As wonderful as the lectionary is, sometimes it starts or ends in the middle of a story and we may not know the context around it. This is the case this week when we see the chief priests and elders asking Jesus by what authority he was doing these things. But what things are they talking about. Because of where we start, we may not realize this questioning of Jesus is coming after the cleansing of the temple as well as the healing of the blind and the lame in the temple. This is entering the final week of Jesus’s life, and things are coming to a head.
By flipping over the tables, Jesus is saying he knows and can say what should and should not be happening in the temple. Jesus has called into question the authority of the chief priests. When the chief priests question Jesus’s authority, the subtext of the question being asked is, “Just who do you think you are?!”
Jesus wasn’t one of the chief priests or the elders. He was outside the official priestly system. On the face of it, the question about authority is a valid one. Someone has come into the space they have been charged with leading and stewarding and given a rather forceful critique of their work. On the face of it, the question might make sense. However, Jesus’s life and ministry gave visible answer to the question of his authority. It just didn’t look like what everyone expected. It wasn’t within the box, the walls, that folks were used to. And so because it wasn’t what was expected, it gave people an out to ignore the message. It gave people a chance to ignore the truth that was right in front of them.
How often do we miss something because it’s not in the place we expect it to be or coming from the direction we expect it. We expect to hear words of faith and meaning in church, but we miss them in the conversation with a coworker. We expect to hear how we are to live our lives in church or from members of the clergy, but we miss them coming from the voices of children. We offer our prayers and petitions in church waiting for the answer as we sit in the pews and we miss the answer while loading the dishwasher. The ministry of Jesus and the work of God in the world should have long disabused us of the notion that we will never be surprised by God and that we should always to open and attuned to their work in the world.
God’s authority is self-evident, mysterious, and assured. And Jesus’s authority comes from God. And assured and loving in that knowledge, Jesus turns the tables a bit on his questioners.
And in his response, Jesus provokes the issue getting to the truth in front of them. He doesn’t answer the question that is asked about his authority but instead asks a different question. In many ways, a more dangerous question. By asking about where the authority of John the Baptist came from, he’s asking them a question that has a right answer, but one where the right answer invites more uncomfortable questions. So instead of giving the crowd-enraging wrong answer of John’s authority coming from humans or giving the right answer that would lay bare to the world their [hypocrisy], they give no answer at all.
I think one of the most challenging experiences in life is having a question, where the right answer is so right there and so obvious, but is still unspeakable. Actually, the challenge is less a dangerous question than a dangerous answer. The answer that everyone knows, but is afraid to acknowledge. That still soft voice that asks what are we being called to do. That asks what is preventing us following. That asks is this who we are being called to be. And we have an immediate, instinctual answer. And it’s the answer we don’t give. Because often the next question is “So what are you going to do about it” or in the case of the chief priests and elders “If you knew the truth about the source of John’s authority, why did you not accept or acknowledge it?” Part of the power of truth is when it’s put into action. The power of truth is when it is lived.
So we might shy away from those dangerous answers. Those dangerous answers that hold a mirror to ourselves and would force us to take an honest look. To see and then to name the truth. What dangerous answer is God calling us give? What is the truth whose power we need to harness?
Jesus, even in the midst of his critique and his challenge of the chief priests and the elders, he still shows them the way forward.
He shows them that our first answer doesn’t have to be our final answer.
In the parable Jesus tells, he commends those named sinners for hearing John’s earlier message of repentance. That while they at first rejected the call about the lives they were to lead and ignored or neglected it, the important thing was that they changed course. But just as changed hearts and repentance are important, those words begin to ring hollow when actions and changed lives don’t accompany those words. Any answer must be supported actions, by a life lived that is consistent with our answers.
What is important is not just what we say, but what we do. All the words in the world don’t mean anything if there aren’t actions backing it up. Or perhaps just as problematic is when those words are in conflict with actions. What does it look like to when we see, or perhaps when we have been a person who has said that they have repented but the actions are in conflict with those words. When they or we say we are basing our lives on the model of Christ and the actions show a deep lack of care and charity. When their or when our spiritual inconsistency does harm to those around us. The spiritual inconsistency wounds our lives, it wounds our hearts, it wounds our relationships. Of the many benefits of repentance, its power to repair and its power to bring unity both within ourselves and with those around us is so powerful.
And my friends, we are God’s beloved. We do not do this work alone or unaided. Our shared story of the Israelites sojourning through the wilderness is a story that is fertile soil and inspiration for our lives. The Israelites are journeying to a new place and to a new home. This journey will bring about a transformation. But it is hard, and it is long, and it is perilous. The people of Israel are doing as God has commanded, but we see them in this week’s reading in a moment of fear and probably terror. All while doing the thing God wants them to do.
And so they are complaining. And harassing Moses. And perhaps in that moment regretting their life choices. They are doing all the human things.
And God hears them and holds their concerns. And he gives them fuel for the road, he slacks their thirst. I love this story because of the complaining. Everyone is on the road to where they have been called, but it’s hard. But the people voice their complaints—those complaints may get passed through in a game of Telephone up to God—but there is space for them. They don’t have to hide the hardness. They don’t have to hide their fear. They don’t have to hide their anger. There is space for it all and it is divinely held. Even when we are living out the lives we are called to lead, and maybe even especially then, we feel we can’t name that we are in a hard moment and that we are struggling. That we can’t be annoyed with God about the truth that this is what and where we are called to be. Maybe it’s partly because we feel it is disrespectful to God. But maybe worse, we think God isn’t strong enough to take our anger.
As I’m sure will not surprise you, I am Facebook friends with other clergy folks. And they are part of groups and communities that I learn about through them. And in one of them, there are religious themed memes. One that is a favorite that I have saved on my phone is an image of the grandness and majesty of the sun set against a vista. It’s a simple illustration but still powerful in its depiction of the world. But at the bottom of the image are a couple of figures and the one of the captions is “Face us you coward” seemingly addressed to God. The headline for the image is “It’s a beautiful day to yell at God.” I have lost the exact language that was around that image, but the underlying point is that sometimes you just want to yell at God.
And you know what? It’s ok.
Our human emotions and fears are ok. We are loved and held by a God that is strong enough to continue to be in relationship with us even in our fear and our anger and our wandering from the way we have been called to go. Our emotions can never break that relationship. Compared to our examples of holy, but still human relationships, our unbreakable bond with God can feel disorienting and perhaps even fragile. But God is made of stronger stuff, and our relationship to them is always on firmer footing than we give it credit for.
So on our journey to the place and people God calls us to be, it’s ok to be afraid. It’s ok to whine. It’s ok to yell at God. The important thing is to continue on the path.
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