Reflection 9 March 2025 

“By whose authority” 

By Rev Fei Taule’ale’ausumai
 

I attended an ordination service some years ago where the preacher said that when a minister first arrives in a new parish in their first year they can “walk on water”, in the second year they are questioned “by whose authority, do you speak?” by the third year they are shouting “crucify them, crucify them”.  Thank goodness I have just completed my third year in this parish and so far I don’t believe there have been any attempts to try and crucify me.   

But the question in terms of “by whose authority”  do we speak?  It is an important question for we all have had experiences in our lives of having been judged and misunderstood throughout our lives at some stage.  When one Christian judges another by whose authority?  It’s going to become a bit like these citizen’s arrest that the coalition are trying to push through parliament.  If we see someone committing a crime we can do a citizen’s arrest.  I believe that is so very dangerous.   

Recently, `I was watching the funeral of a retired minister of the CCCS or EFKS on You Tube on Wednesday night.  He retired from ministry in 2009.  His daughter whom he was living with attended AOG Assembly of God with her family.  Her pastor shared a eulogy saying that this minister started attending his church in 2015.  At the end of the service he did an altar call and this retired minister was brought forward in his wheelchair by his daughter.  The Pastor asked him, do you want to be saved?  He responded yes, and he was prayed the prayer of salvation.  My question is was he not saved when he was himself ordained into the ministry of word and sacrament of his own church all those years ago?  He was a minister in his own right for all those years within the CCCS.  His new Pastor claimed that he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal saviour in 2015.  OMG! what about his lifetime of service as a minister of the Gospel was he therefore a fake for all those years?  We should not claim the salvation of others as a brownie point for our denomination, it’s not a competition.  Faithfulness is not a set of rules that must feature certain hallmarks to be acceptable according to your particular faith community?  Faithfulness is a relationship between you and God and God meets us all wherever we are whether that be in the wilderness or the valley or on the mountain. There are no rules. 

I’ve shared this story before of my Bible College Sunday school teacher asking me when did I become a Christian. I actually didn’t understand the question. I answered her “when I was born” because I knew I was born into a Christian family, the faithfulness of my parents shaped my faith.  My Sunday school teacher replied, “Oh no you are not a Christian unless you have accepted Jesus personally into your heart”.  I felt hurt and offended even as a child that she had undermined my faith.  How dare she, by whose authority was she speaking? Who gave her the right to judge me?  And that is the problem with many Christians today.  Their exclusive theology which isolates and condemns.  How much pain and angst some of our teachers and ministers along our faith journey have inflicted on those they have been tasked with teaching the Good News. For me it wasn’t good news, it was bad news. Even at that young age I was determined never to make anyone feel undermined or belittled if their faith did not look the same as mine.  I believe that was an early sign of my call to ministry. 

By whose authority do we speak from when we judge, when we exclude and isolate?  I don’t believe those words and actions are even tenets of the Christian faith.  Who are we as ministers to determine when one is saved after serving a lifetime in ministry in a different faith community?  It is no wonder many of us end up in the wilderness, both spiritually and psychologically. 

However on the flip side, the wilderness can become an important place and time where we emerge so much stronger and wise having been tested to our wits end.  I know it has been for me. Some of you may agree with me.   

It is the self-emptying kenosis.  Kenosis theology is a Christian theological notion that signifies the belief that in the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth, God empties out the divine selfhood in humble self-giving love to the world. The theological application of the term, often referred to as kenotic theology, refers to the nature of Christ. The aim of Kenotic theology is to solve some of the supposed paradoxes arising from Jesus having both a divine nature and a human nature.  Of course other scholars refute this notion altogether  they call it Christological heresy.  Marsha West posted on the Christian Research Network that Kenotic theology  stems from a misinterpretation of Philippians 2:7, where it is stated that Jesus “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of humankind.”… This view suggests that Jesus had to relinquish some or all of His divine attributes in order to truly become human. West continues “this error has been a point of contention within mainstream Christian orthodoxy, which consistently affirms that Jesus, while fully man, remained fully God, possessing all divine attributes.”   

I know for me when I went through my own wilderness experience it was almost a complete self-emptying of my very being and I’m sure some of you can relate to this yourselves.   

There are many layers of meaning to this temptation story. Historically we know that it was not uncommon for leaders and would-be leaders of change to make their way to the wilderness. The hopes for liberation lived from the stories of liberation, especially the story of the exodus from Egypt, but also the return from exile. Revolutionaries gathered their troops in the wilderness. Pious groups, like the Essenes, made their interim settlements there, waiting for the great climax. Individual figures like John the Baptist made the wilderness their starting point. 

Wilderness was the wild place, the waiting place, the place of preparation. It also connected then, as it does now, to very basic spirituality: a place to grapple with God, a place to learn dependence on nature and its provisions, a place of extremes or contrasts, of wild beasts and desert. It is the Lenten space par excellence. So it was natural that people expected Jesus headed for wilderness and very likely that he did. He went to John there and was baptised. It is not hard to imagine that behind the story of the baptism is some memory of raw beginnings in the desert. 

When we use the words “tempt” or “temptation” in English, they usually have a negative connotation – to tempt someone is to lure them towards doing something they shouldn’t, to weaken their resolve. Before considering the “temptations” of Jesus, it is worth bearing in mind that the Greek peirazein translated as “to be tempted” literally means “to try” or  “to put to the test” which, far from being meant to weaken someone, can have the purpose of making them emerge stronger. It might be helpful to think of this event as the “testing” rather than “tempting” of Jesus.  

That then raises the question, against what was Jesus being tested? At the outset of His public ministry, is the testing that Jesus faces a test of His commitment to the way of the realm of God.   

The first test was about physical needs – in His hunger, Jesus is tempted to turn stones to bread to eat, to use His powers for His own ends. But Jesus answers this test by saying Man shall not live by bread alone.  True satisfaction comes not from bread, but from complete dependence on God.  

The second test concerns the miraculous, to prove His credentials by some sensational act. Again, Jesus answers this test by placing God first – we are not to put God to the test.  

The final test offered a deal with the world – the whole world could be His if only Jesus would come to some arrangement with the world rather than presenting God’s demands to it. Once again, Jesus’ answer is clear – God comes above all, and no compromise is possible.  

Notice the first clause of the passage – Jesus was “led up by the Spirit”. And in many ways for us whether we are aware of it or not when we are forced into the wilderness in our life’s journey we are not necessarily all alone.  We are led by the spirit otherwise we would not come out of it alive.  These tests and temptations of Jesus can be used as mirrors to examine our own lives at the start of Lent:  

As some of you know I celebrated 34 years of ordination last Friday 7th March having been ordained in 1991.  Like some of you and some of my ministerial colleagues here ministry is a desert/oasis experience some desert experiences longer than others, some oasis experiences shorter than others.  It is a fact of life a fact of ministry.  Each calling very different from the last but each calling like Esther’s “For such a time as this”.  And so may your journey with the Spirit over this Lenten season be a time of exploration and discovery.  Amen.  

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