By What Authority?
September 25, 2005
Mikell Chapel and Evensong
Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta
The Revd Theophus “Thee” Smith
In the name of God, our Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, and Friend. Amen!
Last week I asked a riddle too. It was nowhere near as smart a riddle as the one that Jesus asks in today’s gospel. But it was the best I could do under the circumstances; especially considering that I did not mean to ask a riddle. I did not even realize at the time that what came out of my mouth was a riddle.
In today’s gospel by contrast Jesus is thoroughly aware that he is asking a riddle. He asks it deliberately, strategically, even surgically; right after the chief priests and elders ask him that question:
"By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?"
And Jesus replies:
‘I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.’
And right here he asks his riddle:
‘Tell me, John’s baptism: was it from heaven, or from human origin?’
(Mt. 21.23-24)
Well, it’s a brilliant riddle, of course; because if the chief priests and elders can’t decide—or won’t declare—whether John’s baptism was based on heavenly or human authority, then neither are they qualified to learn—or to hear—whether Jesus’ authority is divine or human. Our Lord is being playful here; playing ‘tit-for-tat.’ If you can’t or won’t tell me what I want to hear, I won’t tell you what you want to hear!
But at the end of the day he is too playful to settle for this tit-for-tat behavior. So he adds on a parable, and we’ll come to that in a moment. But first, let me share with you my riddle from last week.
I was visiting a 12-step recovery group meeting: specifically a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. As I arrived, a disheveled, emaciated, and unkempt older man was walking out of the meeting. Then, during the next half-hour he repeatedly walked in-and-out of the meeting, obviously distracted and unable to keep his attention focused for long.
It soon became obvious that the man had been recently drinking; that in fact he was an active alcoholic. That fact distinguished him from the rest of us in the room; the rest of us had at least a few weeks or months if not years of living ‘clean and sober.’
After the meeting I debriefed with a few of the regular members. Then I learned that this man had a long history of coming to AA meetings but could never get sober. That’s when I asked them my ‘riddle:’
“Then why does he keep coming back, if he never succeeds at not drinking?’
Now as I was soon to learn, this was the equivalent of asking a riddle in the form of, “Why does an active alcoholic keep coming back to AA meetings?”
“Because,” said one of the regulars after only a few seconds’ pause for reflection, “as it says in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: ‘the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.’ It’s not about having the perfection or the ability to stop drinking; just the desire.”
Immediately I suffered a vast silence, like the kind of silence that Jesus’ remarks often induced in his listeners. Slowly it dawned on me that I had asked a non-AA type of question. It was the kind of question you ask only if you don’t already get it that an AA meeting is exactly the place where an active drunk belongs.
It was a ‘riddling question’ only for someone who doesn’t understand that AA exists precisely for the most desperate cases—people who otherwise seem utterly hopeless.
It was like asking that silly riddle, “Why did the chicken cross the street?” when the answer is: To get to the other side of the road. Or that other playful riddle we learned in history class: “When was the War of 1812?” It was in the year, 1812, right? Duh, of course!
So in the same mindless way I had asked,
‘Why does a drunk keep coming back to AA meetings?’ when the obvious answer is, “To get sober, of course.”
Now, unlike the respondents to the riddle that Jesus asks in today’s gospel, my respondents answered me honestly, directly, and persuasively:
‘He keeps coming back to AA because this is exactly the right place for people who can’t stop drinking.’ And to prove the point one of them finally said, “That’s the way it was for me for years before I got sober.”
There were “three things” he said that kept him coming back even while he kept drinking:
Now today, this speaker has many years of sobriety and is one of the old-timers of that AA meeting.
************
But today we have before us not only a riddle in the gospel! There’s also a parable in this gospel. It’s the Parable of the Two Sons: the one who does the will of his father after first refusing to do it, and the other who disobeys the will of his father after first agreeing to do it.
‘So which of the two did the will of his father?’ Jesus asks his listeners. And of course they answer, “The first.” And that’s when Jesus gives them this stunning application of the parable—and of the riddle—to their own lives:
"Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him. (Mt. 21.31-32)
Notice that the real issue here is that the object of Jesus’ critique is not unrighteousness but the refusal to “change your minds.” In the parable it is the first son who is approved by Jesus, not for being righteous but for changing his mind to go work in his father’s vineyard.
Here, I can’t help but think of the drunk that I saw at that AA meeting last week. How many of us think like me; think that AA meetings are the place where people come who is successful at not drinking! Whereas it is preeminently a place for people who are failures at not drinking!
And how many drunks and addicts will find serenity and peace of mind and well-being and fullness of life ahead of the rest of us, because we would be willing to come to recovery programs and group meetings only if we were assured of being the successful ones, the respected ones, or the most ‘righteous’ ones; whereas the drunks and addicts come to such meetings out of their infinite yearning, their need for rescue, and their need for hope!
So it is out of your infinite yearning, and your need for rescue, and your deepest hope, that I appeal to you hear and receive our gospel good news today. The gospel does not preach that proverb that is often mis-attributed to the Bible, “God helps those who help themselves.” That was probably said by Benjamin Franklin or some other so-called ‘self-made man.’
No, the Bible witnesses to the God who helps those who can’t help themselves! How often it is in all the universe that it is only God who can save, or rescue, or fulfill our need or desire! That’s why we prayed that Collect appointed for today:
O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
And that’s why, finally, we have an additional scripture appointed for today, St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, where he exhorts us to “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves,” and “let each of you look not to your own interests, but [also] to the interests of others.”
But the apostle’s crowning text is that great hymn to Christ that we have preserved from the ancient church:
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 slave,
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.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth (Phil. 2.3-10) ]
So to what authority will every knee “bend in heaven and on earth and under the earth?” And by what authority do we claim and declare all the things that we declare about Christ being so ‘highly exalted by God with a name above every other name?’
Well here we have finally, in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, a straightforward, non-parable or non-parabolic, and explicit answer to the chief priests’ and elders’ interrogation of Jesus:
"By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?"
The answer is that every knee bends in heaven and earth not to the one who dominates others or wields earthly power. Rather, true authority resides in the One who humbled himself to become like us—and not like the most successful among us, but like those of us who are most yearning, and most in need of rescue, and most in need of hope—even the most enslaved among us; whether enslaved by addictions and destructive behaviors, or enslaved by the rest of us and our oppressive social systems.
It is in agreement with that authority, my brothers and sisters, that our gospel today offers us the way to fulfill our deepest yearnings and greatest needs and hopes. May that be vineyard that you also agree to work in, and may you not only say “Yes!” to work in that vineyard but also go there and do the work and so find your fulfillment.
For this reason I pray again on our behalf the Collect appointed for today:
O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Comments? Contact The Rev. Thee Smith: tsmith@stphilipscathedral.org