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Meet Father KempThe Sixth Sunday after Trinity – 11 July 2010
The Oxford American Dictionary defines authority as “the power and right to give orders and make others obey.” The Church as always given the Apostles great authority, but we often forget that outside the church, Jesus’ apostles were powerless. For instance, Peter and John were ordinary men, they were simple fishermen. They knew about fish and nets, not the intricacies of Jewish law and Talmudic interpretations; they knew about tides and boats not rhetoric and public speaking. They knew all about the local fish markets not about the Sanhedrin, which was the Senate and Supreme Court of Israel. Yet, despite of their lack of authority Peter and John spoke authoritatively to the Sanhedrin and in their actions we can learn two things: first, authority is not to be defied and second liberty or freedom is found when we submit to authority.
The Sanhedrin had authoritative jurisdiction on all non-capital court cases in Israel. It consisted of the High Priest and seventy other elite rulers, teachers and legal experts. The Sanhedrin, therefore, possessed great power and almost ultimate authority. Thus, the story of Peter and John before the Sanhedrin (which would be like two illegal immigrants testifying before seventy Ivy League legal scholars) seems at first glance to be the quintessential story of the powerless defying the authority of the powerful. Popular American culture loves this type of story. We revel in the stories of college students defying their professors in the 1960’s. We love stories of children defying the authority of their dim-witted parents. We adore stories of religious mavericks who defy the authority traditional religion and blaze new and unchartered paths of spirituality. Our cultural creed has become Ignazio Silone’s statement, “Liberty is the possibility of doubting, the possibility of making a mistake, the possibility of searching and experimenting, the possibility of saying, “No” to any authority – literary, artistic, philosophic, religious, social, and even political.”[1] However, if liberty is the possibility of defying authority, Peter and John were not exercising their liberty because nowhere in this story do Peter and John defy the authority of the Sanhedrin.
Peter and John’s reply, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God” is not defiance, but deference – they chose to submit to the judgment of God rather than the judgment of the Sanhedrin. Peter and John did not openly defy the Sanhedrin, they simply reminded the Sanhedrin that there is a greater authority, an authority the Sanhedrin, itself, must recognize. The ultimate authority in all matter isy is God the Father as he has revealed himself in his crucified and risen son, Jesus to whom every knee must bow and every tongue confess. Therefore, Peter and John did not defy the authority of the Sanhedrin; they deferred the authority of the Sanhedrin to the authority of God.
This might seem like a silly game of semantics, (after all, how much difference is there between defiance and deference), but it is not. Many people today would like us to believe that to be human is to be autonomous self-rulers or to be free from all authority. In fact, much of popular culture is dedicated to defiance. Consider what David Brooks recently said about the Internet, an ubiquitous and seemingly neutral cultural agent, “The Internet smashes hierarchy and is not marked by deference. Maybe it would be different if it had been invented in Victorian England, but Internet culture is set in contemporary America. Internet culture is egalitarian. The young are more accomplished than the old. The new media is supposedly savvier than the old media. The dominant activity is free-wheeling, disrespectful, antiauthority disputation.”[2] Much, if not most, of popular culture attempts to defy authority and justifies its actions under the banner of liberty and self-reliance. However, this is impossible. Practically speaking we are all under the authority of our landlords and mortgage lenders. We are under the authority of the local grocers’ vegetable prices, the phone companies fees and our credit card contracts. Legally speaking, we are all under the laws of land. We all live under our nation’s judicial system and live under the authority of the local police officers, county sheriffs, state troopers, and federal marshals. To be human is to be under authority. Regardless of whether we like it or not, we are all under the authority of someone else. That means there is no such thing as an autonomous self-ruling human. The autonomous self-ruling human is a myth and a fabled superstition.
Therefore, the question we must ask is what authority we submit to not what authority we can defy. Do we give deference to the authority of success, the authority of power and privilege or do we give deference to the authority of God the Father. Do we submit to the rule of human institutions and human rulers or like Peter and John do we remind human institutions, like the Sanhedrin, that they must ultimately submit to the rule of Jesus Christ. Do we live under the authority of the spirit of the age or do we live under the authority of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, if human beings, by their very nature, live under authority and if we think liberty is the possibility of defying any authority then liberty will be dehumanizing. The popular notion of liberty does not lead to freedom but to slavery, it does not lead to human flourishing but to human withering.
True liberty – the liberty offered by Jesus- is not the possibility of doubt but the possibility of faith, it is not the possibility of making mistakes but the possibility of forgiveness, it is not the possibility of searching and experimenting but the possibility of hope and it is not the possibility of saying “No” to any authority but the possibility of love. The liberty to love, the liberty to be faithful, the liberty to hope and the liberty to find forgiveness – this liberty – will lead to human flourishing because it is firmly rooted in human submission to God. Liberty is found when and only when we acknowledge the ultimate authority of God the Father, when we recognize the kingly authority of God the Son and when we relinquish our rights to our self through God the Holy Spirit.
There is a hierarchy woven into warp and woof of creation and at the top of this hierarchy is the Creator God. His rule is not harsh, as his son said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30) When we submit to the authority of God the Father by resting in completed work of God the Son, we will find true life, which is being loyal and faithful servants of God and our fellow man. When we submit to the authority of God we will find true liberty, which is the freedom to hope, to be forgiven, to have faith and above all to love. Liberty and justice for all is not just a cultural myth or social superstition or even an empty dream, it exists and all who recognize through faith the authority of God the Father, Son and Spirit will find it.
[1] Ignazio Silone, Essay in The God that Failed, 1950
[2] David Brooks, “The Medium is the Medium,” New York Times,8 July 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/opinion/09brooks.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
