Trinity 17 "By what authority"

Trinity 17 2026 WM 8am

Philippians 2.1-13, Matthew 21.21-32

A friend of mine told me he was once questioned by the police because someone had accused him of impersonating a priest. This was ironic because he was, in fact, a priest. Eventually he managed to convince them, but it was an uncomfortable moment.

Proving that we are who we say we are is an inescapable part of modern life. In many jobs that means wearing a uniform, a badge or a lanyard. But back in Jesus’ time, it wasn’t as simple as that.

In the Gospel reading today Jesus is asked for his “badge of office” by the chief priests and elders as he stands in the Temple, teaching the crowds. “By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you this authority?”

It was the last week of Jesus’ life, and the battle lines had already been drawn with these religious leaders. They knew Jesus was going to be trouble. He’d created a stir, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, echoing a prophecy in the book of Zechariah about the Messiah, He’d overturned the traders’ tables in the Temple. He’d annoyed a lot of important people – not least the Roman authorities, who were always on the watch for rebellion brewing. Who did he think he was? He wasn’t a priest. He wasn’t from some recognised rabbinical school. He wasn’t a member of the ruling council. He was just a carpenter from the backwater province of Galilee. There was nothing about his external appearance or his background which said “Messiah” as far as these temple officials could see. And yet he was acting as if he had a right to be where he was, proclaiming what he said was God’s word, doing what he said was God’s work.

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

Jesus’ response points them away from his outward appearance and his unlikely background as a carpenter’s son. Instead of answering their question he throws one back at them. “By what authority did John baptise?” If these leaders say John the Baptist had God’s authority, why didn’t they follow him themselves? John had been executed by King Herod, but he had been popular with the crowds, who had flocked to him. Jesus is forcing these religious leaders to choose. Whatever they answer someone won’t like it – Herod, or the masses. How will they choose? Will their choice be based on who they are more afraid of, or on whether they think John was right or not? 

To help them weigh up their choice, Jesus tells them a parable.

A man has two sons. One says he won’t do the work his father’s asked him to, but then does it anyway. The other says he will do it but then doesn’t. Which son would you rather have? The first son, of course, because at least at the end of the day the work will at least have been done.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, we might say. 

Ultimately it’s not the badge you wear, but the work you do that matters, says Jesus.

That applies in all walks of life. You can call yourself an architect, but if everything you build falls down, someone will soon be disputing your right to the label. You can call yourself a chef, but if all your customers get food-poisoning, you will soon find yourself out of a job. 

“The tax-collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of heaven ahead of you,” says Jesus. That sounds very offensive to these leaders, but that is because they are thinking of the kingdom of God like any other royal court room, a place where precedence is decided based on your status – your badge of belonging, your membership of the club - rather than your actions. But Jesus didn’t think of the kingdom like that. To him it was found wherever God was at work, changing people, forgiving people, healing people. The tax collectors and prostitutes who had come to him were already in that kingdom, already in the throne room, because they were already letting God change, forgive and heal them. That’s why they flocked to Jesus. It wasn’t his words but his whole way of life that transformed. He came and ate with them when no other respectable person would. He insisted that they were equal members of his new community and stood up for them when others questioned that. Ultimately, he died rather than going back on that message. “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave… He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” says Paul in our first reading.

Jesus didn’t need a badge that said “Messiah” on it, because it was written right through him. It was his authenticity that convinced those who followed him. You can’t fake that, and you can’t disguise it either.

But now comes the really scary part, because that beautiful hymn of faith that we heard in our first reading says “Let that same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”. Paul isn’t telling the Philippians who Jesus is. He is telling them who they – and we – are meant to be. He is calling us to live with the same authenticity, the same love and trust and humility, that Christ himself displayed. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” Not work out in the sense that we might work out the answer to a puzzle, but work out in the sense of putting something into practice. Put into practice the message of God’s love, says Paul. Live what you believe.

And if we are genuine in “letting God be at work in us”, there may be some fear and trembling. Real change can feel scary. And that is just as it should be. Either our faith matters - this faith we come together to celebrate and ponder week by week – in which case we should be doing everything we can to live it, working it out in our lives, or it doesn’t matter, in which case why do we bother to come at all?

Badges and labels have their uses, but it is the testimony of our whole lives which ultimately tells others who we are - and whose we are – people in whom God is at work, citizens of his kingdom, part of his family, growing in his likeness day by day. Let us pray that it will be so for us.

Amen