For Sunday, September 28, 2014 – Matthew 21:23-32
The chief priests and elders ask Jesus, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” In other words, who is the author of your life? It’s a good question for us all. Are we the ones writing the narrative of our days, or are we letting ourselves be written by others? Even worse, are we being authored anonymously by the culture around us, by forces of competition, avarice and greed? Do the so-called “powers that be” dictate our story, deciding who we will be and become? What voices do we heed? Whose “official authorization” do we await before answering what God asks us to do?
When they ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things,” Jesus answers with a question about the baptism of John, a question that cannot easily be answered. When they say they do not know the answer, they are at least on the right track, closer to a point of learning. So Jesus says if a father asks two sons to do a job for him, and one says ‘no’ but later does it and the other says ‘yes’ but later does not, which of the two has done what the father asked? This question they answer easily: the first son.
We know what has authority over us not by what we say has authority, but by our responses and actions. We do not show who we are by saying what might be, what could be, what we intend or do not intend to be—but by living and acting and doing, right at the center of what is. The true author has an intriguing story for each of us, one in which we are called to participate with willing spirits and open hearts. We can stop creating our own drama and conflict and resolutions. We need not insist on what we will and what we will not. We need only to listen for the author’s instructions and to do what is ours to do.
