A Question Of Authority
Sermon
Back in my days as a student physiotherapist, I remember the problems we students had when a student from the year above qualified as a physiotherapist and was then in a supervisory role over the rest of us.
It always seemed like one day we had a friend, the next a stranger who immediately threw her weight about. It was difficult to handle the change in relationships.
I came across a similar change myself, when I studied to teach physiotherapy. One day I was a student teacher, regarded by the students almost as one of themselves, someone to whom they could talk freely. The next day I was a qualified teacher and suddenly discovered what felt like a huge chasm between the students and myself. It appeared I was no longer approachable, and simply because I was now a qualified teacher, the students no longer felt they could talk freely with me.
Our culture puts great store on authority. Those in authority are listened to simply by virtue of their position. We may grumble and groan about those in authority, but on the whole we do as they tell us. And conversely, we regard with suspicion those who appear to have something to say but who don't possess the necessary qualifications to say anything.
It's when you find someone who has no qualifications whatsoever, yet who clearly possesses a kind of inherent authority within themselves, that trouble really brews. People like Jesus, who "taught as one having authority" (Matthew 7:29) but who (as far as we know) had no formal rabbinical training at all.
The Pharisees, who were into authority in a big way, couldn't cope with the success of this itinerant preacher who turned the time-honoured, traditional concept of religion on its head, but whom the ordinary people loved.
Perhaps it was because the ordinary people recognised Jesus' inherent authority and found it to be so much more convincing than the authority of the Pharisees, that the religious leaders of the day hated him so much. They went out of their way to trap him, but always ended up with egg on their faces.
Jesus seemed to have a knack of brilliant put-downs. Brilliant because they were so simple and so direct and so honest, and because they revealed the religious leaders in their true colours of jealousy and suspicion and hate.
On this occasion the Pharisees asked Jesus who gave him the right to preach and teach in the temple. It was an officious sort of question, the prelude to a humiliating order to move on. But yet again, Jesus beat them at their own game. He asked them by whose authority John the Baptist had acted.
Since John the Baptist had only recently been executed in a disgusting way (beheaded) by King Herod, an act which would undoubtedly have roused the fury of the people, the Pharisees themselves were trapped. If they said John's authority was only human, they'd be practically lynched, for John the Baptist was widely regarded and revered as a great prophet. On the other hand, they could hardly admit that John's authority might be from God, for then they'd have to admit that Jesus' authority might also be from God.
The Pharisees had no response to Jesus and they kept very quiet. But Jesus refused to allow them to escape quite so easily, so he told a story about authority - or the lack of it.
It does my heart good to hear this story of the two teenage boys, because even after 2000 years, their reactions come across as so typically teenage. When the father asks his sons to give him a hand in the garden, you can almost hear one boy replying, "Yes, alright, hang on a minute. I just want to finish this TV programme. I'll come straight after that, I promise." While the other, suddenly finding some homework, says, "I'm not coming. Must finish my Maths, can't possibly cut the lawn today."
The father seems to have been a remarkably mild and tolerant man, for he doesn't yell and scream at his sons, telling them to switch that television off and get out in the garden this minute. Instead he accepts the two responses just as they stand, and leaves his sons to make their own decisions for good or for ill while he himself goes off to get started.
It's obvious even to the Pharisees, which lad complied with his father's request. The Pharisees are forced to admit that the rebellious, defiant son who initially refused to do as his father asked but who then arrived to help out, was the son who complied with his father's wishes. Red herrings of attitude and appearance and lifestyle and rudeness don't enter into the equation, because for Jesus the choices are simple.
Lifestyle and appearance and attitude have nothing to do with living the Christian life, which is solely about love. People who appear to be the worst people in the world to human eyes, may know much more about God's will than those who appear to be practically saints. Because those who learn how to love, can't help but live in the open, accepting, non-judgmental way Jesus advocated.
Their lifestyle may not be the sort of lifestyle acceptable to the rest of society. Women may still be selling their bodies, but although that may continue to be very important to society, it seems to be much less important to God. God is only concerned that somehow or other, through the degradation and the abuse those women receive, they actually manage to love.
Thus still today prostitutes and sinners may discover themselves to be in the Kingdom of God, whilst narrow, closed, religious, conventional people may discover themselves to be outside the Kingdom of God, because they've never learned how to love.
Jesus sees straight past outward appearances into the inner being. An inner being which knows how to love will be close to God, living and loving with him, but an inner being that has never discovered how to love will be unable to experience God.
And God, the father in the story, is gentle and accepting of whatever choices people make. The father didn't berate the boys, either to admonish the rudeness of the lad who refused to obey him, or to admonish the slackness or indolence of the lad who failed to keep his promise.
God allows us to do as we wish, without comment, without pressure, and without blame. The choice is ours, and it's simple. Either we open our hearts and minds and souls to God, in which case we can't help but respond with love, or we spend our efforts worrying about appearances and lifestyle but forget how to love.
