Authority is a big issue for Christians. Historically, authority is the main reason for the two major splits in the Christian Church: the East/West schism of AD 1054, when what are now known as the Orthodox and Catholic Churches split, and the protest or Protestant split in the sixteenth century, usually dated to 1517, when the Augustinian friar, Martin Luther, nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Wittenburg, Germany.
As human beings, we like things to be neat and clean. But God is not bound by our tidy ways of thinking. While the history of the Church with regard to its fracturing is contrary to God’s expressed will, through the Holy Spirit, God never ceases to answer the prayer of His Son that we all be one as they are one.1
When you look at today’s Gospel from the perspective of a twenty-first century Christian, it seems absurd that the chief priests and elders asked Jesus, the Son of God, who is true God from true God, by what authority He taught what He taught and performed the miraculous deeds He performed. While always done in concert with the Father and the Holy Spirit, we can safely say, the Lord acted on His own authority.
It isn’t Jesus who provides the parallel to Balaam in our readings. Rather, it is John the Baptist. Both prophets came out of nowhere to tell others of the ways of God and to foresee, even if dimly in the case of Balaam, the Lord's coming. The Baptist comes into play when the Lord turns the tables on his interlocutors by asking them what they thought of the baptisms John performed.
It’s easy to see the chief priests and elders "of the people," which I prefer take as the inspired author being sarcastic, wanted to deny the divine nature of the Baptist’s ministry. His ministry, if you remember, consisted of calling Jews to repentance, that is, back to fidelity to the Covenant by the righteous observance of the Law and baptizing those who heeded his call. This was a scandal to these Jewish leaders. Jesus put these men on the horns of a dilemma. Maybe it’s more accurate to say the Lord highlighted the existential dilemma we all must face in the realization that choices have consequences.
There is a line from the chorus of the song “Freewill” by the band Rush that states this dilemma well: “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” By choosing not to decide in that moment, the chief priests and elders “of the people” only kicked the can down the road.
Ultimately, these men were forced to decide. Unwittingly, their choice to call for the condemnation and brutal execution of the Messiah, the Son of God, accomplished God’s purpose: the redemption of the world. So much for tidiness.
In His life and ministry as set forth in the Gospels, Jesus is always driving those who encounter Him to make a choice, to decide who He is for yourself. In the Gospels, this choice is somewhat evidence-based, especially regarding the miracles and wonders he performed.
Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, himself a Roman Catholic, albeit in adulthood not a practicing one, summed this dilemma up very well:
“No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.”2 - And it is true: I cannot call him Lord; because that says nothing to me. I could call him 'the paragon', 'God' even - or rather, I can understand it when he is called thus; but I cannot utter the word “Lord” with meaning. Because I do not believe that he will come to judge me; because that says nothing to me. And it could say something to me, only if I lived completely differently (italics in original)3Unlike many professing Christians, Wittgenstein understood his dilemma. He understood, quite clearly, that were he to acknowledge Jesus’s authority by professing Him as Lord he would need to live “completely differently.” Do you?
Don’t worry too much about Ludwig. From there he launches into a reflection on faith by asking: “What inclines even me to believe in Christ's Resurrection?”
It’s important to see, as we do in our Gospel today, that Jesus never asserts His authority by making a power move. In Christ, there is no coercion, only freedom. After all, He did not reply: “On whose authority? Being God’s only begotten Son in the flesh, by my own authority given me by my Father!”
It is important to always keep in mind that for Christians, freedom is first and foremost freedom for not freedom from. As Saint Paul insisted in his Letter to the Galatians: “For freedom Christ set us free.”4
And so, back to Rush:
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
1 John 17:11.↩
2 1 Corinthians 12:3.↩
3 Ludwig Wittgenstein. Culture and Value, 33. Trans. Peter Winch. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.↩
4 Galatians 5:1.↩
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