My turn to preach this week. I'm just getting a start on my sermon for Sunday, and have been thinking about different kinds of authority - authority that comes from a position or office that is held, and authority that is earned.
Mark writes that Jesus spoke in the synagogue as one who had authority, and that all who listened were amazed at his teaching. I like to imagine the kind of person Jesus must have been to command authority so quickly and easily. He was obviously commissioned by God, which definitely helped, but he also must have exuded authenticity and integrity.
I also wonder what kind of authority Jesus holds today. Personally, and societally (my computer tells me that is not a word, but I assume you know what I mean). Any thoughts?
I'll leave you with part of a prayer taken from revgalblogpals.blogspot.com/
O God,
we puff ourselves up with accumulated knowledge,
but without love for you we have no wisdom.
We take advantage of the liberty you give us through grace,
and become bad examples to our sisters and brothers.
We alternate between fear of your authority
and denial of your authority.
We dread to face our demons,
and we are faithless in the presence of your power over them.
Save us, Lord, from the sins we know,
save us, Lord, from the sins we hide...
Wendy Janzen
Jesus' authority ultimately gets interpretated, filtered and practiced by humans who most times impose their own agenda on this supposed greater authority. Thus our history rightly instructs us to be cautious of authority.
ReplyDeleteGood point Trevor.
ReplyDeleteJust on the general topic of authority, what came to mind for me was the movie "Courageous", which Meredith and I saw in theater:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1630036/
I really, really liked this movie. For me it carried a powerful message.
... the connection here is that in the movie, when the men make their pledge, one of the line items is about respecting authority.
Admittedly, when I was watching the movie, that was the one item in their pledge that gave me hesitation, and I think it's related to Trevor's comment about the caution people tend to have about human authority.
I think too it might have given me hesitation because it felt like an "American" thing to say -- placing a lot of trust in your country, being patriotic, believing that the structures in place which have authority are good and right. As a Canadian who is perhaps less sure about such things, that line of thought gives me pause.