Authentic Authority by Father Ian Maher Our journey through life, with all its ups and downs and twists and turns, forms and shapes us. We do not develop in a vacuum but become the people we are today through all the various experiences, relationships and places that we encounter along the way learning that, in life, there will always be times when we need to make compromises and change. That might even mean breaking with convention, especially if failing to do so will result in avoidable hurt and pain for others.
very heart of our faith such as the grace, mercy, compassion, love, and justice of God. And we must seek to do that in such a way as to be a force for good, for peace, and for reconciliation in the midst of the fractious and divided climate in which we find ourselves. Our faith must speak afresh into every generation. As ever, it is to our Lord himself that we must look for guidance and inspiration. In chapter 5 of John’s gospel Jesus is responding to some fellow Jews who have been criticising his authority, in particular, over his healing of a person on the Sabbath. That was not the way people were supposed to behave. No doubt the argument, ‘we have always avoided working on the sabbath’ would have been on the lips of Jesus’ critics. But what Jesus was revealing was how the law was always intended for the wholeness and wellbeing of people and never as something to be kept for its own sake, especially if it meant a person’s suffering continued. The law was meant to be a living thing, not a fossil.
For instance, to sustain an argument solely on the basis of ‘we’ve always done it that way’ is a recipe for disaster because it ignores the fact that times and situations change. Another example might be to vote uncritically for a political party for no other reason than having always voted for the same party, is to ignore how politics has changed over time. The world, Europe, our nation are all very different places than they were in previous generations. Politics has changed, society has changed, the Church has changed. Some changes have been good, some changes not so good, and some changes have been downright bad.
What Jesus then sets out to do is explain to his critics that his actions were not something that he was doing simply to please himself or to impress the crowd but, rather, because his life was a reflection of the very life of God. Jesus was the embodiment in a human life of all that God his. His works
Somehow, in the midst of all that, the challenge for Christians is to stand firm on what we believe with regards to what lies at the - 70 -
