Under Authority

“ Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me… When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. ”

Some will lead and some will follow. That's the way of the world. But will the ones who follow be grumbling about the leader? Will the leader treat his followers with compassion, concern for their welfare? Will he lead them to a place they ought to go? Will the followers wander off, take new leaders from their own ranks, or all try to lead?

Authority: what it is, who has it, how it is used, and how it is regarded are questions that define an age and shape human experience and history. From anarchy to dictatorship, revolution to election, cult of personality to class envy: we experience the surging universal need for good leadership and the ebbing away from strength and principle to a self-justified and ultimately atomized society. Civilization so requires leadership that without the ones who have and wield authority, we are reduced to wandering packs of brutes.

The building block of a civilization is a family: a man, a woman, and their children. The man's name and his livelihood gives shape and protection to the family, while in this shelter a woman makes a home and kids grow in grace and wisdom, obeying their parents and learning to be like them. Doesn't sound like anybody I know , but old movies and early TV shows depicted such people. When there is no such beginning to authority, a rightful use of strength and superior knowledge, there is no concept of home, property, territory, or relationships between neighbors and respected boundaries. How might a world build a street, or go shopping, or use money, or even recognize each other's speech if it didn't start in families and end in an ordered society?

“Question Authority” read the bumpersticker from three decades ago. The long hair of my youth has been replaced with tattoos and nose piercings, but the message is— I refuse your leadership and reject your way of life. It is hardly the property of the young alone, as hippies of my day begin to collect Social Security checks and retire as heads of corporations and university departments, a little bald and paunchy, but still with the sideburns and tie-dyed tee shirts. We lost something back then, and with the era of Watergate, every subsequent US President has been a target of scorn and suspicion, by the press as well as a great segment of American society. We have no leaders who want the job.

“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” Proverbs 29:2 If it were only as simple as Solomon said. When Jesus came and spoke, though, something about His message held His audience captive, “For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Matthew 7:29 Would we listen to Him today with the same attentiveness, I wonder?

I always appreciate the scene from our Gospel today where the Centurion seeks Jesus to heal of a servant, but humbly submits that the Savior need not come to where the sick man is: just say the word, and he knows it will happen. “For I [too] am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. Matthew 8:9 Jesus' response to Him is worth looking at: “ Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

First, Christ compares this Roman foreigner, a pagan by birth and practice no doubt, to His own Jewish nationals, commending the pagan as having greater faith than them all. Further, Jesus prophesies that many will come from distant lands with strange languages and similar Gentile backgrounds to sit at the feet of the Jewish patriarchs in heaven while many of the Jewish nation will find themselves cast out into hell. And why?

Here is the Son of God, the fulfillment of centuries of Jewish prophecy, the very Messiah they were all craving for, and none of them truly accepted Him for who He was. But this outsider clearly regarded Jesus as one having the authority to rebuke an illness, even with a prayer, even in His absence. And see how the soldier expresses his faith. “I am a man under authority.” He goes on to describe how men obey him. What's he saying? Because he is a centurion, he wears the authority of his general, of the governor, and the very Emperor of Rome. What he orders his subordinates is backed by the entire empire, but only when he is doing the will of the authorities to whom he is subject. The minute he acts on his own, disobeys his superiors, goes his own way, no one need obey him. The power he wields comes from above.

And so he sees Jesus with similar power, power over life and death. But it must come from above, he reasons, just like his own. So he concludes that if Jesus only gives a command, it will be followed. A simple but powerful faith. And for that, “Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.”

The deacon Philip, one of seven men chosen to wait tables for the burgeoning early church, had a remarkable career, what we read of it in the Acts of the Apostles. Philip is called first to feed and care for the Greek speaking Jewish Christian widows, to free Peter and the other Apostles in their ministries. Philip obeys. Philip obeys because it is God's Spirit that drives him. He goes to Samaria, and there he starts a revolution breaking those people out of their hybrid religion into an impressive new center of Christianity. All of a sudden, in the midst of an explosive ministry among the Samaritans, Philip hears the Holy Spirit instruct him to go to Gaza—the desert coasts of Palestine that leads to Egypt. Philip obeys. Philip obeys because God the Holy Spirit has never led him wrong. He is a man under authority. If he reasons with himself what makes better sense, he dismisses this urging and returns to a vibrant, impressive ministry in Samaria. But he walks to Gaza. Had he refused, what happened next couldn't have been.

An elaborate carriage is carrying an important person south. With his entourage, the Treasurer of Ethiopia, a proselyte of Judaism, but kept out of the Temple proper because he served the Queen and was made a eunuch, he bears in his hands the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. As he rides by Philip, the deacon hears him reading what we regard today as chapter 53, about the suffering servant whose stripes heal us, who goes like a sheep to slaughter, who washes our sins with his blood. The Spirit again urges Philip to go, attach himself to this carriage, and so he does. He explains the prophecy to the Ethiopian, that it points to Jesus Christ who had just lived and died as the prophet said, cleansing the world of sin. One must be baptized to receive it, Philip tells the treasurer of a nation, and the man says, “ See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing.” Acts 8:25-40

Out of this remarkable encounter, an entire nation was evangelized and today the Ethiopian Orthodox Church remains a testimony to a man who was under authority. If we, in our own age, regarded the authority of God the Holy Spirit, and did what He tells us, we will have equally remarkable experiences to the benefit of many. But if Philip had not said, “Yes,” to the first urging of the Spirit, there would have been no second command.

Having authority and wielding great power to do good requires first being under authority. Even Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was under His Father's rule, and remains so today. “In Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive… Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet… And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. 1 Cor. 15:20-28

Life is not a drama of self-realization. When we sit at our computer screens and decide what we want to do, it is the saddest short circuit there is. God is here. God speaks to us, and we aren't listening much of the time. He tells us, “Go down to Gaza” or whatever, and the next stage of the journey after that could change the world and all of human history waits for us to hear and obey the Spirit's message.

“What's in the fridge?” says our belly, and we follow our urges. “Hmmm, ice cream.”

PFH+