By Christ’s Authority
Seems like everyone is
questioning authority these days. The two and half year old
daughter of my friends Brian and Katy whom I stayed with last week
has no problem telling her one year old sister and her parents no,
as if she were the one in charge. If Jenny and I had a dime for
every “because I’m the parent and you’re not” we be rich beyond our
wildest imaginations. A week ago Friday, Max, Luke and I entered
the house to discover a veritable winter wonderland. See, some time
during the day, our beloved eighty pound basset hound, Harley had
broken into the pantry and gotten into a bag of white enriched
baking flour. And the white tracks led to his bed by the fireplace
where he sat frozen probably thinking to himself if he didn’t move
an inch nobody would notice, but the evidence powdering his face and
ears were a dead give away. In that moment between incredulity and
response he looked up at me with eyes that seemed to be saying,
“Hah, so who’s the master now, Brian?”
Of course the issue of authority is a
hot topic on a wider scale too, one that we deal with in the wider
circle of relationships in which we find ourselves, in our
communities, our country and around the world. A week ago Saturday
I was driving home on Mopac at around 2 in the afternoon. Now
usually it’s a time when I’m not too worried about traffic, so
imagine my surprise when I discovered gridlock about a quarter mile
this side of Parmer Lane. Since I had to get myself across town
again by 4, I got a little bit nervous. “Must be an accident,” I
thought. About twenty minutes later, I discovered the source of the
problem. Construction on the new toll road had the left lane
completely shut down. I found myself indignant over this
thoughtless act perpetrated against the community. “Couldn’t they
be more considerate and do their work late at night, when everyone
is asleep?” I fantasized about the phone call I was going to make.
“Who do you guys think you are? By whose authority do you so
recklessly inconvenience the good people of Austin?” Or on a more
serious note, by what authority does a president authorize the
National Security Agency to listen in on phone calls of American
citizens? As the message on the well worn bumper sticker urges,
“Question authority!” It’s not a bad idea in this or any other age
for that matter.
The issue of authority is hardly new.
It’s one that even Jesus had to deal with. One day, early in his
ministry, Jesus entered the synagogue and began to teach. “They
were astounded at his teaching for he taught them as one who had
authority, and not as the scribes.” You have to wonder what about
the qualities they recognized in Jesus that led to their
astonishment. Was it his mannerisms, his knowledge of the Torah or
his quick wit? Was it the way he managed to stay one step ahead of
them, to put them in their place? It’s hard to say. What we do
know is that he is God’s beloved Son, in whom God is well pleased,
one sent to proclaim a message for repentance and faith, for “the
time is fulfilled the kingdom of God has come near!”
His authority rests on the Word, not
just any old Word, but God’s Word, the Word rooted in the tradition
of the Law and the Prophets, and yet something else too, a Word that
goes beyond what has come before, a Word that creates something
completely new. For a lot of people in our world, perhaps even
people we know, Word of God equals the Bible, nothing more, nothing
less. And to suggest anything different is commit a grave act of
heresy. Well, at the risk of sounding heretical, God’s Word surely
does encompass more than this. That isn’t to say that the
Bible is not important because it is spirit and life to us, “the
most important of all the ways God’s person and presence are
revealed to humanity”.
But the Bible is but part of the incarnate God’s revelation to the
world. We speak of Jesus Christ “Word made flesh who dwells among
us full of grace and Truth.” So it is in other ways that we
experience the authoritative Word of God, in the sacraments, in
preaching, in the assurance of sins forgiven, here in community with
one another, together as the Body of Christ, the place where God’s
Word is happening even now as the old sinner is being put to death
and a new creation is raised up.
And it is here, that we receive
authority not because we’re smart and talented, not because we’ve
“got the goods” and somebody else doesn’t, but because of what God
has does for us in baptism, making us members of a shared
priesthood, that together, together “we may proclaim the praise of
God and bear God’s creative and redeeming Word into all the world.”
