Meditation for February 18, 2009

From The Rev. Peter A. Munson

Mark 11:27-33

27 Jesus and his disciples came again to Jerusalem.  As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him 28 and said, "By what authority are you doing these things?  Who gave you this authority to do them?"  29 Jesus said to them, "I will ask you a question: answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.  30 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?  Answer me."  31 They argued with one another, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say, 'Why then did you not believe him?'  32 But shall we say, 'Of human origin'?" - they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet.  33 So they answered Jesus, "We do not know."  And Jesus said to them.  "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."

Our God-Given Authority

According to Mark's Gospel, Jesus had been up to quite a few things before this particular interaction.  He had exorcised a demon from a boy (chapter 9), told a rich man to sell all he had, give the money to the poor, and follow him (chapter 10), healed a blind man named Bartimaeus (chapter 10), let people cry "Hosanna!" and give him the royal treatment as he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey (chapter 11), and overturned the tables of the money changers and drove out those who were buying and selling in the temple (chapter 11).  Oh, yeah - somewhere in there he cursed a fig tree, too.  Jesus had been pretty busy!

And so the question came from a whole group of them - the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders - the religious "holy triumvirate", you might say.  "By what authority do you do these things?  Who gave you the authority to do them?" (verse 28)  Who told you that you could drive out the money changers from the temple?  Who told you you could ride into Jerusalem on a donkey and let the people treat you like the long-awaited Messiah?  And as one might do, if one were quite confident about the source of his authority, Jesus answered their question with a question, and said that his answering their question depended on their being able to answer his question.  And because of their fear - fear of either looking faithless in Jesus' eyes, or fear of the potential reaction of the crowd - they said to his question, "We don't know."

If you read between the lines in the story, by looking at the question that Jesus asked them, I think we discover what Jesus thought about his authority.  As was the case with John the Baptist, Jesus didn't see his authority as being of human origin.  He believed his authority was from heaven - from God the Father, who was "in heaven".  (See "The Lord's Prayer", Matthew 6:9)

You and I have authority that is also God-given.  We first read about this authority in the beginning of Genesis, with the creation of man.  God gave man dominion (think: "to be stewards") over all the other creatures of the earth.  God even let man name the other creatures. (Genesis 1:28; 2:19)  Fast forward to the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, and Jesus' promise of the coming Holy Spirit.  "And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." (Luke 24:49)  "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8)

The Holy Spirit has been given to all of us who believe in Jesus, and in the authority of Jesus as Messiah, Lord and Savior.  With that Spirit - dwelling inside of us - comes power and authority.  This is God-given power, and God-given authority.  Like Jesus, we must not abuse our power.  We begin to abuse it the moment that we forget that it originates in God, not in us.  We begin to abuse our power when we use it for personal gain, instead of for helping to bring about the reign of God.  We begin to abuse our power when we think we can do some sort of "holy magic", when we think we can say or pray some magic formula, and believe that we can manipulate God in some way, or have God on a string.

On the other hand, if we act as if we have no power and no authority, we are not acting out of a stance of faith. 

Many people try to find their authority outside of themselves.  Examples:

If enough people tell me I'm good (i.e., outside validation), maybe I'll believe it, and start acting like I have some authority.

If I keep the law (the commandments, the rules, etc.), then I will have some kind of authority - perhaps the authority to tell others when they are "out of line", without feeling like a hypocrite.

If I just act as if I have power - i.e., yell loud enough, have enough physical strength or military fire-power - maybe others (children, peers, or other nations) will be afraid of me, and my authority will come from them submitting to me.

But these are not examples of true power and true authority.  Real authority comes from within, and always originates in God.  For those of us who are people of faith, it is called the gift of the Holy Spirit, freely given to us by God, for the good of others, for the good of the kingdom.

May you and I keep coming to that well that is the Holy Spirit, and drawing from it, and use our God-given authority in appropriate, life-giving ways.  It is the same authority that was given to Jesus, so that he could do the things that he did.  Let us not shy away from admitting that we have this authority.  Each of us has it - thanks be to God.  Each of has authority that resides inside of us.  We don't have to go looking outside of ourselves to find it.  It is the Life Force and the Life Energy within us, and without it, we can't really love - or live.  Let us rejoice and give thanks that God cares enough about each one of us to give us this authority, this energy, this Life Force - the Holy Spirit.  For without it, we wouldn't have a whole lot to offer the world.