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By what authority are you doing these things?

November 28, 2022

Isaiah 1:10-20 | 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 | Luke 20:1-8

As we venture into Advent, the season of the church year where we prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus into the world as a newborn baby, this lesson may seem like a strange place to be. We find ourselves with Jesus in Jerusalem where he is openly teaching in the temple, sharing the good news of God’s love, and generally making the ‘powers that be’ very nervous. You see, the chief priests, scribes and the elders see Jesus as an someone who is an affront to their authority and if they cannot stop him, will diminish the power that they wish to maintain. He is also a threat to the status quo which is the very thing that the leaders of the temple cling to so they do not lose their authority. They want him gone. Jesus, who has no difficulty speaking the truth to power, is well aware that they seek to trap him and counters by asking them questions that they are loathe to answer for fear of the crowd.

Authority presents a slippery slope on which many people fall. When given authority, some go on tremendous power trips and use their authority to lord it over others, take what is not theirs, and silence those who might counter them. They punish any infraction of the rules while holding themselves above the law. Others in authority are fearful of any change, believing that any movement away from the status quo will bring a loss of power for them. So they protect the institution that gives them power at all cost even to the detriment of those within it.

Jesus holds another kind of authority. Some would describe it as divine authority which is certainly is but it is also a personal authority as it comes from his identity. He does not take power from an institution or a ruling party but from his relationship with God. It is the same kind of authority that he shared with his early disciples as he sent them out to baptize and heal in Jesus’ name. It is the authority that each of us is given at baptism when we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.

So how do we live into the authority that we have been given at our baptism? Do we fall into the trap that the temple leaders did and use their authority to lord it over others or rigidly cling to old ideas in order to protect the status quo? Or will we be like Jesus who leads by loving others as God loves us?

Betsy Fornal