Together on the Journey: A Weekly Blog from Fr. Andrew Sheldon
In my last blog, I wrote about power and how we are to put the power we have in service of God’s mission to the world. In this blog, I want to talk about a close relation of power, which is authority.
This was a topic brought up frequently in the gospels, as on numerous occasions Jesus was questioned as to the source of his so-called authority. The questioning was actually more of a ‘who do you think you are’ statement. The religious leaders wanted to know who gave Jesus the authority to teach, to heal, to cleanse the temple, indeed, to challenge them. Once, when they asked where his authority came from, Jesus told them a parable. It was about a man who had two sons who he asked to go and work in the vineyard. One son said he would and didn’t, the other son said he wouldn’t and did. In pointing out that the second son was the one who did the father’s will, Jesus compared the religious leaders with prostitutes and sinners by pointing out that it is the latter group that are actually doing God’s will by vesting Jesus with authority, while the former simply speak of spiritual things and refuse to recognise Jesus as the one doing his Father’s will.
Jesus’ point was clear: my authority is given to me by the people who follow me because, unlike you, I do as I say, I practice what I preach.
Jesus and his followers were people who practiced what they preached – unlike the High Priests, Scribes, and Pharisees, who were well-meaning perhaps and doing their best but were more interested in framing up the rules than in following them.
And so, what about us? Rooted in the gospel of Christ and found in our baptismal covenant, there is a significant body of behaviour that is expected from us. We talk about it, we sing about it, we read about it, we study it. But do we do it? To the extent that we merely talk, sing, read and study and yet not act is to be like the son who says he will but doesn’t.
The other side of the parable that can be quite sobering is the implication that there are those who don’t talk, sing, read, or study this Christian code of conduct and yet do it. Any authority we have as a Christian community therefore is found in our capacity to practice what we preach.
The other thing about authority is that it is bestowed not claimed. And it is generally not bestowed by virtue of your position but rather by virtue of your person. The religious leaders had positional authority and titles. But Jesus had followers who were compelled by his person, and thus he had true authority.
For us, this begs the question as to whence comes our authority as St George’s on-the-Hill. And the answer is that our authority as a church is bestowed by the community – not by the Bishop, not by the land we occupy, not by the beauty of the building, not by the collective efforts we put forth on ensuring we are serving ourselves and our own needs. Our authority, our right to be here, indeed, our right to call ourselves a church, will only be bestowed to the extent that this community, and especially the last, the least, and the lost of this community confer upon us that authority. We are only relevant if they say we are relevant.
And therein lies the challenge: to be known as a church that practices what it preaches in such a way that this community knows who we are and what we do and in approving of that is prepared to listen to what we have to say. That, my friends, is authority.
Andrew+