A Question of Authority (Lent 3B)

A Question of Authority

Third Sunday of Lent (Year B)
11th March 2012
4 March 2012; 8 am Spoken Mass; 10 am Sung Mass
Homily Delivered at Trinity Episcopal Church, Ashland, Oregon

   The Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson, homilist  

Exodus 20:1 – 17; Psalm 19:7 – end; 1 Corinthians 1:18 – 25; John 2:13 – 22

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22)

God, Take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen.

Several years ago, while I was working at an American Embassy in a small country in West Africa, my Ambassador took me to task for what she saw as passive-aggressive lack of support.   She took me aside and said, “I know you have a problem with authority, Tony, but deal with it.”

I am not atypical of Americans of my age.  I grew up in the 1960s, the era when T-shirts and lapel buttons alike declared, “Question Authority.”  

Here in Ashland, we are far, far away from the centers of power.  Part of the Quixotic “State of Jefferson,” near some of the largest illegal commercial agricultural production in the continental U.S., we tend to be suspicious of authority and tradition.   One of the first things said to me after arriving here at Trinity, when I asked what the Diocesan canons on a particular issue were, was “We don’t know and don’t really care.  The Bishop is far, far, away.” 

All of today’s readings have something to do with authority.  God gives Moses the Ten Commandments in the Hebrew Scriptures lesson.  In the epistle, Saint Paul talks about how the word of the Cross is foolishness when judged by the standards of authority of his day.  The Gospel tells the story of Jesus driving the money changers from the Temple, and the reaction, where the authorities ask Jesus by what authority he has done this. 

Many scholars studying organizational behavior say there are two basic kinds of authority: the kind that grows naturally from the skills, expertise, character, and leadership of an individual or group, and one that is established by formal position in a hierarchy, rank, title, or some kind of external validation like a degree or board certification.  The first kind is intrinsic, while the second is extrinsic.  An example would be a small platoon in a desperate battlefield situation: the commanding officer gives an order to advance.  Despite his rank of Lieutenant, the soldiers are slow to respond: they question his judgment and don’t trust him.  But a private in the platoon, loved and trusted by all and physically brave, leaps out into the fray, guns ablazing. The whole platoon follows. The lieutenant is exerting extrinsic authority; the private, intrinsic.

In the last few weeks, we have seen Jesus challenging the authorities of his day.  The crowds of Galilean peasants flock to him because of his unusual success at healing and working wonders. (Matt. 4:24; Mark 3:10; Luke 5:15; John 2:23).   They see that he is teaching “not as the scribes and the Pharisees, but as one having authority” (Mark 1:22; Matthew 7:29).

Clearly, from the point of view of rank, status, and position, Jesus had no authority. His authority was intrinsic—it came from who he was, from his acts, and from the effect of his teaching.

Jesus did not simply “question authority” as a knee-jerk reaction or default position. After healing a leper, he tells him to go and be ritually cleansed by a priest, as prescribed in the Law. St. Matthew has Jesus saying “I have come not to abolish the Law, but to complete it.”

Where he did question authority, however, was when he saw that the intrinsic authority of a person, group, or institution did not measure up to their extrinsic authority, that is, when their rank, position, and legal or societal power was not matched with their actual worth.

The word “Hypocrite” is his sharpest criticism of his opponents. The Greek word simply means “actor.” Thus Jesus accuses the religious leaders of just pretending to serve God and lead God’s people. “You are placing overwhelming burdens on others you are not willing to place on yourselves,” he says. “You bar the gate to salvation to others while you yourselves do not enter it.” He is particularly harsh on those who use authority to exploit or abuse people.

Jesus uses the word “hypocrite” to criticize those who are failing to live up to God's expectations but use play-acting as a means of manipulating and exploiting others.

There is a big difference between that and actually trying to behave better than you think you are in order to amend your life. Sometimes our sense of guilt or unworthiness is such that we think we are being hypocritical if we go to church, try to avoid the situations that seem to lead us inevitably to our besetting sins, or actually try to replace good practices and actions for our past bad ones. “Fake it till you make it” means pretend you are better than you believe you are so that you can actually become a better person. To my mind, this is not “hypocrisy,” but rather simply one tool of trying to respond to God’s call. “Hypocrisy” in contrast is pretending to be better than you are so that you can stay the same way or even get worse. 

 

Jesus in today’s Gospel is not the warm, fuzzy, kind and welcoming Jesus of popular imagination.  He is positively dangerous, angry, and violent.  I once heard him described by a preacher in Washington D.C. this way,  “he was so mad he just had to open up a can of whoop-ass.”  He causes a major disturbance in one of the outer courtyards of the Temple and disrupts its normal functioning. This is a symbolic prophetic act, like Amos taking back his unfaithful wife, Isaiah walking naked and barefoot for a year, or Jeremiah never marrying.  Jesus thus seeks to reveal God’s negative assessment of the Temple establishment. 

