Shhh! There’s a TV show that I’m not allowed to watch. My wife, Lisa, won’t let me. South Park, it’s called. It’s a cartoon. How could a harmless, little, cartoon get on Lisa’s banned list? Well, she thinks it’s vulgar (and it is). But it’s funny, too! How do I know? Uhh, somebody must of told me it was. That’s it. Or no, ahh, I’ve seen commercials for it. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Okay, okay! I’ve watched it once or twice…ahh—several times…oh—whenever I want to when Lisa’s not around. Mea culpa! You know, Lisa also won’t even let me imitate the characters (especially Cartman), or quote them in conversation. Granted, most of what they say is shockingly controversial, lewd, or just plain offensive. But there are a few less vulgar catch-phrases that could be fit into a scholarly discussion. For instance, is it so wrong to interject into the after dinner repartee something like—I don’t know—“Oh my gosh, they killed Kenny!” (Not to worry. The character Kenny gets “done in” in every episode. And before you get self righteous over the difference between cartoon violence now and when you were a kid, may I remind you that you watched Wiley Coyote fall off that cliff hundreds of times!) Practically speaking, there’s only one other bit of South Park dialog that I can quote for you this morning and not be in the Bishop’s office tomorrow morning. It comes from the aforementioned character Cartman, and it originated, I believe, in the episode where Cartman becomes either hall monitor or crossing guard at his school. He has his badge and safety sash, but as he calls out orders left and right to the other kids, they don’t listen to him. In fact they run him over! To which Cartman, in his best southern police trooper’s accent says, “Respect mah authoritah” Respect my authority! [We have a fashionable illustration thereof. (show t-shirt)] Hilarious! From that point on, Cartman uses that line whenever he tries to bend someone to his will. But the problem is: they don’t bend. Ever. That’s because Cartman attempts to derive his authority from his position and attire, and his loud obnoxiousness. While in this world of ours, real authority is not conveyed upon someone like a uniform, rather it is granted by those under that authority. The gospel reading from Matthew this morning presents an exchange between Jesus and the chief priests and elders, in the Jerusalem temple. The topic is Jesus’ authoritah, supposedly. But nearer the truth is that these religious professionals had experienced a dip in their approval ratings (thanks to Jesus), and were keen for the people (and Jesus), to respect their authority. They had ample evidence that Jesus didn’t respect them. Just previous to this encounter, Jesus had ridden into the city on a donkey (symbolic of the return of Davidic kingship), and proceeded to ransack the temple market place—claiming that the powers that be had turned the temple into a place of cheating and fraudulent commerce. And he didn’t stop there. He also invited into the temple all the blind and lame, where he healed them. Which incited the crowds gathered to the point where they were crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” (Read ‘Messiah.’) When the chief priests hear this, they stop picking up the money, and rounding up the doves and goats, and they lambaste Jesus. “Aren’t you going to stop them from calling you that? Have some respect!” Jesus answers with a scripture, then leaves for the night. But he’s back again first thing in the morning, teaching in the temple. And then comes the scenario detailed for us in today’s gospel. You can see that the chief priests and elders had reason to be angry. Not because Jesus had broken several “laws” in the past day, but because he acted like he owned the place, and he wasn’t answering to their authority. He seemed to think he had his own authority. And that is what they called him on. “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” they ask him—thinking in their own minds that only priestly authority can be recognized (beyond that of Rome, of course). And they know they didn’t give this Jesus any authority to teach in their temple, to disrupt their temple business, to question their authority—criticizing them and hinting that they had somehow missed the boat when it came to understanding God’s authority. Outrageous! From where does this authority come? Who died and made you King, Jesus? It was a trap of course. Their question. They hoped Jesus would say that his authority came from God—that he acted with God’s authority—as God. Authoritatively forgiving sins, healing the sick, and “fulfilling the law,” as he called it. That was what the chief priests call blasphemy, and it would be especially heinous for them to hear it uttered within temple walls—the holiest structure in all of Israel! But Jesus replies in a way that implies the answer they were looking for, but does so in a way in which the chief priests would