Right Makes Might
Scripture Reading: Matt. 21:23-32
As the weather has gotten cooler, I’ve debated whether to return to wearing a robe. My whole time in Korea I wore a robe for a regular Sunday service just once, that being my first day. I had never before led a worship service by myself, and I wore the robe like a security blanket to cover my insecurities. Even if I didn’t yet feel like a pastor myself, because the ink was still wet on my ordination certificate, at least the robe would convey a certain amount of authority and just might convince the congregation that I was indeed an ordained minister.
I ditched the robe after that first worship service only because it didn’t suit the atmosphere of the worship space. We didn’t have a traditional sanctuary with stained glass windows, pews, and a pipe organ. The worship space was a classroom with ordinary windows. Instead of pews people sat behind school desks in uncomfortable wooden chairs. Instead of a pipe organ we had a praise band that played contemporary praise songs with electric guitar. In that setting the robe just felt entirely out of place.
The thought that clothing could convey an authority that I didn’t feel internally was not something new to me. When I served as a hospital chaplain for a summer back when I was still in seminary I envied the Catholic priests I would sometimes see in the hallways. Their black shirts and white clerical collars announced to all who could see that they were clergy. Someone had probably even requested their presence. By contrast, I was just an intern from seminary in a sport coat and tie, cold-calling every patient on the floor to which I was assigned. It was not at all my job description, but in my business attire I felt like a salesman for God and absolutely dreaded the thought of having the door slammed in my face (which never happened).
Clothing can both confer authority upon the wearer and convey authority to others. That’s why ministers and judges wear robes, doctors wear lab coats, and police officers wear uniforms. We see these things and we recognize that we are in the presence of authority. Not so with Jesus. The Bible tells us nothing about his wardrobe but speaks often of his authority. Presumably he wore clothing typical of the working poor from which he came, unlike, say, the priests in the temple, who were adorned in long flowing robes.
The temple is where we find Jesus in today’s reading, and it’s where we’re about to see his authority questioned by the religious authorities, i.e., the chief priests and elders who were in charge of the temple. Although we’ve jumped ahead just one chapter from where we were last week, so much has happened since Jesus told the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. I’ll touch upon just the highlights. For the third time Jesus told the disciples that he was taking them to Jerusalem. There, he said, he would be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, condemned to death, and then handed over to the Roman authorities to be crucified.
In a passage we skipped because we read it on Palm Sunday, he then entered the holy city and was welcomed by cheering throngs and shouts of “Hosanna!” He soon made a beeline for the temple where, in a righteous fury, he overturned the tables of the money changers and chased out those who were buying and selling.
Today’s passage finds Jesus returning to the temple after that ruckus. This is a highly provocative move. He’s just challenged the whole system that the chief priests and elders have set up in and around the temple. It should come as no surprise, then, that they want to have a word with him. They’ve likely been watching and waiting for him because no sooner does he enter the temple than the chief priests and the elders confront him. They’re in such a huff that they don’t pull him aside in a hallway; they actually interrupt him while he is teaching. “By what authority are you doing these things,” they ask, “and who gave you this authority?”
The authority of Jesus…this is the central issue for us to ponder today. Not only where does it come from, but what kind of authority is it exactly?
The authority of Jesus…this is the central issue for us to ponder today. Not only where does it come from, but what kind of authority is it exactly? As for the chief priests, their authority comes from God. They are descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. And the temple is their domain. They run the show. And they didn’t approve of this Jesus, this wandering rabbi from way up north coming in and causing a commotion, disrupting the orderly operations of the temple. Who does he think he is coming into our house and taking issue with the way we do things? The presbytery didn’t approve this! By what authority is he doing these things?
This is the mindset of the chief priests and the elders. They feel threatened because Jesus is challenging their authority, and he’s not even from the priestly class. He’s the son of a carpenter! But Jesus is a savvy interlocutor. By this point in the Gospel, he’s already engaged with various religious authorities who’ve challenged him and his scandalous teaching about grace for sinners. And so Jesus doesn’t answer their question directly. Good rabbi that he is, he answers their question with a question of his own. The question concerns John the Baptist. Jesus asks them, “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
This is like a chess match that ends with a checkmate on the first move. The chief priests and elders are completely boxed in. They know that if they acknowledge John as a prophet who was sent by God, then Jesus will ask why they didn’t believe him. That’s because the Jerusalem religious authorities were no fans of John the Baptist. Emerging from the wilderness with his ministry of baptism and preaching repentance, John operated completely outside of their rules and their authority. He didn’t even have a seminary degree! But knowing how popular John was with the people, the chief priests and elders fear saying anything negative about him.
And so their answer to Jesus’s question is a safe, “We don’t know.” And that’s true in a sense. They didn’t know what to make of John, and now they don’t know what to make of Jesus. Like John he is unconventional. He comes from outside the halls of power. He has attracted a large following. And he speaks truth to power. As John was unafraid to call out Herod for his adulterous relationship with his brother’s wife, so Jesus had no qualms about flipping tables in the temple and putting a stop to the marketplace atmosphere.
Like John he is unconventional. He comes from outside the halls of power. He has attracted a large following. And he speaks truth to power.
This was not only a challenge to the temple authorities, if word got back to the Romans that a charismatic leader with a large following was shaking things up in the temple, the uneasy peace that the Jews had with their Roman occupiers might be disturbed. And that was the last thing that the chief priests and elders wanted.
In response to their non-answer, Jesus has a non-answer of his own. When put to the test, when directly challenged, Jesus is so often like this…elusive and enigmatic, answering a question with a question or telling a parable. In this case he does both. As parables go, this one is about as easy as they come. A man with two sons asks each to go work in the family vineyard. The first says, “No thanks,” but later changes his mind and goes. The second says, “You bet, I’ll get right on it,” but never does.
“Which of the two did the will of his father?” Jesus asks the religious leaders. This is like slow-pitch softball. Jesus is just lobbing a pitch right over the plate, allowing them to hit it. Of course, the first son, who actually did what his father asked, even though he initially refused, is the correct answer. The first son disobeys, denying his father’s authority, but later accepts his authority and works in his father’s service. The second son pays lip service to his father’s authority, but in truth serves only his own.
Jesus then interprets the parable with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. “Truly I tell you,” he says to the religious leaders, “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” He likens tax collectors and prostitutes, people who would’ve been regarded as outrageous sinners, to the first son. They heard John’s message of forgiveness for sins and heeded his call to repentance. And Jesus compares the religious leaders to the second son, the one who pays lip service to his father’s authority but who in the end trusts only in himself.
His authority doesn’t come from having all the right answers. His authority comes from the truth that he is the answer.
And now we’re left with the issue of Jesus’s authority. Where does it come from? What kind of authority is it? For all his engagement with the religious leaders, Jesus isn’t interested in having a debate about his authority. He doesn’t want to win an argument. His authority doesn’t come from having all the right answers. His authority comes from the truth that he is the answer. He is God’s answer to the problem of sin…sin that had severed us from God and from one another.
Nor does his authority come at the point of a spear, à la Rome, but with nails that are driven into his own body on a wooden cross. This is not “might makes right,” as the world so often operates, but rather its opposite, “right makes might.” The righteousness of Jesus is his willingness to empty himself of all authority and take up the cross. On the cross Jesus makes himself weak for our sake, and his weakness becomes our strength. For in his dying, those who were dead in sin are made alive in him. That goes for tax collectors, prostitutes, and every single one of us.