Pentecost 19: September 25, 2005
The Rev. Melissa Skelton

“By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

It was an upscale curiosity shop at the foot of Russian Hill in San Francisco. I had heard it was a favorite of interior decorators from Los Angeles, and it looked the part, with stark, white walls, quirky antique chandeliers all hanging at different heights, and odd contemporary sculpture strewn everywhere.

I did not belong there, a priest with no money to spare on fabulously overpriced decorating accents and, sadly, a person without much fashion sense. Despite this, I set aside an entire hour to take it all in.

There is an art to acting as if you can afford expensive baubles. What you do is to appear to be very interested in a limited number of objects. And so it’s important not to give every piece equal attention, but instead to act discriminating, as if saying to yourself: “this piece would go well in my loft apartment in the city, whereas this piece would be perfect in the kitchen of the country place.”

I have to confess that I was doing just that, examining strange objects that interested me for a fantasy life that I will never live—a white ceramic pear the size of a basketball, a set of hand-written French restaurant menus from the 1920’s—I was examining these things, completely absorbed, when my eyes strayed to a table sitting against a wall at the back of the shop. On that table was a set of bookends, each sporting a jaunty French carnival figure, an immense brass cube—and a statue of Jesus.

The statue was white marble and stood about as high as a small dog. It was old, chipped in a few places and stained a bit at the base as if it had been outdoors. Jesus looked down demurely and held each of his hands out by his side, palms forward. On each palm was the barest suggestion of a wound. And etched on the left side of his chest was a heart with flames coming out of it.

It stopped me dead in my tracks. And the words that wanted to come out of my mouth were these: “What are you doing here among all these odd things? What are you doing here as if the world has forgotten you or worse yet, has relegated you to the status of a piece of decorator’s kitsch? Why so hidden and so silent? Why so small and so powerless?”

Our gospel today begins with the chief priests and elders of the people questioning Jesus while he is teaching in the temple. They ask him: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” They cannot understand how someone with no status in their temple power system could presume to exert an influence on the spiritual lives of others.

It’s a question we may well ask ourselves as we live within our own power systems, the ones that Jesus comes to question. What sort of authority in our lives are we willing to give to the raggedy son of a carpenter, the one depicted in that small marble statue, the one with his heart on his sleeve (so to speak) and with wounds in his hands? What sort of authority are we willing to give him when we could be devoting ourselves to other things—the accumulation of money and the material goods that bring security, the achievement of success, looking like we have it all together, distancing ourselves from anything that smacks of failure and death. All of these things have authority for us, have power over us.

Walter Brueggemann makes the point time and time again that we have no idea how captive we are to our culture’s vision of the world, one, he says, in which it is assumed that there are haves and have nots, in which it is assumed that that power and status are everything, in which it is assumed that we must resort to warfare to resolve conflict. In his book entitled Hopeful Imagination, he says: "The central task of ministry is the formation of a community with an alternative, liberated imagination that has the courage and the freedom to act on a different vision and a different perception of reality."

This is what Paul in his letter to the Philippians is talking about when he urges the Philippians to put on “the mind that was in Christ Jesus.” It’s a mind that will enable them to see the world not as a contest to be won or a ladder to be climbed, not as a place where there are haves and have-nots, but as a place where all share in a common humanity and where the life to be lived is a common life. In speaking about this, Paul draws on the words of an early Christian hymn describing the humility of the crucified Jesus as the source of his exaltation.

Paul urges: “Let the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus. Who though he was in the form of God did not regard equality something to be exploited but emptied himself taking the form of a slave being born in human likeness.”

 

This outrageous and alternative version of who and what has really has authority in the world asserts that the small and hidden one, the crucified one who knows our wounds and who wears his heart on his sleeve is the source of life itself and the source of our lives.

The challenge to us, as Brueggemann says, is having the courage and freedom to act on, to participate in this alternative perception of reality.

But be of good cheer, for when we act in the ways that Christ acted, making peace, extending hospitality and forgiveness, being compassionate, we taste the divine life or, as Paul says, we experience God working in us, enabling us both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.

Let me close by returning to that shop at the foot of Russian Hill. And let me invite you to come back there with me for another look through the eyes of a hopeful imagination, an imagination that embraces the authority of Christ Jesus.

For if you had been there with me at the doorway to that shop, and we had ambled in together, curious about the treasures there; if you had been there with me as we made our way from one expensive bauble to another until finally we stood open-mouthed in front of the little figure of Jesus. If you had been there with me, I know that you would have seen what I saw.

That just for a moment, the shop, the city, the nation, even the earth all fell away, leaving you standing there alone before that figure. You would’ve seen the figure suddenly grow tall before you. You would’ve seen that he was carrying the wounds of the world on his palms and the flaming heart of the universe on his chest. And you would have looked into his eyes, eyes no longer looking down but gazing directly into yours, telling you that he understood you completely, and that he had come there to ask everything of you.

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Works Cited

Hopeful Imagination: Prophetic Voices in Exile by Walter Brueggemann