Sermon for September 27, 2026, Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 21:23-32 (Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 21—Series A)

“Authority”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

September 27, 2026

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is the Gospel Reading recorded in Matthew 21:

²³And when [Jesus] had gone into the temple, the chief priests and elders of the people came to Him while He was teaching, saying, “By what authority do you do these things? And who gave you this authority?” ²⁴Jesus answered and said to them, “I also will ask you one thing, which, if you tell me, I also will tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven or from human beings?” And they began to consider among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘from heaven,’ He will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ ²⁶But if we say, ‘from human beings,’ we fear the crowd because they all regard John as a prophet.” ²⁷And so they answered Jesus and said, “We do not know.” He Himself said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁸Now, what do you think? A man had two children. And he came to the first and said, ‘Child, go today and work in the vineyard.’ ²⁹He answered and said, ‘I am not willing,’ but later, he repented and went. ³⁰And he went to the other and said the same thing. And he answered and said, ‘I am willing, sir,’ but he did not go away to work. ³¹Which of the two did the father’s will?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going before you into the reign of God. ³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness, but you did not believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. But you, even though you saw this, you did not repent later and believe him.”

          In his book Looking Forward to Sunday Morning: Reflections on the Church Year, Carl Fickenscher has written:

“Authority.

Is it a good word or a bad word?

Years ago, what some have called ‘The Greatest Generation,’ the generation that won World War II, revered (or at least respected) authority—presidents, commanding officers, drill sergeants, factory foremen, Dad as head of the household, pastors, teachers. ‘Policemen are our friends,’ they taught. But then came eras of sit-ins and campus unrest, Watergate and impeachments, charges of police brutality and racism. Politics of personality and character assassination. Supreme Court oversteps and Supreme Court nominations with more character assassinations. Distrust of authority.

The Fourth Commandment demands that we honor, serve, obey, even love and cherish ‘our parents and other authorities.’ But somehow ‘the authorities’ has become an ominous term. . . .

Why do we often have such a problem with authority? It all goes back to the fall into sin, and it’s really quite simple. Just as Eve and Adam wanted to be their own gods, we sinful people also want to be our own ultimate authorities. Anything that’s in authority over us makes us at best Number Two, and that’s always one spot too low. We always believe (foolishly!) that we can do a better job of looking out for Number One than anyone else can or will. After all, we’re always convinced that the next guy is looking out for himself, that he’ll always sell us out to put himself ahead. Distrust of all authorities. Even when the authority is God.”[1]

Our Gospel text today took place on Tuesday in Holy Week. That previous Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of “Hosanna in highest! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” On Monday, Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple and “drove out all who sold and bought in the temple.” He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers” (Matt. 21:12-13 ESV).

It might come as no surprise that the religious leaders—the chief priests and elders of the people—wanted to know from Jesus, “By what authority do you do these things? And who gave you this authority?” In other words, “Jesus, what gives you the authority to come riding into Jerusalem, on a colt, the foal of donkey, receiving acclaim from the people as if you think you’re the Messiah Himself? Who gave you the authority to do what you did yesterday in the Temple? We surely did not! Everything that you have taught and the miracles you have done, by what authority do you do these things?”

In asking such a question, however, the religious leaders were not asking for information which they did not already know. Jesus had taught with the authoritative preaching of God. Matthew 7:28-29, “And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” After the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus was in Capernaum, “Some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.’ And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, ‘This man is blaspheming.’ But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, ‘Why do you think evil in your hearts?  For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he then said to the paralytic—'Rise, pick up your bed and go home.’ And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Matt. 9:2-8 ESV).

The words and works of Jesus confirmed that His authority was, like John the Baptist’s, “from heaven,” from God. After Jesus raised Lazarus not many days before this confrontation in Matthew 21, we read that “the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, ‘What are we to do? For this man performs many signs’ (John 11:47 ESV). The chief priests and elders of the people knew the authority on which Jesus acted, but their one purpose was to deny Him this authority, for to admit it would be to accept Jesus as the Messiah. Instead, they were convinced that His actions would undermine their authority, “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:48 ESV).

