9/21
Tonight we’re looking at Matthew 21:23-32, which means we’re dealing with the issue of authority. The story begin with Jesus in another confrontation with the religious establishment, “chief priests and elders.” Contextwise, Jesus has just had a triumphant entry into Jerusalem, healing people, children crying out Hosanna and has just disrupted the Temple by turning over tables and chasing out the money changers. Enough to disturb the peace. Now he’s teaching as if he has authority to do so. Where did he study theology? Where did he get an ordination? From God? From a rabbi? Or on his own? It's a trick question. To answer risks a blasphemy charge.
So Jesus responds with his own question. About John and his baptism. Of God? So why not listen? Or? They know the people are behind John. He’s got the numbers, so to speak. They don’t want to rile the crowds. So they say “Don’t know.” And Jesus responds with the first of four parables. About two sons, one who says he won't do what the father has asked, then changes his mind and does it. The other says he will, and then does nothing. Who did the father’s will? Tax collectors and prostitutes will get in first.
On first reaction, Marsha doesn’t see a connection. Just another Biblical nonsequetir. But Amberleigh senses there’s something there. The question of authority is answered by who gets it. John Wesley said that even when we see the prostitutes and tax collectors get it, we still don’t go in.
I recall that John, by tradition, was a child of the temple. Son of a priest, a tall steeple preacher. Herod, the ethnarch, the local ruler under authority of the Romans, had built the temple. And he built the mikvahs, the ritual baths for purification, to resemble pagan Roman baths. John is so offended, sees the temple so corrupt, that the goes out to the wilderness and says, we’ll do it in the river. It’s an act of subversion, of insubordination, what they call in Latin America propaganda of the deed. Jesus is cleary down with John. (John also reminds me of Jay Baker, son of televangelist Jim Baker who with his tattoos and punk vibe, went to the streets and started his own Revolution church.)
So who are we? What authority do we have? One thing is clear: empty yeses are broken promises. It is God who shakes up our understanding of God, the demon that keeps us stuck in the status quo. In looking at these conversations, we recall Voltaire who said a person is judged by their questions, not theie answers. From PostChrisitan comes this question: “If you could completely realize the mission of [your] congregation today, here, and now, but in order to do it, you’d have to close the doors of [your] church and walk away forever, would you do it?”( p. 197) Would we leave our temple and head out to the wilderness?
Prostitutes and tax collectors get it. And will get in first. The moral and social outcasts. (Remebering that the author of Matthew was by tradition a tax collector himself. For the religious establishment, it would be better to not come in at all than to follow these outcasts. Jesus is saying that authority is established by what you see. Changed lives.In her new book, Sanctuary, Being Christian in the wake of Trump, my friend Heidi Neumark recalls a memorial service for sex workers who had died during the year. Candle wax dripped on the communion table from the memorial candles. She decided the wax should remain, an expression of what the table really means.
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| Counter culture |
We talk about authority. In churches, the culture is as important as the polity. Real authority may lie outside the elected leadership. Marsha knows that the work of community organizing is uncovering leaders. As my mentor Philip Newell once told me, leaders are people who have followers. Structural authority, cognitive authority over against organic, intrinsic, authority. Control over the act of freeing, of liberation. Marsha has a deep love of Wagner’s Ring Cycle ( as far as Wagner goes, the truth and beauty of the art us stronger than the weakness of the artist.) For her, the moral of the Ring is the Power of Love over the love of power as Wotan sacrifices his authority to free humans from the gods. It has been a very good conversation. Especially as we all stare into the face of growing authoritarian power. The church must stand with John and Jesus, a counter culture to empire.
9/22
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| make it clear |
My friend Rabbi Steve calls. We meet in the patio garden of Double Dutch Coffee. The weather is a cool and sunny September day. It would be perfect except…hey, we’ll take it. It’s hard to get past the daily anxiety. As if the election were not enough, we’ve now got the Supreme Court crisis as the President and his congress push to get a nomination through before he election. It will take for republicans to sated against their reversal of the precedent they set when they refused to allow Obama to make his appointment in his last year establishing a new precedent as they called it. “You can use my words against me” said Lindsey Graham. Well….here we are. Fires, hurricanes, floods. People facing off with guns. Nature in revolt. Zombies would not surprise me. Things families can longer talk about. And no confidence the election can resolve anything. The Covid death toll in the US has now reached 200000. Like the entire population of Akron, Ohio or Des Moines, Iowa or Spokane , Washington pr Richmond, Virginia; just gone. In such a time how do we celebrate Rosh Ha Shana? Yom Kippur? The days of awe?
A good day for a long walk. Afternoon drinks with good friends. Breathe, just breathe.
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