Sharing it is our vocation
Proper 21A | Matthew 21:23-32
Authority. It’s a sticky concept in every way.
It’s sticky—in that when we get into it, we get stuck in all of the different facets to it.
And it is sticky—in that we get stuck on the concept. Sticky like a slogan or a moment or a song. [“Cecilia”]
With authority, we obsess over who is allowed to speak and when. Who to trust and why.
And when the chief priests and elders come to Jesus and ask him about authority, we might feel conflicted.
On the one hand, we’re on Team Jesus, so we don’t really worry about his authority. But on the other, we hear the question and think it deserves an answer. That reaction is what we call integrity. It becomes a matter of honesty and decency. Because we believe every question deserves an answer.
In the abstract, this encounter also triggers long-standing issues for the church about our own authority. Who we entrust with authority and where it comes from.
But there’s a problem with all of this abstraction. It isn’t really in service to the truth.
The Context
Now, this isn’t the first time Jesus sets foot in the Temple. It is the second. The first time was the day before. When he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and dove-sellers.
When we hear this story in the narrative, we’re already aware of the situation Jesus has entered into.
- We’ve heard Jesus predict his torture and death three times.
- And we’ve heard of the Temple leadership’s plot to kill him.
So then Jesus waltzes into Jerusalem to fanfare on the humble donkey. As a new Messiah, come to liberate the people from Rome through nonviolence. He is confronting Empire and the authority of the Temple’s leaders.
And then he enters the Temple.
He says it is supposed to be a house of prayer, but they’ve made it a den of robbers. A delicious double-insult which demeans their character and their allegiance with empire. He is calling them both protectors of the thieves from Rome and thieves themselves. It is a stunning rebuke. And right to their face. In front of everybody.
But let us remember that here, he does not make himself an enemy to them. He has been. They made him their enemy long before this.
What he is doing is challenging their foundational character in a way the public could see and understand.
And then he leaves town. Heads to Bethany. Only to return the next day.
That’s when the leaders confront Jesus.
They question his authority, using the traditional hierarchical approach. Testing his credentials. Which, of course, is a reasonable request. And seems reasonable to anyone who doesn’t know the context.
And what does the context offer? Motive. For Deception.
And suddenly, we don’t see the reasonable use of rules to establish fairness, that favored level playing field. We see manipulation by the powerful to use rules, not in their favor, as if the powerful and the powerless have equal resources. But as retaliation. Insurance.
Jesus doesn’t play their game.
He doesn’t grant their questioning as valid because it isn’t entirely. It’s tainted.
He throws a question back at them that forces them to deal with the extent and purpose of authority for people of faith. He isn’t talking about general authority. Or how we use systems of authority in our social groups. He’s talking about the inseparability of our faith, our practice, and our relationship with God.
He asks about the limits of the authority they are questioning in him. The authority he first questioned in them. Because of who they have been.
And they are befuddled by the question because it won’t let them have what they want: keeping absolute authority for the spiritual lives of the people. They can’t maintain that authority and make Jesus look bad. It’s either: admit Jesus’s authority or compromise their own.
So what do they do?
They tap out. Pretend like they don’t know. Like a corporate CEO on the stand when his company has been caught exploiting the poor: I don’t recall. A lie we allow because it’s unprovable. We aren’t mind readers. But we all know they’re lying.
The people get that their leaders are dishonest.
That’s the purpose of the parable Jesus tells, isn’t it? To remind everyone there who we prefer to follow. Who we all know has true authority.
Is it people who don’t commit to things, but show up anyway? Or is it the one who says they’ll be there, then isn’t?
Authority and integrity are linked.
But let us refrain from total abstraction. Making too broad pronouncements about leaders and what we expect. Because Jesus is undermining the leaders of the Temple. On purpose. He is challenging them in public. With cause. But it is a challenge he knows has a mortal outcome.
His threat to the Temple authorities is a threat to the Temple’s authority. Which, he also knows, is a threat to Rome and its authority. An authority dependent on using the Temple to pacify the population.
Jesus knows the cost will be his life. But doing nothing would be a rejection of God’s authority in his life.
Living Art
In resisting the impulse to read this gospel story as a universal teaching about authority, we are making it more difficult to utilize its truth. To know what Jesus and the evangelist are trying to communicate.
And yet, knowing that Jesus stands up to this interrogation, tries to persuade the people to focus on God’s dream for creation, and reveals the depravity of the Temple leadership, we do get a better, more holistic vision of authority. It’s not a simple either/or debate between philosophers. Or a legal code conceived by lawyers. But living art, visible and understood by people throughout history.
This is a picture of integrity. Of hope. Honesty and incorruptibility. Of genuine love and generosity.
Jesus walks into the Temple knowing that the most powerful people want to kill him. That it doesn’t really matter what he says. It’s a kangaroo court either way. And what he shows isn’t a concept, but their reality. Its limits. And its secret ambitions.
As we take up our crosses,
We do so with this example. But in our reality. We recall our own deeply corrupted systems of inequity and injustice. And those leaders and institutions that benefit from keeping it this way.
And yet, at the same time, we are surrounded by beautiful people. By neighbors seeking to love their neighbors; to feed those longing for food; to house those longing for place; to friend those longing for friendship; and to heal those longing for wholeness. We have neighbors like this; and we are neighbors like this—to each other.
Taking up our crosses means going into our own Jerusalem and facing this kind of challenge. To love the multitudes who compel us to sympathy. And to confront those who refuse sympathy to anyone. Whose attachment to rules and order, perhaps, or to systems which they are convinced will protect them.
To love anyway.
Love when it is difficult. When it feels like a burden.
Love in hope. Not because we think God will protect us from dying, but because God loves through us. And our love changes our world.
Love anyway. Because we are loved. We are made for love. It is our being. Loving through the challenge. Through the carrying of the cross and in the dying. In the healing and the feeding. In the rising and the becoming new.
We are made for love because God is love. And this is who we are made to be. People of love, offering this other way—a way of love—with hope. Not only for ourselves, but for everyone.
Because everyone needs love.
And we can’t assume they’ll just “get it”. We make that happen with our faith. With our words. And our actions. Bold or quiet. But filled with God’s redeeming love.