Like Jesus’ opponents, we sometimes challenge the Lord’s authority over us. We claim that we are the masters of our lives. We believe that we are in charge. Although we like to think of ourselves as self-sufficient, we are not. Although we like to think of ourselves as free and independent, we are not. We imagine that we are in charge of our lives. We suppose that we have absolute authority over ourselves and we want the same over life’s situations. And that is why, like Adam and Eve, we desire to be our own ultimate authority, to be our own god. Martin Luther has written for our learning in the Large Catechism, “Whoever trusts and boasts that he has great skill, prudence, power, favor, friendship, and honor also has a god. But it is not the true and only God.”^[2] 

This is idolatry. God says, “You shall have no other gods,” and we turn around in our sinful arrogance and challenge God’s authority as we act in ways that demonstrate our rebellion again Him and our desire to be god, lord, and master of our own lives. Under the power of the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh, we are led to believe that we are, at times, the sole authority for ourselves. In those moments, we forget who we really are. We are not God; we are not even small “g” gods. No, we are creatures.

What does this mean? It means that the only true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has “made me and all creatures” (Small Catechism: Creed, First Article). We are not our own creators or masters. We do not possess divine authority. God is God alone and we are not. We are created as male and female to be under the authority of God. To say otherwise is to “turn things upside down!” We read in the prophet Isaiah, “Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, ‘He did not make me’; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?” (Is. 29:16 ESV). Quite obviously the clay can’t claim to be its own maker! Nor can we, who are beloved creatures of God, claim to be anything other than the people of His making. We must confess with the words of Isaiah 64:8, “But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

When we try to make ourselves the authority of our lives, we find ourselves entrapped in idolatry. As we strive to be Number One, we stand in conflict with God who IS our Creator and the Lord of the universe. And challenging God’s authority will always end badly. But that’s not how God wants it to end! We heard the Lord say in the Old Testament Reading from Ezekiel 18:30, “Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin.” In other words, “Humble yourself before Me, your Creator and Lord. Confess your sin and receive forgiveness so that I may lift you up in joy and peace!”         

Rather than be like the chief priests and elders of Jesus’ day who challenged and even denied His authority, the Holy Spirit gives us the ability to trust in Jesus’ authority as True God and True Man, the One who truly teaches the Word of God to us with authority. The Spirit brings us to humbly confess that we have been idolators at times and have set ourselves over and against the Lord. In the power of the Spirit, when we bow before Christ’s authority, He will lift us up out of the pit of sin and guilt and exalts us with the gifts of forgiveness and everlasting life (Psalm 40:2).

Jesus has the authority to grant us forgiveness and eternal life because He Himself won that very forgiveness and life for us with His own death and resurrection. Jesus, to whom belongs “all authority in heaven and on earth,” humbled Himself to the death of the cross (Matt. 28:18). We heard today’s Epistle Reading from Philippians 2, that Christ Jesus “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:7-11 ESV).

How joyously humbling it is to be reminded that our great God and Savior has authority over us, caring for us at all times, and freely giving to us forgiveness, life, and salvation! Yes, even when we challenge the Lord’s authority, there He stands with forgiveness and new life. The Father has given us His only Son to be our Lord, before whom we bow in faith now, and at the Last Day, will kneel before Him in resurrected body and soul, along with ALL creation, and confess Him to be God and Lord. In the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, we will humbly receive forgiveness from our Savior as the gift of God’s grace and confess Him with our lips and lives to be our Lord as we rejoice in how blessed we are to have Christ in charge in our lives. Amen.

     [1] Carl C. Fickenscher II, Looking Forward to Sunday Morning: Reflections on the Church Year (St. Louis: Concordia, 2025), 226.

     ^[2] Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis: Concordia, 2005), 359.