Two Kinds of AuthorityToday I would like to talk about the Gospel reading we have just heard from Matthew, and also that great text from Philippians chapter 2. I will come to the latter in a little while. First, the Gospel.The chief priests and elders, as they often do, challenge Jesus. They ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?” Where do you get the authority to carry out this ministry, these signs, these miracles, to say the things you have been saying?It becomes clear over the course of the narrative that the religious officials have a very different idea of authority from Christ. They believe authority comes from status, from title, from position. Of course, in our world there is a certain type of authority that comes from these things. But Jesus possessed a different kind of authority altogether—an authority that ultimately came from above, from God. That is where Christ’s influence lay.In that situation it did not really matter that the scribes, the elders, the chief priests and the Pharisees had a badge, as it were—a title, a position. The important thing was where true authority lay, and it lay in Christ, because it came from God. The problem, of course, was that they would not acknowledge this authority that Jesus possessed.The Parable of the Two SonsSo, in the course of this narrative, Jesus tells them a rather incendiary parable. A man has two sons. He says to the first, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” The son answers, “I will not.” But afterwards he changes his mind and goes. The second answers, “I go, sir.” He even says “sir”—sounding very pious and respectful—but he does not go. He says he will; he says all the right things; yet he does not go and work in his father’s vineyard.Jesus asks, “Which of the two did the will of the father?” They reply, of course, “The first.”The point Christ is making is that it is worse to say you will do something and then not do it, than to refuse at first and later obey. And of course he is applying this directly to the chief priests, the elders, and the religious officials: “You are like those who say, ‘Yes, yes, yes—look at me, I follow God, I have a position in the religious infrastructure of the time, I keep the law, I do all these things’—but then you do not actually live in line with your profession.” In the context, this is evident in their rejection of the authority of John the Baptist and of Christ himself.Meanwhile the sinners—the tax collectors and the prostitutes—the ones who at first said no, but then repented, changed their minds and went—it is they who will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Those who said no, but then went and did.The Real Problem: Pride and HypocrisyThe issue with the religious officials was not that they were making this profession and trying their best to live up to it and simply failing. That would be more forgivable; that would be far more understandable. It was rather—and we see this again and again throughout the Gospels—their arrogance, their high-handedness, and their constant criticism of other people. “Why do you eat with sinners and tax collectors?” In other words: “We are godly people; we keep to ourselves; we keep the law—unlike those people over there.” They were proud, they were hypocritical, and they looked down on others.This is given to us in the Gospels time and time again so that we might examine ourselves—so that we might recognise this sensibility, this temptation, as Christians, as followers of Christ, as those who come to church on a Sunday morning. It is a temptation to think ourselves respectable, to think ourselves good, to think ourselves holy, and then to become proud and critical of other people who we think do not match up to our standards.Work Out Your Own SalvationIn that beautiful reading from the New Testament, Philippians chapter 2, Paul says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” He does not say, “Work out somebody else’s salvation with fear and trembling.” This is repeated in various ways time and time again in the New Testament: look first at yourself and not at other people. Remove the log from your own eye before you look at the speck in your brother’s.Friends, it is not for us to go around speculating about who is a good Christian and who is not, who might be saved and who might not. The parable and others like it are given for us—so that we might examine our own profession of faith and whether we are living in line with it.This is also a warning for those who are in positions of religious authority—those who have been given positions of responsibility and power over other people. Unfortunately, the same question Christ was asking the religious leaders of his time still needs to be asked today by all who hold positions of responsibility in the Church. Across every denomination we see this pattern reoccur time and time again: people saying one thing and doing another; making a profession of faith; purporting to be persons of influence and importance in the Church—and then something comes out: some scandal, some hidden sin. The pattern is well established, and it happens again and again, unfortunately.So the point is that all Christians need to ask themselves whether this is true of them, but it is especially true of those who hold positions of responsibility in the Church.If I were to summarise the point, I think you could say: it is not just what we say; it is what we do. This is what Christ is getting at. What we say is actually less important than what we end up doing in our lives. We come here on a Sunday morning, we say certain things, we appear to be Christians—but do these things we say match our lives? Do they match the way we live during the week?Life and Liturgy as OneWe participate here in the liturgy of the Church. The liturgy is given to us—why? Not so that we might just say it on Sunday morning, but so that we might live it the rest of the time. This prevents the liturgy from being a dead work—something we just say that makes no difference. If we say the liturgy in a meaningful way, and if we intend to carry it out in our lives during the week, then the liturgy becomes more alive for us. It becomes more meaningful—not something fake, not something put on for Sunday, but something that permeates the rest of our lives and engages our wills.There is a beautiful line from a twentieth-century Anglican systematic theologian, a great man called E. L. Mascall. In one of his books he has this wonderful phrase: the ideal is that our life and our liturgy may be one—that our life and our liturgy may be one thing. We might broaden that out and say that our life and our speech become one thing: the way we act, what we do, what we say, and who we say we are—that these become the same thing, and that we are people of integrity.Avoiding Hypocrisy—and Going DeeperWe could look at this reading in at least a couple of ways. One of them I have already spoken about: avoiding the hypocrisy that Christ highlights in this parable. We do not want to go around boasting, talking about how great we are, preaching one thing and practising another.Again I repeat an important distinction. We are not talking here about those who are struggling with sin, struggling with difficulties in the Christian life, whilst honestly seeking to be faithful. That is a different thing, and it is a normal thing. That is a situation we are probably all in if we are seeking to live the Christian life in a serious way. That is very different from knowingly professing what we have no intention—or no real or serious intention—of living out. That was the problem with the religious officials of the day. We do not want to be like that. We want to avoid that.But there is also a more positive thing to say. The spiritual life, the Christian life, is not simply about not sinning. Of course, not sinning and not being hypocritical is a good start. We should aim for that as much as we can. But that is not all there is. Our lives in Christ are a journey into a deeper and deeper knowledge of God and communion with God. And of course God is eternal, so we can never come to an end in the depth of that relationship—knowing him, growing close to him, growing in holiness, and growing in communion with Christ.So the question is not just “How can I not sin? How can I not be a hypocrite?” but “How can I live in a way that is more and more congruent with my profession of faith?” And as we understand our profession of faith more fully, this calls us into an ever deeper commitment to Christ and relationship with him.The Mind of ChristHere I come to that great Christological hymn in Philippians chapter 2—surely one of the high points of all Scripture. The Apostle Paul, probably repeating a hymn that was sung in the early Church, says:Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant… And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.Christ, who was in the form of God, did not have to do this—yet he did. He divested himself of the glory of heaven; he gave up equality with God, we are told. Why? In order to save us, in order to serve us. He emptied himself and became obedient to the Father, even to the point of death.It is striking when you look at what Paul says immediately before that hymn. He says a number of things, and then: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” In other words, Christ laid down a pattern for us to follow—and then there follows that great hymn. Christ became a servant; Christ emptied himself; Christ became obedient to God the Father—and that is the pattern you are to follow in your lives.Specifically here Paul is talking about relationships in the Church: be of one mind, agree with one another, humble yourselves before one another, seek to meet the needs of other people before you meet the needs of yo