Now that sounds simple enough, but in an individualistic world like
ours in which authority is understood as a force that stands over
and against another, the authority that Jesus seems to be about
doesn’t make much sense. If you want to project a sense of
authority, you have to show strength of purpose, gritty resolve and
be prepared to back it up with force—a convincing argument or the
barrel of a gun or a heavy Bible. And yet that’s not how Jesus
operates. Sure he takes on his opponents, turns over a table or
two, but in the end he dies a sad, criminal’s death on the cross,
“the object of suffering and shame”. Here though is where God’s
authority rests, in Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world. Likewise, here is our authority for the life we share,
together in his name.
The image of this kind of authority is
touched upon in the film Simon Birch. In it the main
character, Simon is one of the most popular kids in his class, not
because he’s a jock, or because his family has a lot of money or
because his family is well connected. It isn’t his stature either,
because he’s a dwarf. Rather, the credibility, the authority he has
with his classmates is the result of his outrageous antics and
brutal honesty, not to mention the way he is able to put
self-impressed grownups in their place. A case in point is the
Sunday school Christmas pageant that thanks to Simon becomes total
chaos and quite literally “all hell breaks loose.” When the smoke
finally clears what one sees is the stark contrast between an impish
Simon and his angry, unhappy pastor who lives constantly under the
burden of a long ago indiscretion and is completely willing to allow
for any grace in his life, especially towards Simon.
Towards the end of the
movie, Simon and his friends are on their way back from a winter
youth retreat, when the bus driver veers to the side of the road to
keep from hitting a deer and the bus careens off of the road into a
frozen river. As the bone chilling water starts to fill up the bus,
Simon is able to bring a sense of calm and tell everyone what they
need to do to escape. Responding to Simon’s commands, they all
manage to make it back to dry ground, everyone that is, but Simon
who ends up dying.
All authority rests in the one who
died for our sake, who brings us peace and shows us the way from
death to life. The summer after seminary, I served as a hospital
chaplain at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas. I have to say that
in many ways, it was truly an eye opening experience for a soon to
be pastor of the church. I remember the feelings I had when first I
was sent out onto the floor to visit children and their families who
were dealing with serious, even life threatening illnesses and
injuries. The high tech gadgetry, a host of doctors, nurses and
technicians constantly going about their work and the pervasive
sense of urgency left this young seminary graduate feeling
overwhelmed at times. I found myself wondering what right I even
had to be there. What did I have in comparison to these highly
trained professionals who sometimes had no qualms about telling me
to get out of the way? At times I felt invisible and even ashamed,
because after all, what did a person like me have to bring? Then
one day over lunch I got to talking with one of the more senior
chaplains. He asked me how things were going, what I thought about
working there and after while, perhaps sensing my insecurity he
asked me about how I entered a room.
“What do you say?”
“What do I say? What do you mean?” I
responded.
“I mean how do you introduce
yourself?”
To which I replied, “I guess I say,
‘Good morning, I’m just the chaplain.’”
“And why would you say something like
that?”
“Because it’s the truth, that’s who I
am.”
“No it isn’t and you know it. Why do
you tell them you’re ‘just the chaplain’? Do you think
that somehow you’re less important than anyone else who comes to
visit? Brian, you may not be an authority in diagnosing
illnesses or dressing wounds or administering IV’s, but you help to
bring God’s presence into what may well be an unsettling and
terrifying place. You’ve got the authority. Trust the one who
gives it to you and you’ll start to see things in a completely
different way.”
From that moment on, I did.
And no matter where we
live out our lives, at work, in school, in our neighborhood and
homes, we have been given authority by the one who calls us and
makes us his own. It is an authority unlike any the world has ever
known, not like the one that lord’s it self over others, but one
made known in loving service to others. “Whoever wishes to be great
among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among
you must be slave of all, for the Son of Man came not to be served
but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
By Christ’s authority, we
are free, free from the power of sin and death, free from all that
weighs us down. By his authority let us go to serve him in the
words we speak, in the lives we live. Amen.