The Temple was the only place where Jews could perform all the rites of their faith, primarily sacrifice.  In sacrifice, the people offered back to God part of what God had created—grain or grapes, doves, lambs, or cattle—depending on the specific purpose of the ritual.  In sacrifice, people made offerings on behalf of themselves and families.  Once a year, on Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement, a great sacrifice was made on behalf on the nation itself.

The Law of Moses itself specifically demanded some quality controls in what was offered to God: only animals and products of a high quality were allowed,  even if they were the simple offerings of the poor. So a cottage industry had sprung up in the outer courtyards of the temple: inspectors would certify that offerings brought by families met the minimal standards.  If not, pre-certified substitutes were available at a price.  But only temple currency was allowed for payment, since the legal tender of the age bore idolatrous images.  And there was a fee for the currency exchange.  Most troubling, this was all run by the same people, who had a vested interest in not certifying any offerings but the ones they sold, set the prices, and the exchange rates and commissions.

This crooked “got you coming and going” money-making racket was run by the Temple authorities themselves. Something meant to be a holy and special way of communing with God had been turned into a crooked commercial transaction.   It is this that makes Jesus so angry.  Whip in hand, he turns the tables over and drives out these crooked merchants, many of whom are priests and Temple assistants.

Imagine what an analogous scene today might be:  a war protester “causes a disturbance” in the Pentagon lobby; a homeless rights activist “causes a scene” in the middle of a National Day of Thanksgiving Service at National Cathedral. 

The authorities ask Jesus by what authority he has done this.  “Show us your credentials.”  Jesus replies by shouting out “You want credentials?  Here’s credentials: this Temple will be destroyed, but God will rebuild it in no time.”

This shocks his listeners. It strikes directly at national security and faith.  They reply, sputtering, the edifice before them has been decades in the building.  How does this compare to whatever paltry claims to credentials Jesus is making? 

But Jesus is talking about intrinsic authority and not extrinsic.  His astounding claim that has been attracting the Galilean peasantry is that somehow God’s Kingdom is breaking into our lives in his person.  By driving out the money-changing priests, he is saying his personal authority as prophet of the Kingdom of God trumps whatever political and institutional authority the Temple and its authorities may have.
The Temple had been for centuries the sign that “God is in our midst.” After Good Friday and Easter, and especially after the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.,  Christians would come to recognize that it was Jesus who was “God in our midst,” the new Temple.  

It is from this post-Easter perspective that John says “he was speaking of the Temple of his body.”   John’s Gospel, alone of the four canonical Gospels, portrays a Jesus who has perfect knowledge of everything, and is only play- acting when he asks any question. It is John’s way of expressing that he believes Jesus was indeed the eternal Word of God made flesh. The other Gospels portray a Jesus much less certain about the future.    

Saint Paul in today’s epistle contrasts the intellectual demands of two of the major systems of moral authority in his era by saying, “Jews demand signs [indicating God’s power] and Greeks look for wisdom.” That is, in Jewish legal interpretation, one needs to establish the bona fides of someone claiming God’s authority by seeing whether adequate evidence of God’s intervention exists to warrant such a claim, while in Greek philosophical systems, one claiming our intellectual and moral allegiance needs to demonstrate the internal coherence and consistency of their teaching and its congruence with accepted standards of prudence and wisdom. The world seeks to authenticate authority by either power or wisdom. 

To such standards of establishing authority, Paul says, “we preach Christ crucified” or “we proclaim the Messiah on a cross.” He says this is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” And indeed it is a problem for anyone—regardless of religion or nationality—who seeks authenticating evidence based only on what we can see in this world only. If we take just what we experience here as the basis for our judging authority or God’s intention, there is little if any room for any justice, fairness, or possibility of hope. There is only meaninglessness, randomness, and despair. Bold, existential attempts at creating meaning and hope within an empty universe begin to appear rather hollow if we base our judgment only on what see here.

But the ultimate intrinsic authority is what allows Paul to preach what he admits is “foolishness” to the authority that our age recognizes.   Christ on the Cross was followed on the third day by Christ raised from the dead.  As Saint John says, “he was talking about the Temple of his body, raised after three days.” 
    
That risen Lord, though gone from our sight, still speaks and calls.  When we hear his voice, everything starts to fall into place. He calls to us all. As we hear him, we begin to learn that here is reliable, trustworthy, and empowering authority.  The risen Lord is the ultimate sign of God’s intent, God’s love, and the universe’s meaning.  He is the ultimate cohering principle and moral standard.   

“Christ on the Cross,” says Paul, is “foolishness” to those who are perishing in a limited, hopeless world. But to those who hear God's voice, regardless of whatever limited standard of power or wisdom they once used, "Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God,” the ultimate authority.

In the name of God Amen.