A sermon on the Feast Day for Richard Hooker by the Rev. Dr. Roger A. Paynter, Instructor in Homiletics and Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church, Austin, delivered on November 3, 2005, in Christ Chapel

Matthew 23:1-12

Today is the Feast Day for Richard Hooker. As I said to several of you, I had hoped that I had misunderstood Cathy Boyd and that what she really said is that this is the Feast Day for JOHN LEE Hooker. I mean, I KNOW about John Lee Hooker. Some of John Lee Hooker's blues have gotten me through some dark times. But alas….'tis not to be.

I do wonder how this Baptist preacher, a distant descendant of British Puritans drew this assignment. After all, one of Hooker's primary engagements was to oppose the Puritan idea that all church polity came directly from Scripture and that other sources of truth were not tenable. Secondly, he also seriously questioned whether the State should submit itself to be governed by Scripture, particularly Old Testament law.

In the current milieu of "near-Theocracy" under which we are living, Hooker becomes something of a radical and brings a dangerous edge to our reality. I mean, for God's sake, WHEN did one's "faith" become PRIMARY criteria for suitability to serve on the Supreme Court of this land? I ask you, which is more dangerous?….for Church to be run by the State? Or for the State to be run by the Church?

While Hooker did not create the three-legged stool of religious authority….Scripture, tradition and reason…he certainly gave it his allegiance and drew from it regularly, believing as he apparently did, that all truth is God's truth.

Which leads me into our text from Matthew. In Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek, Annie Dillard writes, "If we are blinded by darkness we are also blinded by light. That is to say, when too much light falls on everything, a special terror results."

My heavens, in this passage from Matthew, Jesus sheds a little too much light, tells a little too much truth. You know, 'Gentle Jesus, meek and mild' sure does stay 'ticked off' a lot. I know, I know. We all quickly say, "It's alright to be angry. Jesus was even angry ONCE, turning over all those tables of the church budget and finance committee." Perhaps this text and others would teach us that it is far more accurate to say, "Listen! Jesus went around with a kind of continuous 'mad' on, and especially so when it came to religious leaders. Woe unto all of us."

Now, let's be clear. Jesus is not angry here because they insist on keeping the Law. I mean, earlier in the same Gospel, he calls his disciples to a "righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees". It's not the 'burdens' Law (as Matthew puts it) that bothers Jesus. It's the unwillingness to lift a finger to help with those burden. The unwillingness in bearing them. The unwillingness to experience the cost of obedience first hand! This brings out the true force of the words that close out this passage, "The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted." It's the kenosis principle at work.

But that raises a question in my mind. Is Jesus suggesting that all who hold authority in the church give that authority away? Specifically, what is Jesus saying to clergy about being rabbis and priest and ministers of the Gospel? Is there any place for institutional authority in the Body of Christ? Jesus says, "You are not to be called rabbi"…and then again, "Call no one your father on earth"…and again, "Nor should you be called teachers, for you have one teacher, the Messiah."

How would you feel about the religious establishment in which there were no ordained persons, thus no one called rabbi or father or reverend? What IS the best way to live out Jesus 'demand' that we give no special privilege to anyone in the church?

Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Southern Baptists, African Methodist Episcopalians, Roman Catholics (and many others) all take their names from the particular way they have answered the question of religious authority. They all speak of the division regarding authority. Some of us favor more hierarchy, some less. Some Christians are wary of any teaching authority that places tradition and scholarly reflection between them and their immediate encounter with God and the Bible. Others fear that complete a complete theological 'free-for-all' deprives the whole Body of a collective witness to truth.

Let me put the question another way, the way Richard Hooker might have. Do we really want to say that we have no teachers but Christ? Do we not need to "know about anything" except the Gospels? Should we just forget physics, math, Italian, theatre arts, geography…and these days…sound biology? This is a question for all of us whether we are Christian, Jewish or Muslim.

I don't think the challenge of this text from Matthew is to reject authority. I think the challenge here is to keep authority grounded. We are obsessed with 'rank' in our culture, with who has the power. And while we certainly need leadership, the issue it seems to me is not to confuse 'rank' with 'worth.' That's not just an issue in the corporate world, of course. This holds in the church as well. Rank is a reality in ever denomination (pun intended!) And there is no denomination in which 'rank' does not get in the way of the Good News. We need authority figures…bishops, moderators, pastors, priests…they must have some concern for order. But today's gospel reminds us of this….their authority….our authority is rooted primarily in the liberating grace of Christ.

Jesus is trying to get us to accept an entirely different dynamic of power. He wants us to humble ourselves in order that we may be exalted by a new set of metrics. He wants us to embrace the vulnerability that comes identifying ourselves with those who are the weakest and most defenseless and most in need. Jesus is not rejecting clergy or teachers or leadership in general. He is saying, instead, this work is a privilege and it is best acted on in a way that is 'self-emptying'. It's best seen in giving status away rather than seeking to flaunt it or lord it over others, as power tends to do and as we have all experienced. Jesus is saying that no true teaching occurs unless the teacher is willing to sacrifice for the sake of the student.

Which leads us back into the issue that I think Hooker might be raising. What DO we teach? What is the source of truth for those in the faith? Do we teach only the Scriptures? And do they alone have to guide our every decision? And if not, why not?

I think the emphatic answer is no. To make any kind of claim about Christ as our ultimate teacher is to say that this is so because he is the ultimate source of truth. But to me, that means that every disciplined field of study leads us to an encounter with the Christ. Faith has nothing to fear from research and scholarship and discovery of new knowledge, because every genuine search for truth is on a collision course with the One who is truth.

And thus, the pursuit of all knowledge is an act of worship, an exercise in faith. Our faith is not compromised by scholarship and our scholarship need not be compromised by faith. Faith is not afraid of truth, nor is faith an enemy of the scientific method.

While it seems utterly silly that the church has to, once again, take on the issue of evolution, for instance or defend the scientific method, it must. Indeed there are, in abundance, so-called teachers of the faith who would, yet again, lay on heavy burdens of legalism, doing all their deeds to gain some form of political strength, focusing only on a certain view of Scripture as the sole source of knowledge. If you are still so naïve as to think this cannot happen in the Episcopal church…that this kind of brutality towards truth happens only in the evangelical world (however you define that word), then I would challenge you, in the name of Richard Hooker, and in the name of the One who calls you to self-emptying humility, think again. And in doing so, do not be afraid of the truth, for truth really does lift burdens….and it really does give you a proper kind of grounded authority… and it really does set one free.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.