either be forced to admit that John’s (and therefore Jesus’) authority came from God, or to say that he was a fraud. Not a crowd pleaser. They decline to answer. And so Jesus does too. But he doesn’t have to answer because his authority is both otherworldly—given to him by the ultimate authority, God, and real worldly authority because it is accepted by the crowds. (For the most part.) Anyone can claim to have authority over you—but unless you surrender your free will, they have only a small measure of control over you. (Take as a for instance the French Resistance during WWII. A less extreme example would be the relationship between your average teenager and her parents.) The chief priests and the elders were experiencing a slippage in the people’s acceptance of their authority, as Jesus siphoned it away with the radical grace of the gospel. A confrontation was inevitable. And it came—the passion. An excellent example of how fickle people can be when it comes to recognizing authority. Good thing Jesus doesn’t hold it against them Because, even hanging on a Roman cross, Jesus exudes authority. Over life, and over death. Over sin and over hell. Over you and over me. When we respect that authoritah, and even when we don’t. There’s a difference, you see, between accepting Jesus Christ as Lord of your life—allowing his authority over you, living according to his example, proclaiming the same radical grace of God that he did—there’s a difference between that and Jesus having the authority to come to us even while we reject his earthly authority by living life as if we had never heard of Jesus of Nazareth. To come to us and to love and forgive us despite our self-involved practice of idolatry. For when we place our ultimate trust in anything ahead of faith in Christ—be it billion dollar bailouts, our own intelligence, power, riches, or talent—when we rely on these for grace and salvation, we are praying to false gods. And that is idolatry. But even if we ignore Jesus in this way, Christ still has the authority to release us from this idolatrous trap, even while we prefer to remain entangled within it. Case in point: baptism. Today Ryan and JaNene have brought their children, Dwight and Cassandra here to God’s house to be brought into the family of God and the fellowship of the church through the water and the promise of baptism. These two little children, smart as they are, cannot profess their faith in Christ or come to him of their own accord. They are here, not because they acknowledge Christ’s authority. They are here because the Holy Spirit drew them here by means of God’s Word reverberating in the hearts and minds of their family. And God, by his authority over heaven and earth, will unilaterally give them forgiveness and make them worthy of the title he will bestow upon them—beloved child of God! It is the same for all of us here today. God forgives our inborn propensity towards looking out for old numero uno, and frees us to place ourselves under the authority of Jesus Christ. Yet that is a choice we make each and every day as we struggle with the remnants of our sinful selves. And Jesus knows that. He told the people gathered in the temple a parable. It mainly pointed to the religious authorities’ complete failure to recognize the authority of the Messiah. But it is illustrative today as well. A father has two sons. He tells them both to get to work in the vineyard. The first flat out says “no way,” but later has a change of heart and does what he was asked to The other one says, “Righto, pops!” And then goes back to his comic book. Which did the Father’s will? The first, the one who struggled with himself over who was the boss—who eventually came around to accepting the father’s authority. The second does not recognize the authority of the father, despite his obedient words. Perhaps he’ll come around later—who knows. Jesus’ point is all of us struggle with our new identities as children of God, as the sinful self, drowned in baptism, keeps on popping to the surface—like Jason at the end of that horror movie. If we accept Jesus authority over us, we are empowered to dunk him back under and live another day for Christ. If we don’t—there’s always tomorrow. One last thing. And that’s a “what if?” What if we all gave Jesus authority over our lives, totally and completely? What if we really listened to—and then really did the things he taught? What if we respected Jesus’ authoritah? Well, brothers and sisters in Christ, that’s about a good a definition of the kingdom of God that you’ll get anywhere. And someday, that’ll be the case, and grace will rule, and mercy will win out over justice. Until that day, we can pray that we follow Jesus closely, that we rejoice in the authority that God has given him over us, and that, when we start to lose faith in Jesus and grab onto as much of the world as we can for comfort and safety, Jesus will come to us, not saying “respect my authoritah,” but “follow me.”