And put in simple terms, that may simply be a choice between the authority imposed by human beings and the authority which develops from within and which comes from God.
It always seemed like one day we had a friend, the next a stranger who immediately threw her weight about. It was difficult to handle the change in relationships.
I came across a similar change myself, when I studied to teach physiotherapy. One day I was a student teacher, regarded by the students almost as one of themselves, someone to whom they could talk freely. The next day I was a qualified teacher and suddenly discovered what felt like a huge chasm between the students and myself. It appeared I was no longer approachable, and simply because I was now a qualified teacher, the students no longer felt they could talk freely with me.
Our culture puts great store on authority. Those in authority are listened to simply by virtue of their position. We may grumble and groan about those in authority, but on the whole we do as they tell us. And conversely, we regard with suspicion those who appear to have something to say but who don't possess the necessary qualifications to say anything.
It's when you find someone who has no qualifications whatsoever, yet who clearly possesses a kind of inherent authority within themselves, that trouble really brews. People like Jesus, who "taught as one having authority" (Matthew 7:29) but who (as far as we know) had no formal rabbinical training at all.
The Pharisees, who were into authority in a big way, couldn't cope with the success of this itinerant preacher who turned the time-honoured, traditional concept of religion on its head, but whom the ordinary people loved.
Perhaps it was because the ordinary people recognised Jesus' inherent authority and found it to be so much more convincing than the authority of the Pharisees, that the religious leaders of the day hated him so much. They went out of their way to trap him, but always ended up with egg on their faces.
Jesus seemed to have a knack of brilliant put-downs. Brilliant because they were so simple and so direct and so honest, and because they revealed the religious leaders in their true colours of jealousy and suspicion and hate.
On this occasion the Pharisees asked Jesus who gave him the right to preach and teach in the temple. It was an officious sort of question, the prelude to a humiliating order to move on. But yet again, Jesus beat them at their own game. He asked them by whose authority John the Baptist had acted.
Since John the Baptist had only recently been executed in a disgusting way (beheaded) by King Herod, an act which would undoubtedly have roused the fury of the people, the Pharisees themselves were trapped. If they said John's authority was only human, they'd be practically lynched, for John the Baptist was widely regarded and revered as a great prophet. On the other hand, they could hardly admit that John's authority might be from God, for then they'd have to admit that Jesus' authority might also be from God.
The Pharisees had no response to Jesus and they kept very quiet. But Jesus refused to allow them to escape quite so easily, so he told a story about authority - or the lack of it.
It does my heart good to hear this story of the two teenage boys, because even after 2000 years, their reactions come across as so typically teenage. When the father asks his sons to give him a hand in the garden, you can almost hear one boy replying, "Yes, alright, hang on a minute. I just want to finish this TV programme. I'll come straight after that, I promise." While the other, suddenly finding some homework, says, "I'm not coming. Must finish my Maths, can't possibly cut the lawn today."
The father seems to have been a remarkably mild and tolerant man, for he doesn't yell and scream at his sons, telling them to switch that television off and get out in the garden this minute. Instead he accepts the two responses just as they stand, and leaves his sons to make their own decisions for good or for ill while he himself goes off to get started.
It's obvious even to the Pharisees, which lad complied with his father's request. The Pharisees are forced to admit that the rebellious, defiant son who initially refused to do as his father asked but who then arrived to help out, was the son who complied with his father's wishes. Red herrings of attitude and appearance and lifestyle and rudeness don't enter into the equation, because for Jesus the choices are simple.
Lifestyle and appearance and attitude have nothing to do with living the Christian life, which is solely about love. People who appear to be the worst people in the world to human eyes, may know much more about God's will than those who appear to be practically saints. Because those who learn how to love, can't help but live in the open, accepting, non-judgmental way Jesus advocated.
Their lifestyle may not be the sort of lifestyle acceptable to the rest of society. Women may still be selling their bodies, but although that may continue to be very important to society, it seems to be much less important to God. God is only concerned that somehow or other, through the degradation and the abuse those women receive, they actually manage to love.
Thus still today prostitutes and sinners may discover themselves to be in the Kingdom of God, whilst narrow, closed, religious, conventional people may discover themselves to be outside the Kingdom of God, because they've never learned how to love.
Jesus sees straight past outward appearances into the inner being. An inner being which knows how to love will be close to God, living and loving with him, but an inner being that has never discovered how to love will be unable to experience God.
And God, the father in the story, is gentle and accepting of whatever choices people make. The father didn't berate the boys, either to admonish the rudeness of the lad who refused to obey him, or to admonish the slackness or indolence of the lad who failed to keep his promise.
God allows us to do as we wish, without comment, without pressure, and without blame. The choice is ours, and it's simple. Either we open our hearts and minds and souls to God, in which case we can't help but respond with love, or we spend our efforts worrying about appearances and lifestyle but forget how to love.
And put in simple terms, that may simply be a choice between the authority imposed by human beings and the authority which develops from within and which comes from God.
