September 28, 2014 – Matthew 21:23-32
Matthew 21:23-32
By What Authority
16th Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 26] – September 28, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Jesus is stirring up a lot of trouble at this point in Matthew’s Gospel.
He’s just had a big fit in the temple – throwing out the money changers who were
profiting from the religious obligations of people in the temple.
That was certainly a challenge to the authority of the chief priests and elders who,
presumably, had allowed all this to go on.
And so today, they quite understandably ask him,
“By what authority are you doing these things?”
Like: who authorized you to do this?
I mean: imagine if someone came in here, overturned the retro formicakitchen table where
our counters count the offering and screamed,
“You have turned my Father’s house of prayer into a den of robbers!”
That would be awkward, right?
We would ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?”
Jesus was a rabbi, right?
And in Jesus’s time, there were two kinds of rabbis.
There were rabbis who taught what had been passed down to them,
the way things had always been done.
But there were other kinds of rabbis, those rabbis who had something new to teach,
rabbis who interpreted the Bible in a new way.
These rabbis were called rabbis with “authority.”
Jesus is claiming for himself this kind of authority, to interpret scripture in a new, fresh way.
To challenge the way things are currently done.
To make a break from the past – because it is unjust and is contrary to God’s will.
The chief priests and the elders, in Jesus’s eyes, are somehow bound to an unhealthy past,
a past tradition and a past way of doing things that are not good for anyone –
and a way of doing things that is contrary to God’s will.
They have given the past authority over themselves.
In Jesus’s view, this is cutting them off from God’s intended future for them.
Jesus is inviting them into a new future, a future where they produce fruits of justice and healing,
like he does in the Temple when he throws out the money changers and then
begins to heal the sick: that’s what God’s house is for, in Jesus’s view.
Justice and healing: those are Jesus’s priorities.
These are the things he invites the chief priests and elders into.
But, like the second son in the parable,
although they say with their mouths they will do the will of the father,
they refuse to do it.
They give the past authority over their lives –
rather than the open future God has in mind for them.
Jesus shockingly contrasts the chief priests and elders with
the hated tax collectors and prostitutes.
They are like the first son, says Jesus: they are like the son who at first refused to do
the will of the father – and then changed their minds and did it.
These did not give authority to the past – but rather to the open future God had in mind for them.
These give authority to God’s powerful spirit that heals and restores and makes all things new.
These did not give authority to those things that defined them in the past.
Jesus invites both the chief priests and elders as well as the tax collectors and prostitutes
to trade the authority of the past for the authority of God’s open future.
The tax collectors and prostitutes realize that the identity created by their past does not
bring life – they do not bring the healing and justice that is God’s will.
And so they trade the authority of the past for the authority of God’ s open future.
Jesus tells them: the past does not need to define you and your future.
Your past misdeeds do not need to define you and your future.
The things that have been done to you and the hurts you have received do not need to define you
and your future.
Step into a new identity – the identity God has in store for you as a child of God,
an apprentice to God’s task of brining healing and blessing and justice and life.
Jesus says the same thing to us this morning.
No matter what you may have done in the past,
no matter what may have been done to you in the past:
You don’t need to give it authority in your life.
You don’t need to let it define you or your future.
For God’s future is open – this is tremendous good news.
The names you have been called, or the names you have called yourself, need not define you.
There is one name that can free you from those names, and that name is
child of God, apprentice of God, image of God.
Whose dignified purpose is loving, and healing, and feeding, and justice-doing.
This is hard, though, right?
The past is familiar: it’s what we know.
If we leave that behind, it can be scary –
because we may be stepping into something we don’t know.
Yet, if we want to become what God has in store for us, we need to leave behind dysfunctional
relationships, dysfunctional addictions, dysfunctional images of ourselves –
and step into the identity God in Christ has given to us:
Beloved Sons and Daughters whose function is to be
the image of their Divine Compassionate Parent in the world.
I’m inviting you this morning to stop giving the past authority in your life.
I’m inviting you this morning to step into the future God has in store for you.
I’m inviting you this morning to step into a new day – and a new commitment.
You may ask by authority I do this – and it is a fair question.
Well, today is the 14th anniversary of my ordination – September 28, 2000.
14 years ago today I was ordained as a pastor right there on that chancel.
I was ordained for one reason:
because you, the people of First Lutheran Church, called me to be your pastor.
A few of you were at that ordination.
And a few of you were at the meeting where you called me to be your pastor.
See, in the Lutheran Church, you can only be ordained to publicly preach the word and
publicly preside at Holy Baptism and Holy Communion
if you called by a congregation to do those things.
The authority to preach to you does not come from within myself.
The authority to preach to you does not come from the seminary.
The authority to preach to you does not come from the Bishop or other pastors.
The authority I have to preach to you ultimately comes from you.
You have called me to do this for you.
And you have called me not to give you my personal opinion about things,
as fascinating as I’m sure that would be.
You have not called me to lay out for you the clever ten steps to spiritual success that
I have devised.
You have called me to proclaim this good news to you: that you are Daughters and Sons of
an almost unimaginable and limitless mercy and grace.
Mercy and grace and healing and compassion are your destiny – they are what you’re made for.
You have called me to proclaim to you that Jesus invites you into a new future,
a future that God has in store for you that is not defined by the past.
You have called me to walk with you when you take the scary step of leaving the past behind,
so that you can step into God’s intended future for yourself.
Some of you have taken or are taking that step –
and it is a great privilege to accompany you on that journey.
I have said many times that I love being your pastor.
I love that as a community we are more and more stepping into the future God has in store for us.
It is hard, and it is scary, but I am so committed to you and to the ministry God calls us into.
Our ministry to the people of this neighbourhood, our ministry to one another,
our ministry to the vulnerable both within and outside our walls,
our ministry with our partners like our synod, our national church,
and Canadian Lutheran World Relief.
I love your commitment to stepping into the future God has in store for us.
I love that you want me to preach Jesus to you, and I love that you expect me to speak of
what God is doing within and among us through the power of the Spirit.
For this ministry is not really about me, and it is not ultimately about you – it is about
what the Triune God is doing within and among us: healing, forgiving, feeding,
bringing peace and proclaiming release.
In my inaugural sermon 14 years ago I said we can have Great Expectations of our
work and our ministry together because we can have Great Expectations of God.
And that is still true.
So together let’s once again let the harmful things from the past go –
our mistakes as a congregation, our mistakes as individuals.
Let us not let them define us anymore.
Let us not give them authority over us anymore.
Let us instead let God’s love for us define us.
Let us instead give authority to God’s will for loving and blessing and healing.
Let us not be defined by past things we have done – or that have been done to us.
So let’s take minute in silent prayer to gather up these past hurts and past regrets and
offer them to God. (Time for silent prayer)
Let’s close together with prayer: Loving, gracious God. We often allow things from the past to dominate our present and close off the future you intend for us. But you have promised that you love us no matter what – that only your love for us finally defines us and who we are. Help us to let the rest go. So that we can be your loving image in the world. Help us to believe that you love us just as we are. And help us to love our neighbours just as they are. For we ask it in the name of Jesus, who died for the love of all. Amen
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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