kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth

Two chaps met after many years, having been at Ecclesiastical College together. One had become a bishop, the other was a parish priest. They were discussing their differing ways of life and the parish priest said to the bishop: “It’s all right for you, you only have to have one really good sermon and you can go round the country preaching it again and again, whereas I have to preach a different sermon every week.”

To this the bishop replied that of course he did not agree and that he was quite capable of preaching on any subject, and if his old friend would like to write some words and put them on the pulpit he would preach them that evening.

It came time for the sermon at Evensong, the bishop went into the pulpit and looked down at the slip of paper. It carried one word: “Constipation”.

The bishop looked round the congregation and said: “My text tonight is, ‘Moses took the tablets and went into the wilderness’.”

A question of authority
Matthew 21:23-32

May I speak in the name of the living God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Authority in our culture
Our culture puts great store on authority. Those in authority are listened to simply by virtue of their position. We may grumble and groan about them, but on the whole we do as they tell us.

And conversely, we regard with suspicion those who appear to have something to say but who don’t possess the necessary qualifications to say anything.

It’s when you find someone who has no qualifications whatsoever, yet who clearly possesses a kind of inherent authority within themselves, that trouble really brews. People like Jesus, who “taught as one having authority” (Matthew 7:29) but who (as far as we know) had no formal training to be a rabbi.

Pharisees were big on authority
The Pharisees, who were into authority in a big way, couldn’t cope with the success of this itinerant preacher, who turned the time-honoured, traditional concept of religion on its head, but whom the ordinary people loved.

Perhaps it was because the ordinary people recognised Jesus’s inherent authority and found it to be so much more convincing than the authority of the Pharisees, that the religious leaders of the day hated him so much. They went out of their way to trap him, but always ended up with egg on their faces.