Posted by The WORD in other words (2013) by Fr Felix Ferrer SVD – Rome, Italy
Saturday 8th Week in Ordinary Time
In general, authority refers to a claim of legitimacy, the justification and right to exercise power to influence people. Max Weber, a well-known sociologist, divided legitimate authority into three forms:
The first type is rational-legal authority. It is that form of authority, which depends for its legitimacy on formal rules and established laws of the state, which are usually written down and are often complex.
The second form of authority is traditional authority, which derives from long-established customs, habits and social structures.
The third form of authority is charismatic authority. Here, the charisma of the individual leader plays an important role. It is derived from “the gift of grace” of when the leader claims his authority is derived from a “higher power”.
Jesus Christ must have passed the third form. Spiritual and biblical writers would explain it this ay. As the God-man, the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ manifest his authority in a dual capacity. On the one hand, his authority is that of one who is the Son of God and is intrinsic to him and not derived. On the other hand, as the incarnate Son, who is the Son of Man, he acts in submission and obedience to the Father. So he can in one and the same breath concerning his plans to lay down his life: “No one has take it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again,” and “this commandment I received from my Father.”
In our particular episode, Christ’s authority is being challenged re religious leaders and the chief priests. Was this a trick question? Of course it was! These religious leaders and chief priests could care less discovering the truth about Jesus. The “authority” question was a tapas most of their questions were. In the eyes of the religious leaders, Jesus could answer only in one of these two ways:
- He could answer that his authority came from God (a form of blasphemy).
- The other answer was that he just decided to disrupt the order (just another trouble maker and fanatic).
Either way, they must get rid of him for good. One consistency you will find all through the New Testament is that, not once, did Jesus ever fall into any of the traps planted by the Scribes and Pharisees. Christ answered their questions with other questions that they could not answer without entrapping themselves. They could not answer Jesus because they were mainly interested in getting rid of Jesus and not the truth about him. His teachings and behavior were weakening their authority and they had no intention of losing their power over the people.
The question for us today is: Are we interested in discovering the truth about Jesus? More personally: Am I paying attention to learning more about Jesus and his plan for my life?
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