Authority and the Cross

We all know the speech Jesus gives after the Apostles get indignant because the mother of James and John asked Jesus to sit her sons on His right and left in His kingdom:

"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

The nickel exegesis of this points out how Jesus inverts our expectations, that in the Christian scheme authority entails service, not entitlement.

But notice the contrast Jesus sets up. It's between the rulers of the Gentiles and the Apostles. Jesus' usual antagonists, the scribes and Pharisees, aren't mentioned in this story. Did the scribes and Pharisees not make their authority felt?

Perhaps the difference Jesus is teaching about isn't between those who believe in Him and those who don't, but between those who believe in God and those who don't. Between, if you'll pardon my reach, those who think this world is meaningful and those who don't.

If there's no meaning, no personal God to Whom all of creation is directed, then everything becomes a matter of preference. Authority reduces to the ability to make people do what you tell them. If the world has no purpose, then neither does authority. If you can make people do what you tell them, and there's nothing you particularly should tell them to do, then of course you're going to tell them to do whatever pleases you. Why wouldn't you?

But if God does exist and does have an interest in the world, the situation changes completely. Authority, along with everything else, has a purpose, and that purpose is to tell people to do what God wants them to do. Religious authority exists to tell people under that authority how to worship God. Political authority exists to tell people under that authority how to organize themselves as a society. And, since God provides a reference, there are right and wrong ways to worship God and to organize a society.

I may be missing a step: If God has an interest in the world, then all human authority comes from Him.

Someone exercising authority over others, then, has a responsibility before God for those over whom he has authority. He is responsible for directing them to do what God wants them to do (in the sphere within which he has authority). Doing what God wants you to do is good for you. Acting for the good of another is love. So someone in authority is responsible for loving those over whom he has authority.

So far, this all follows from God caring about the world. And the idea of the king as servant was well established in Israel; in Sunday's first reading (for the Feast of Christ the King), we heard it said that David would shepherd God's people, and we all know that good shepherds worked hard on behalf of their sheep.

What Jesus adds to this line of reasoning is the mystery of the Cross. Perfect love entails death. Perfect exercise of authority entails being, not just a servant of others, but a victim for others.

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