Culturally we both respect and fear authority and we have contempt for it as well.
If you ask people what happens when they suddenly have police lights behind them on the highway, they will answer with panic, tense up, or feel some degree of shock. Even if we know we aren’t doing something our inherent fear of the authority of the police officer in the cruiser behind us bubbles to the surface almost immediately and completely unconsciously.
We also value Authority in that when we want to know something we look for an authoritative source, be it a publication, a web page or a person. Usually if we want to know about something, we try to find the ultimate expert – the authority – with the most knowledge about the subject.
The challenge today in our realm of instant communication is that there are SO MANY sources to refer to, and some of them have downright WRONG information posted. So, when we’re doing research, particularly online, we need to be careful to check our sources and ensure they really are authorities in their field. Teachers today struggle with the reliance our youth place on web pages like Wikipedia, that may contain accurate information, but fail to be regularly peer reviewed to ensure accuracy and factuality.
Yet, even in the midst of ALL of this, we have this love hate relationship with the role of experts and authorities in our communities, in our world, and in our church. We have a tendency to dismiss the experts we don’t agree with, and seek out authorities we DO agree with, or worse, we rely on experts who have become popular, but not necessarily have the training, education or experience needed. We can dismiss this as part of the rise of conspiracy theorists, but it stretches well beyond the fringe into some pretty mainstream ideas and areas …
The self-help industry is marked with books, dvds, and other materials put out there by people with dubious credentials – yet they can become millionaires and command the attention of thousands because their idea has been well promoted and captured the attention of thousands … such is the danger of authority in our society today.
Authority can also be abused … so a dose of skepticism is not unwarranted.
Yet, in the Church we have an interesting and wildly inconsistent approach to authority … on one hand, we regard the men and women in the pulpit to have some level of authority, but we will also routinely and consistently seek out someone with MORE authority, or a HIGHER authority if what the pulpit is saying is not to our liking, or if we are about to embark on some new undertaking as the Church.
I’ve witnessed it countless times where a local congregation, or a local community will seek out an expert to come and help them solve a challenge or a problem. They will pay to bring that person in – and these experts seldom come cheap – and they will listen enraptured as this outside expert delivers his or her pronouncement … and 99 times out of 100, they are NOT saying anything new, and they are echoing or out and out parroting what the local folks have been saying ALL along.
When I started as a student of Rural Development at Brandon, I witnessed it ALL the time – we had world class scholars in our faculty who understood the ebb and flow of forces at play in the local economy. Yet, very very very seldom did the town fathers consult with these folks just down the road. Instead they would go to Winnipeg, or Toronto, or to Guelph to get ‘expert’ opinions on the matter … and after spending thousands of dollars, they would discover that they had paid big bucks to be told the SAME thing that the profs and researchers in Brandon had been telling them all along …
Such is our fascination with Authority … we see it as something from ‘over there’ – and an expert from outside must be something special and important and must be obeyed.
Yet, those experts seldom tell us stuff we don’t already know …
So, what would happen in the Church if instead of seeking out outside experts, and someone from away to tell us what we should be doing, we instead started to simply reclaim our authority?
We have authority as the Church, whether we realize it or not.
In Canada we have legal authority – our ministers are recognized as people who can sign passports and who preside at legal ceremonies like weddings – and our authority stretches beyond the burecratic paperwork. When a Church steps up and begins to speak out and speak up – people in positions of political and economic power DO listen.
An example often cited is the Jewish synagogue in the US who took great exception to an advertisement by the US clothing chain The Gap. The rabbi and a group of his congregants met to discuss this after worship. On Monday morning the Rabbi contacted the company and said – “our congregation will be boycotting your product unless you stop … and we will be asking ALL other congregations around us to boycott you too and to ask others to join us …”
Within days the company folded because they recognized the threat to their business was significant and real … AND they recognized the strength the Congregation had from its moral authority in the communities … the civil rights movement happened in the US because Churches reclaimed their moral authority and said boldly – an unjust law shall not stand – and stood together to demand change … with out Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery Alabama, there would be no Barack Obama in a place called the white house – and it happened because Mrs Parks claimed the authority of faith.
So, what if we reclaimed our authority as a Church and began to reach out into our community and live out our core values of inclusion, welcome, compassion, and care?
What if, we stood up and said – “we want this …”
I’ve long believed that Churches can be significant influences when it comes to issues of economics, politics, education and anything to do with the common good. Afterall, most of what we see around us in Canada today from our education systems through to Universal Health Care are a direct result of people like Egerton Ryerson, Tommy Douglas and JS Woodsworth, who were motivated by a deep and socially aware faith to make their community and their society better. Without the authority of faith, our country would be a very very different place.
Historically, Canada has been defined and shaped by the Social Gospel Movement, which tried to create a little corner of God’s Kingdom right here in the great white north.
What would happen if we dared to live our faith with that kind of authority again in the modern era?
Instead of being marginalized by speaking up on issues of sexuality, and the distribution of Bibles in classrooms – what if the Church began to speak up and speak out on issues like poverty? Job Loss? The erosion of our social nets? The urgent need for housing policies and adequate housing?
What if we spoke up about the BIG issues like consumerism and spiralling debt and instead of going along with society, offered an alternative that was grounded in our core values as a church? Respect, dignity, care, compassion, grace, and living out our welcome?
What if?
That’s the kind of radical authority that undergirds our readings today – the authority that comes from faith and ultimately from God that can and will transform the world … while we would poo poo the healings and exorcisms that we read about in our Biblical accounts today – the ability of the Church to use its faith and its authority to bring real change is still here – we need only try …
And at the end of the day, if we dared to go out into the world with a revived and enthusiastic authority, what have we to lose?
If we dared to live our faith openly and without hesitation or fear, we may offend some, but we would have the potential of creating real change in our community … do we dare reclaim our authority as a church and follow the lead of those who have shown us the way ?
May it be so – thanks be to God … Let us pray …
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