University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

BY WHAT AUTHORITY?

Matthew 21:23-32

Philippians 2:1-13

A Sermon by Robert E. Dunham

University Presbyterian Church

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time   September 28, 2008

            It begins as a question about authority … but before long it stirs up a worry about power.  There had been the raucous scene yesterday when Jesus drove out the money changers, setting everything on edge. Now it is the next day, and Jesus is in the Temple again, this time teaching, and gathered around are those who see in this man something different.  He teaches, they have said before, not like the chief priests or the scribes, but as one with authority (7:29, 8:9, 9:8, 10:1).

            And the chief priests and the elders of the people come to him as he is teaching and ask, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”  Who are your people… and what are your credentials?  They are questions with an edge to them. Says one observer:

Because it’s hard for us to understand life in Jesus’ time, it’s also hard to understand just how [serious his challenge is to the temple leaders].  By forgiving sins, Jesus is blasting away at the … members of the priestly class who have made a profitable business out of forgiveness. Should we be surprised that they respond by attacking Jesus?  He’s threatening their wealth and privilege. No wonder they are out for him…. It’s no different today. Power always protects itself.[1]

            So they ask where he gets his authority, and Jesus answers with a question of his own, promising to answer their question if they will answer his. He asks them about the baptism of John – “Was John’s ministry from God, or was John just a strong personality who knew how to work a crowd?” And immediately, these leaders who had tried to trap Jesus in his own words realize the tables have been turned. There is no good answer they can give; if they say John is just a magnetic figure and no more, then the people who view John as one in the line of the great prophets will be incensed. If they say John had a divine commission, then the people will want to know why they, as keepers of the faith, have not followed John.[2]  So, they balk, prompting Jesus to say that he won’t answer their question about authority.  But he doesn’t let their strategic silence stand; instead he addresses them again, this time with a parable.[3]

            The parable itself is a seemingly simple tale about two sons, whose father asked them to go to work in his vineyard. The first son declined to do as his father asked, but later had a change of heart and went to work.  The second son was quick to agree to his father’s request, but ultimately failed to show in the vineyard. “What do you think?” Jesus asked.  “Which of the two sons did the will of his father?”  And this time the response from the chief priests and elders is unhesitating: “the first,” they say. Jesus is also unhesitating: “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom ahead of you.” You haven’t believed John’s call to repentance, while they did, Jesus said. You’ve had time to change your minds, but you did not do so.

            Now, if we want, we can engage in another round of “let’s bash the chief priests and the elders.”  We can say that it’s all very clear here:

The issue is authority: Who has it? Who dismisses it? Who “gets” it? And the answers are: Jesus has it, the [elders and chief priests and] Pharisees dismiss it, the crowds get it; and thus with the judgment rendered, the story is over. Right?

Wrong [says Ted Wardlaw]. This is particularly obvious to us in the … question… that precedes the parable. “What do you think?” is not just addressed to those priests and elders, but probably also to Matthew’s church, as the parable sets up the contrast between the two sons.  As Tom Long puts it, “In the middle of patting themselves on the back for being those who, unlike the synagogue, responded positively to the kingdom, [Matthew’s church] would be caught short by the realization that this self-congratulation potentially placed them in a new position in the parable. Now, the church possibly was in the role of the second son, saying, “Yes, Lord.” But were they actually showing up for work in the vineyard? Were they doing the peacemaking, mercy-granting, justice-seeking work of the kingdom? It was food for thought.” [4]

            It is our food for thought, too. We might do well to ask whom we resemble in this parable Jesus tells. 

            Clearly one of the points the parable underscores for us is the importance of matching our words with our deeds, of making certain that what we say resonates with what we do.  Another point is the importance of where we put our trust, of what kind of authority we hold to… and whose power it serves.  Real authority resides in the resonance of word and deed. Within the family of faith, we would add also that words and deeds, speech and actions are meant to align themselves with the will and way of God, as made known to us in Jesus Christ. The authority that attracts us and ultimately holds our loyalty is that kind of authority, where words and deeds converge with ultimate goodness and grace. It is by such convergence that Jesus speaks and acts with authority.

            More than a few times over the years I have shared with you some favorite lines from the eminent American theologian Joseph Sittler. He spoke of his grandparents, and he said this:

Authority is a force continuous with the whole nature of the person...possessing it.  My grandmother had authority; my grandfather had power.  I remember what my grandmother said, because I wanted to do it.  I have no remembrance of what my grandfather said, except that I had to do it.[5] 

            Amid all the anxieties and uncertainties that attend us in these days – with a contentious presidential race that has lately been all but dwarfed by the threat of a global economic collapse – amid all the anxieties and uncertainties, I confess that long for someone like Joseph Sittler’s grandmother to come along and set a tone for us, to instill in us both hope and discipline, someone whose words and deeds coalesce around good and gracious expectations, so that we will want to respond as the good and gracious people we are meant to be.

