September 28, 2008: BLAME THE LEADERS
Matthew 21:23-32; Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16
Eileen Parfrey -- Springwater Presbyterian Church
There was a time when you could tell how old a little girl was by how attached she was to the movie, The Wizard of Oz. By the time my niece was 4, she could mimic Judy Garland’s every gesture. When she was 5, her mother made a new rule: she could only watch the movie once a day. Most of us are the wrong age for that kind of thing—either because it was only on television in November, and the yellow brick road was really a “light gray brick road” or because Ariel and Shrek are more appealing. Fear of flying monkeys aside, everyone has their favorite part in the movie. Mine is the beauty shop sequence as Dorothy and her friends primp to see the Wizard. Witches both thrill and terrify us in the movie, but their power is only parlor tricks compared to the power surrounding the Wizard. The Wizard, The Great Oz, is Final Authority for everything in Oz—granting wishes, solving problems, filling in the gaps and taking up the slack. Which only makes how his authority is undercut, all the more petty for being accomplished by a yappy little dog and a plucky little girl who dares to name the smoke and mirrors.
When we hear the religious big-wigs question Jesus’ authority in the gospel lesson, we have to wonder who’s got the smoke and mirrors now. Jesus is in the last week of his life, having spent three years or so teaching, forgiving sin, and proving his authority to do so through miracles normally only at the disposal of divinities. That he does those things reflects an authority, hence their question. Where does he get it? Authority is different than power. Jesus has the power to heal, the power to cast out demons, but who said he could? The childish playground taunt, “Who said?” is about rules of the game and permission-giving. In Biblish, “who says” comes with a lot of baggage.
When the religious elite ask Jesus “by what authority,” theirs is a matched four-piece set of politico-religious baggage. Their theology says human power derives from God’s absolute, everlasting, universal, unquestionable power. People who have power only retain the authority to exercise it when they stick to the program—kings rule wisely, judges deal justly, priests forgive sin, and prophets answer to no one but God. Jesus steps on all those toes, mixes the roles and exercises power as if his authority is divine.
We love that debate technique Jesus uses to demolish his opponents. Every four years we hope our team uses that tactic in the presidential debates. You tell me John’s authority, I’ll tell you mine. But this exchange isn’t about winning, and Jesus calls us back by telling a story. Stories are more powerful than preaching. They stick with us, get under our skin, convict us, set us back on track, require us to do something about it. Jesus tells a story about two sons, one good one and one bad one. One says he won’t do what his father asks, the other says he will. It should be obvious who the good son is. But Jesus twists his story. One son does what his father asks, the other doesn’t. And to prove his point, that what counts with God is what we do, not what we say, it’s the erstwhile “bad” son who acts good, while it’s the erstwhile “good” son who acts “bad.” The good news in this story is that a change of heart is possible. The bad news is that you gotta walk the talk if your heart is changed. When “church work” is about the institution, when our concern is to maintain decently and in order, rather than to serve those outside the church, we have to wonder which son we are. It doesn’t matter whether we’re sitting on pews or chairs, whether the laity is receiving communion in both kinds, whether or not we’re ordaining gays. As long as we’re embellishing our pious “Yes, Lord” instead of actually getting outside our house and into the vineyard, we’re more like the second son that we are the first.
In the Presbyterian Church, authority comes from the Book of Order, but the first thing we learn in polity class is that there is a difference between authority and power. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. My polity exam for ordination asked for a decently-and-in-order response to a hypothetical situation in which a much-loved and long-tenured choir director was choosing the hymns and telling the brand new pastor what to preach. We knew the Book of Order says the pastor chooses scripture and what to preach, the pastor chooses hymns and prayers for worship. The session is responsible for everything else, by the way, but the pastor gets to do those three things. No pastor in his or her right mind is going to use that authority to run rough-shod over the worship traditions of a congregation. How authority is exercised is critical, whether it’s done by pastors, elders, politicians, or parents. “Because I’m the mother and I say so” works when the kids are pre-schoolers, but it’s a practice with limited effectiveness when they come home from college and want to stay out past 10:30 because they do that at school.
The authority to exercise power depends on trust. A session has the authority to ask members to study scripture, pray, serve in the church and community, give their financial resources, work for peace, and may point out where their lifestyles are not consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Session has that authority, but unless it has the trust of those they lead, they have no power. Unless the leaders go ahead (lead), doing what they hope for from the people, no one will follow. People trust leaders who show concern for the common good and who provide an example to follow. To “inspire” is to breathe life into something, and when leaders do that, providing vision and purpose and meaning for life together, those they lead acknowledge authority by following.
I do not advocate blindly accepting authority, but there is a difference between questioning it and undercutting it. When we question authority in the church, it is called discernment. Jesus doesn’t reject people’s right to question his authority. The first son in the parable questions the authority of his father, but he does comply with it. We may question the request to serve as an elder or question whether to include in our schedule a couple of hours a week at the Resource Center. We may question the notion of including daily prayer and study in our lives. To question the authority of the church to ask those things of us is good. That’s discernment, that’s refining our call to act, that’s acknowledging an authority beyond ourselves. But the second son undercuts his father’s authority by saying yes and then refusing to go. When we volunteer to do something but never get around to it, we may get temporary credit for looking helpful and holy, but in keeping others from doing what we said we would, the task does not get accomplished. Resisting leadership by blocking work undercuts authority.
There are times when we give leaders authority and they let us down (the rookie basketball star who is supposed to turn the team around but is benched for the season due to injuries). There are times when we give leaders authority and they abuse it (Beloved Leader in North Korea). There are times when we lose our power by giving authority to someone else. The church is losing members and we expect an Evangelism Elder or the pastor to fill the church for us and nothing happens. Plans fail. We lose face in the community. Bankruptcy happenss. We’re taken advantage of. How can this happen to us?
In our desperate search for an explanation, we may invoke the Dilbert response, looking around for someone to blame. It’s what Israel did. They blamed Moses. Last week they were starving to death. Blame the leader. This week they’re in the desert on short water rations with no end in sight. Blame the leader. Jesus says there is another alternative. I’m not talking psycho-babble about accountability and personal responsibility. Although, that may be the end result. No, I’m talking about Jesus as the model for what to do, the how to do it, and who to do it with. Let’s read about living under authority, the way Jesus did it. It’s on page 197 in your pew Bibles. This is our authority, our “who said,” it is the promises we make when we are baptized—to try to be like Jesus. Paul writes to a church more interested in setting each other straight than they are in living out their mission as a church. I’ll read the first five verses of Philippians 2, you’ll read verses 6 to 11, then I’ll read to verse 13.