whom I should defer.
I have to wait, and watch, and see if the person’s actions match her words
and if her actions seem to line up with what I know of God’s will.
Jesus says, you’ll know it when you see it
And from what I know of Jesus there are bound to be some surprises.
Two examples:
Many of you have read the book Three Cups of Tea
that tells of Greg Mortensen’s incredible efforts to build schools
and to educate girls in the high mountains of muslim-controlled Pakistan.
By all accounts he was a mess when he started his work.
He was living in his car half the time, a sort of vagabond mountain climber
who’d grown up the child of missionaries,
grief-stricken over the death of his younger sister.
It was on a botched mountain climbing trip that he stumbled into a Pakistani village
and was so touched by their hospitality that he pledged to come back
and build them a school.
He had no standing to do this. He had no powerful connections.
He had no leverage by which to bend others to do his will.
I’m not even sure he would have claimed it was God’s will.
It was just something he had to do. And he did.
and now 15 years after making his promise there are 78 schools
in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a direct result of his efforts.
That is authority.
On a smaller scale and closer to home,
there is a man in Winston-Salem, NC named Keith Smyre.
Keith washes and details cars for a living, traveling the city to do it.
He has regular places he goes and people love to watch him work.
He works with great energy, literally dancing as he works,
and he exudes joy with every swipe of his sponge.
In an article about Smyre, one woman is quoted as saying,
“His energy and enthusiasm is contagious.”
She goes on to say, “He doesn’t just wash my car.
We have lots of discussions about religion and faith.”
WHAT? She talks religion and faith with the guy who washes her car?
He has no seminary degree but he does have authority.
It is organic to the way he lives his life. You can’t miss it.
It’s a curious thing, this authority of Jesus,
this authority that comes not from military might or political intimidation,
not from wealth or club membership or University degree.
Paul comes about as close as anyone describing the source of this authority
when he writes to his friends in Philippi urging them to follow Jesus’ example.
Don’t imagine selfish ambition is going to get you what you want, Paul writes.
Don’t rely on your own conceit to give you that authority you’re looking for.
But follow Jesus’ path of humility and service,
doing God’s will,
enduring even the darkest times with the sure and certain knowledge
that just as God took Jesus from the despair of the cross
and exalted him to the place of ultimate authority,
God will give us each the authority we need to do God’s will.
That’s the only thing worth doing anyway.
And you don’t even need a badge.
From very early in my life I learned how to enter a room
and immediately discern who IN that room had authority OVER the room.
I’ve always been able to tell pretty quickly the one to whom I should defer.
I grew up with a pretty clear idea who in my life had authority over me.
and that gave me a certain sense of security.
My parents, of course – I said “Yes sir” and “Yes ma’am” without exception.
In fact I said “Yes sir” and “No ma’am” to anyone ten years or more older than me.
Certainly anyone in a uniform or wearing a badge of any kind had authority,
even if it was an 18 year old security guard at the Mall – if he had a badge….
Now, just because I’m very good as spotting the authority in the room
that doesn’t mean I’ve not had my share of opportunities to BE the authority.
In my Boy Scout troop I was a patrol leader, an assistant senior patrol leader,
a senior patrol leader, even an assistant scout master.
And the scouts were great because if you were the one in authority everyone knew it.
They had a little ceremony, gave you a special patch to wear on your sleeve.
If you gave an order and some rabble-rousing Tenderfoot
came back at you with, “Oh, yeah, sez who?”
You could point at the patch on your shoulder and snarl, “Sez me!”
All this is to say that I can really understand where the chief priests were coming from
in this morning’s passage from Matthew.
They were among the elite few in the Jewish religious system who had authority,
ESPECIALLY in Jerusalem.
They had the uniform, they had the fringes and phylacteries showing their rank.
They had the manner, the bearing, the confident stride
that comes with being the alpha male, the top dog.
So you can imagine Jesus was like fingernails on a chalkboard to their existence.
He was a rambling, shambling accident waiting to happen,
threatening to demolish the delicate balance
the chief priests and elders had worked so hard to achieve.
Remember, the events of this passage fall on the Monday
of the last week of Jesus’ life.
Just a day earlier he had entered the city with shouts of “Hosanna” ringing in his ears.
He rode a donkey and he might as well have had a bumper sticker
plastered across that donkey’s backside that read “Question Authority”
He came into town and had people buzzing about him
louder than anybody had EVER buzzed about the chief priests and elders.
Not only does Jesus enter the city in this provocative way
but he immediately climbs the high steps of the temple mount
enters the Hulda gate up through King Herod’s portico
and comes into the temple court – the chief priests’ HOME court .
There he turns over the tables of the money changers and drives them out.
Jesus heals some people and then leaves
before the chief priests and elders can decide what to say to him.
But when the chief priests come to work the next day
Jesus has gotten there first and he’s already set himself up in the temple court.
He’s drawn a crowd and he’s teaching them.
