Early in my first semester at theological college, our professor of New Testament studies, Jim Dunkley, realized that we needed to understand the different between dunamis, the Greek word for ‘power’, and exousia, the Greek word for ‘authority’. You see, sometimes in the Gospels we hear that Jesus does works of ‘power’ and other times that he demonstrates ‘authority’ unlike the official religious leadership of the time.
There was an empty desk chair in the front of the classroom, one of those with a writing surface designed for right-handed people. Jim walked over and in a big Texas voice shouted, ‘Move!’ The chair did not move. To this evident fact Jim said, ‘Since the chair and I have no person-to-person relationship, I have no authority to ask the chair to move.’ He then turned to the chair again and, in the same big voice, shouted, ‘Move!’ and kicked the chair. It went flying across the front of the classroom and we went ducking under our own chairs. ‘I do have power,’ Jim said, ‘over this inanimate object. I can force it to do what I want.’
In today’s reading from the Gospel according to Matthew we see the interplay of power and authority. At this point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem for what will be the last week of his earthly life. Jesus has entered the city surrounded by cheering crowds. He has stormed into the precincts of the Temple and overturned the tables of the money-changers and those who sold other items necessary for worship. In what seems to be an example of Jesus being ‘hangry’ – hunger bringing on a fit of pique – Jesus has cursed a fig tree that did not supply his wants. He may not have kicked a chair across a crowded classroom, but he has demonstrated that he has power.
Power is coercive. It does not require someone or something to respond. It forces the person or the object to do what the person with power wants done. Power can be used for good or for evil. To those who experience ‘acts of power’, a whole range of emotions can be conjured – fear, apprehension, envy, distrust, uncertainty. It shouldn’t surprise us that the Greek word for power, dunamis, is the root word for ‘dynamite’, ‘dynamic’, ‘dynamo’, all words that suggest irresistible force.
The religious leadership recognizes power. After all, they have to confront it every day in the reality of a Roman imperial garrison in the most holy city to Jews. A Roman fortress glowers down on the Temple and its surrounding courtyards. Jewish festivals do not only bring thousands of pilgrims to Jerusalem, they bring thousands of additional Roman legionaries. The regalia of the high priest is kept locked up in the Roman fortress. Every day brings the challenge of balancing religious integrity and political common sense.
So I understand the question posed to Jesus by the religious establishment: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?’ They want to know if they are being confronted by a threat to the network of relationships forged over centuries of Jewish religious life and the political realities of the present.
They want to know the source of Jesus’ exousia, his authority. Exousia is a marvellous Greek word. It literally means ‘flowing out of one’s essential character or primary identity’. This kind of authority is relational and emerges from the personal, collegial and communal dimensions of a person’s life.
To be sure, people with authority also have power. The key question is how one is going to use the power that they have. Are they going to use this power coercively, trying their best to compel others to do what they want them to do? Or will they forego using their power and choose the path of persuasion, a persuasion based on deeds not words, example not pronouncements.
In his letter to the Christians in Philippi, Paul describes the authority exercised by Jesus as being an expression of kenōsis, a word in Greek that means ‘self-emptying’ or ‘self-denial’. As the incarnate Word of God, Jesus has all the power to be found in the divine being, but Jesus, in order to achieve God’s purposes, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross”. [1]
In answer to their question, Jesus says, in effect, that he who is the incarnation of the Holy One of Israel acts, blesses and delights in creating space for others to become fully alive. [2] Jesus bears living witness to a God “who is intimately concerned with justice, peace, and the flourishing of all creatures, who is ‘on high’ but never remote, who is ‘over all’ but faithfully and dramatically invested in life on earth”. [3]
Anything we do now, as disciples of Jesus, is an effort to use whatever powers we may have in terms of our resources of time, of talent and of treasure after the example of Jesus. God, through Jesus, invites us into a life-long exercise in kenōsis. We know – and God knows – that we will fall short, that we will have moments when we are not only tempted to but do coerce others, that we will have moments when we cling ever so tightly to whatever we hold dear – possessions, accomplishments, status, privilege. But our job is to hold each other accountable to a different standard, the standard of the one we address as ‘Lord’.
So, my friends, “if then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, (let us make God’s) joy complete: (let us be) of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. (Let us do) nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than (ourselves). Let each of (us) look not to (our) own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in (us) that was in Christ Jesus”. [4]
And we may find that even chairs will respond to our voices.
