A sermon preached by the Revd Dr Trevor Jamison at Saint Columba’s United Reformed Church, North Shields, 7th July 2024
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‘Where did this man get all this?’ say the members of the synagogue congregation in Jesus’s hometown. (6:2)
Well, where does authority come from? By authority, I mean power which is accepted. Why do we accept that someone possesses a power, perhaps power over us? Yes, where does authority come from?
That’s an important question in a time when people tend to be sceptical about claims to power or knowledge, In our era one person claims to tell the truth, but another one labels it as “fake news.” Which one is authoritative for us? Why should we believe the BBC when its representatives tell us who won the election? Or why believe the scientists who tell us that the world’s climate is changing because of human activities, and that the consequences will be catastrophic? What prevents us from being, or impels us to become, climate change deniers?
Why do you say “yes” when your doctor tells you to take those tablets; when your teacher tells you to do your homework; when your boss tells you to do your job; when your church minister tells you to do anything, at all?! Why should children obey adults, or for good reasons sometimes, refuse to do what an adult tells them to do? It’s all about authority; agreeing to another person having power or not.
Some people receive authority from others because they have charisma. There’s something about their personality that moves others to give them authority. This could be for good or for bad. To take extreme examples, Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi were charismatic characters who drew people after them. So too, though, were Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
And Jesus derived at least some of his authority from being a charismatic character. He began to teach in his hometown synagogue and people were astounded. At other points in his story, as told by the four Gospel writers, Jesus, seemingly by virtue of his personality drew people to him, and led them to accept his teaching and to follow his orders. In that same Gospel passage we’re told, ‘he called the twelve [and they came] and began to send them out [to Galilean villages] (6:7), giving them instructions concerning their food, finance and clothing. (6:6-9) He even instructed them what to do about accommodation and how to react to rejection. (6:11)
So Jesus’s charisma, his force of personality, was significant in terms of people giving him authority over them, but charisma alone may not be enough. It wasn’t for his hometown synagogue. The initial reaction – ‘where did this man get all this’ – demonstrates that Jesus was different, but for some he lacked elements that they saw as necessary to claim authority.
‘“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offence at him.’ (6:3) It’s not just who you are, it’s where you are from. There’s an authority that comes from being part of a tradition. Jesus is from a family of carpenters, and traditionally carpenters don’t teach in places of worship. Part of the reason that the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel got a hearing was that he was a priest (Ezekiel 1:3).
Whoever put the book of Ezekiel together made sure to share this fact with readers right at the beginning. And at least part of the reason that the hometown congregation won’t give authority to Jesus’s teaching is that he comes from the wrong sort of family. Did you notice in the recent election, when seeking authority from the electorate, how keen Rishi Sunak was to tell his family story, and how often Keir Starmer informed us that he was the son of toolmaker who became a lawyer. Family matters.
But its not only family. Other institutions matter when we decide whether someone has authority for us. Someone may have zero personal charisma but put them in a police uniform, give them a title like professor, sit them at a desk with the organisation logo behind them, and suddenly they have become figures of authority. And here’s where it went wrong for Jesus as far as his authority over the synagogue congregation was concerned.
Jesus had no authority conferred upon him by virtue of holding some sort of public office. He was not a priest, and even if he was regarded as a teacher outside of his hometown, within it he was from too far down the social pecking order. And so ‘they took offense at him.’ (6:3) Today, in our society, in comparison to first century Palestine, many more people from all different levels of society are allowed take up authority. It still helps though, to have gone to Eton, and Oxford or Cambridge.
Jesus, though, despite not having attended any of these august institutions, has authority over his disciples. When he calls they come, and when he tells them to go they go. (6:7) As well as his personality I suspect that the content of Jesus’s teaching had something to with that. For whatever they thought in that synagogue, Jesus was a teacher. You only have to remember his parables and the content of the Sermon on the Mount to recognise that, And look at what happened when they rejected him, and obstructed his ministry in his hometown (6:5). Jesus went off teaching. Mark tells us, ‘he was amazed at their unbelief [and] went about among the villages teaching.’ (6:6)
And that brings us to another form of authority – experience. When Jesus instructs his disciples about how to prepare for their journey he does so in the light of his own experience of travelling around those Galilean villages. I wonder if Jesus packed too much for his solo journey, and wanted to spare disciples from slogging along the roads in the heat, carrying far too heavy a load as he had once done. Similarly, I wonder if Jesus’s own experiences of acceptance with hospitality, and also of rejection on his solo trip informed his subsequent instructions to the disciples. That’s speculation, of course, but it makes sense to me at least.
And the reception Jesus’s disciples might receive in those villages brings me to a final question: why should anyone give authority to you or me when we share with them what we believe about God, about Jesus, or about the world? It might help if we have a charismatic personality, though if we do so we have to be careful not to misuse it; putting people under psychological pressure to think what we think, to do what we do. Religion has had far too many bad examples of that sort of thing happening.
Also, these days, we can’t rely so much on a traditional or institutional form of authority. Not so long ago to say something as a representative of the Church carried considerable clout, but that’s much less so today. Part of me regrets that, but only part of me. The Church has far too often misused that sort of authority, misusing the name of Jesus to cause suffering rather than to bring good news. In recent church history you just have to think of how deference to clergy enabled so much abuse of the vulnerable, and encouraged cover-up in the aftermath.
So where do we find the authority we need to share good news about the love of God that has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ? I think we receive it on those occasions when what we teach about God’s love is demonstrated in our lives. We are, in fact the best authority figures available as far as telling people about Jesus is concerned. Our authority flows from our experience of Jesus. At the end of the day that’s what is most likely to convince others; telling our story of our experience of God, made known to us in Jesus Christ. It doesn’t need to be flashy, clever, or backed up by some powerful institution called “church”. It just needs to be authentic.
Of course, not everyone will accept what we say. They will not accept our authority to say what we say. That’s not new. It was what happened to prophets like Ezekiel (2:3, 5). It even happened to Jesus, including in his home town, and among his own family. ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house,’ as Jesus put it. (6:4) But Jesus also expected his disciples to share their story about him, and to find a welcome from some. That’s authoritative for us. So let’s travel light, tell the story of Jesus, trying to be authentic and authoritative, and leave the rest to God. Amen.