That’s when the chief priests and the elders of the people
come to him and DEMAND to know the very thing I would have wanted to know…
They asked the very question that would have been bugging me to death.
“By what authority are you doing these things,
and who GAVE you this authority?
In other words, where’s your badge?”
Jesus just did not compute for them.
He didn’t fit anywhere in their chain of command.
He wasn’t even on the organizational chart!
“By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?”
That’s a question from someone who finds great comfort
in keeping the pecking order straight.
It’s a question designed to protect turf and dampen innovation
and maintain the status quo.
It’s a question from someone who for too long
has lived his life according to carefully interpreted external social cues
instead of the internal movement of the Spirit.
“By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?”
The problem with the chief priests
is that they seem to only recognize one kind of authority.
In their system authority is bestowed on you by being born into the right family,
jumping through the appropriate hoops;
conforming to a certain role, mastering all the code words, the secret handshake.
And if you are INSIDE the elite circle you’ve got juice.
If you are OUTSIDE the elite circle you’ve got Zilch. Nothing. Nada.
They didn’t know what to do with Jesus whose authority was NOT a family legacy,
NOT earned through years of jumping through hoops.
They didn’t know what to do with his kind of authority that didn’t come with a uniform
but which simply infused his being,
bubbling up from within and instantly recognizable even to his enemies.
“By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?”
In typical fashion, Jesus answers the chief priests’ question with a question.
He asks them if John’s baptism was from heaven or was of human origin.
He traps them in their own narrow definition of authority
and they can’t, for the life of them, figure out how to wiggle away.
To drive his point home, Jesus tells them a parable,
just a little story that gets directly to the difference between their kind of authority
built on knowing the right words
and his kind of authority built on doing the right thing.
Don’t leave here thinking Jesus was an anarchist.
He certainly questioned hollow authority,
the kind of empty authority that’s based on privilege and bullying.
But he was all for the organic kind of authority that puts God’s will into action.
That’s the key here, putting God’s will into action.
That’s the source of genuine authority;
the kind of authority that is instantly recognizable in every culture
in every level of society.
Jesus’ tells the chief priest that this kind of authority is available
even to traitors and prostitutes once they catch a glimpse of God’s kingdom
and begin to live accordingly.
Basically, Jesus’ seems to have a view of authority
that says, “You’ll know it when you see it.”
Of course, this makes me nervous because it seems to have nothing to do with age,
or social position
or uniforms or badges.
When I walk into a room, If I go by Jesus’ definition of authority
I can’t simply look for the usual external cues
that let me know to whom I should defer.
I have to wait, and watch, and see if the person’s actions match her words
and if her actions seem to line up with what I know of God’s will.
Jesus says, you’ll know it when you see it
And from what I know of Jesus there are bound to be some surprises.
Two examples:
Many of you have read the book Three Cups of Tea
that tells of Greg Mortensen’s incredible efforts to build schools
and to educate girls in the high mountains of muslim-controlled Pakistan.
By all accounts he was a mess when he started his work.
He was living in his car half the time, a sort of vagabond mountain climber
who’d grown up the child of missionaries,
grief-stricken over the death of his younger sister.
It was on a botched mountain climbing trip that he stumbled into a Pakistani village
and was so touched by their hospitality that he pledged to come back
and build them a school.
He had no standing to do this. He had no powerful connections.
He had no leverage by which to bend others to do his will.
I’m not even sure he would have claimed it was God’s will.
It was just something he had to do. And he did.
and now 15 years after making his promise there are 78 schools
in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a direct result of his efforts.
That is authority.
On a smaller scale and closer to home,
there is a man in Winston-Salem, NC named Keith Smyre.
Keith washes and details cars for a living, traveling the city to do it.
He has regular places he goes and people love to watch him work.
He works with great energy, literally dancing as he works,
and he exudes joy with every swipe of his sponge.
In an article about Smyre, one woman is quoted as saying,
“His energy and enthusiasm is contagious.”
She goes on to say, “He doesn’t just wash my car.
We have lots of discussions about religion and faith.”
WHAT? She talks religion and faith with the guy who washes her car?
He has no seminary degree but he does have authority.
It is organic to the way he lives his life. You can’t miss it.
It’s a curious thing, this authority of Jesus,
this authority that comes not from military might or political intimidation,
not from wealth or club membership or University degree.
Paul comes about as close as anyone describing the source of this authority
when he writes to his friends in Philippi urging them to follow Jesus’ example.
Don’t imagine selfish ambition is going to get you what you want, Paul writes.
Don’t rely on your own conceit to give you that authority you’re looking for.
But follow Jesus’ path of humility and service,
doing God’s will,
enduring even the darkest times with the sure and certain knowledge
that just as God took Jesus from the despair of the cross
and exalted him to the place of ultimate authority,
God will give us each the authority we need to do God’s will.
That’s the only thing worth doing anyway.
And you don’t even need a badge.
posted by David Cameron | 5:04 PM
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