            The model of such authority for us, of course, is Jesus Christ, the only One worthy of our full and unreserved allegiance.  But that is not to say that we shouldn’t seek after those who pattern their lives after him, or that we shouldn’t try to live out such a pattern in our own lives. Our inability to live up to Christ’s standard is no excuse for not trying, or for relinquishing the search for leaders – in the world and in the church – who try as well. 

            In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we begin to see what such leaders would look like, indeed, what we ourselves should resemble. Paul urged the Philippians… and us:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
  who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
  but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a servant,
   being born in human likeness.
  And being found in human form,
    he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.[6]

Behind and beneath and all through the authority of Christ was a quality that is sorely lacking in so many would-be leaders today, whether in business or banking, factory or university, politics or piety, whether out there or in here: a simple humility that manifests itself in a willingness to give oneself up for a greater good. Among the faithful I would suggest that humility is characterized, even as we hold passionately to what we believe, by a willingness to examine ourselves, to listen to other voices and to be critically self-critical. 

            I was struck by Tom Brown’s worship note this morning about Johann Sebastian Bach, particularly Albert Schweitzer’s comment that Bach “liked other people’s music in the most uncritical way, simply because it stimulated his own creative activity.” Similarly, humility in our time might be found in a willingness to sit down with the other, in openness to the other, in a readiness to listen to his or her music, if you will. 

            Humility as a mark of genuine authority also makes itself known, I believe, in moments when we are reduced to tears. There is a wonderful rabbinic blessing that goes: “May your leaders be those broken by compassion.” How different our world – how different the church – would be if we asked our leaders; “Where does your heart break?”[7]  

            There come moments when we find ourselves in the presence of authority that has been shaped by humility and tears, by the convergence of word and deed with ultimate goodness and grace; and if we are fortunate, we recognize such authority for what it is. My friend Ted Wardlaw is right, of course, when he says, “There is authority, and then there is authority. Sometimes we listen to ourselves and choose one, and then sometimes, by the grace of God, we choose – or are chosen by – the other:” Ted tells of attending the funeral for Lady Bird Johnson in Austin, Texas in 2007, and of the sermon preached that day by Bill Moyers, who had served as special assistant to her husband, Lyndon Johnson:

[Ted said Moyers’] words filled in what many of us did not know about Mrs. Johnson – those of us [at least] who associated her primarily with wildflowers and beautification projects.  She was also, apparently, a strong manager… a shrewd judge of people, and a person of gutsy faith. In the wake of LBJ’s signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the beginning of his campaign for president in his own right, the smart assumption among Johnson’s advisors was to give up on the South. Lady Bird insisted that no, these were her people, her roots, and she planned – pretty much on her own [an astonishing idea in these days of managed campaigns] – a whistle-stop train trip of nearly 1700 miles through what Moyers called “the heart of her past.” Speaking in the present tense, Moyers described this journey:

“She is on her own now – campaigning independently – across the Mason Dixon line, across the buckle of the Bible Belt all the way down to the port of New Orleans.  I cannot all these years later do justice to what she faces: the boos, the jeers, the hecklers, the crude signs and cruder gestures, the insults and the threats….

“In Richmond she is greeted with signs that read: ‘Fly away, Lady Bird.’ In Charleston, ‘Blackbird, go home.’ Children planted in the front row hold up signs practically in her face: ‘Johnson is a nigger lover.’

 “In Savannah, they curse her daughter. The air has become so menacing, we run a separate engine fifteen minutes ahead of her in case of a bomb. She later said, ‘People were concerned for me, but I was concerned for the engineer in the train out front; he was in far greater danger.’ Rumors spread of snipers, and in the panhandle of Florida the threats are so ominous that the FBI orders a yard-by-yard sweep of a seven-mile bridge that her train will cross.

“She never flinches. Up to forty times a day from the platform of the caboose she will speak, sometimes raising a white-gloved hand to punctuate her words – always the lady.  When the insults grow so raucous in South Carolina, she tells the crowd the ugly words are coming ‘not from the good people of South Carolina but from the state of confusion.’ In Columbia she answers hecklers with what one observer called ‘a maternal bark.’ And she says, ‘This is a country of many viewpoints. I respect your right to express your own. Now it is time for me to express mine.’

“An advance man called me back at the White House from the pay phone at a local train depot [said Moyers]. He was choking back the tears. ‘As long as I live,’ he said, in a voice breaking with emotion, ‘I will thank God I was here today, so that I can tell my children that I saw the difference courage makes.’”[8]

Courage…humility…tears…words…deeds. “Once in a while,” Ted Wardlaw says, “we get glimpses like that; or maybe, even, we provide glimpses like that. They are the signs that we are still visited and companioned by the One Who is continually issuing the invitation to choose – no, to be chosen by – the unspeakable will of God, the only authority we will ever need.”