The Gospels often present a challenge by God’s people to God’s anointed Son, and therefore to God as well. The challenge to Jesus’ authority seems to be rooted more in fear than in any legitimate concern. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day are threatened by his presence and teaching in the Temple. The want to arrest him. More authority for Jesus means less authority for the elite, and they want to minimize as much dissent as they can to preserve the status quo. So they begin to test him publicly to outwit him in front of the crowds, to lower his standing in their eyes.

At one point they ask, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus, in response, asks them the same question about John the Baptist. And the religious leaders face a dilemma. If they said that John’s authority was simply from the people, then the people would revile them. And if they said his authority was from God, then they would have to face the charge of professing to be religious leaders while rejecting someone from Temple life for doing God’s work.

The problem for the religious leaders in saying that John the Baptist only derived his authority from the people he served is that this kind of condemnation would have offended anyone who had been ministered to by John the Baptist. Put yourself in their shoes. Think of someone who helped you in your life. Maybe that person made you see things more positively, or helped you forgive a loved one, or helped you turn over a new leaf, or gave you a fresh start.

How would you describe what that person did for you? Did you value it? Was it a blessing? Did you thank God for it? Maybe you even felt like God put that person in your life, and you wouldn’t be where you are today without it.

That’s how people saw John the Baptist, who preached a baptism of repentance, simply for people to turn from their ways, to wash themselves of their past, and to face the future as a bold, renewed people of God.

At the beginning of each day, after parking in the McElderry Street Garage downtown and climbing a broad, brick covered sidewalk to N. Broadway, I stepped across the threshold of an old red brick building, with its patinaed copper cupolas and spires. Entering, I was faced with a truly larger than life statue of Jesus Christ, resurrected, and bearing the scars of crucifixion. The size of the sculpture is something rare, certainly, but incorporating religious images and icons is not unusual in hospital settings.

What held my attention one day was a nurse, perhaps finishing a night shift, who abruptly stopped her fast pace out of the hospital for a moment to reach out her hand and touch the foot of the statue of Christ. I noticed where she touched was more worn than the rest of the carving, more dirtied, by the devotional acts of passersby who touched the foot of this figure for heaven knows what. Maybe they looked for support or consolation, or perhaps they were entrusting a patient to God’s care as they left the hospital, or maybe they had just adopted a ritual of letting go of their charges, their burdens, so that they could be less preoccupied with their families.    

It’s also how people thought about Jesus, who offered forgiveness of sins and preached that the kingdom of God is at hand. To me, that’s a good sign, that God’s love for us is so strong that we can become aware of it and name it as a gift from God. Jesus is the Son of God, and people in his day could recognize that. The answer to the question, by what authority are you doing these things, is in truth never a choice between God and the people. If you are doing something because God wants you to, it will meet the needs of those around you, and they will recognize it, that what you are doing is a part of God’s love.

I remember the privilege I had to serve as a chaplain at one time and to visit patients in hospital rooms. It was a gift to serve there, and to be able to sit with people when they hear the worst news you can hear in that setting. They said it to me too, that they were glad someone was there to sit with them. I hope they saw moments like that as a part of God’s care for the world.

This practice of entrusting to God (entrusting to the Divine or the sacred, entrusting to the will of the universe), is a practice I can identify with. This practice of leaning onto the great Mystery that comforts our spirits when we can’t fix all the problems we wish we could is a practice I’m learning to make more room for in my own life. And seeing it observed by staff and visitors to the hospital, so reverently, reassured me that day that there is always room for the sacred to make its own way into our hearts and lives. There’s always room for God.

There was one very busy day, as I was shadowing the on-call pager, when I realized just how hectic and busy the hospital was. I arrived at the Spiritual Care Conference Room and paged the on-call veteran chaplain, who told me to meet her in one of the units, on the other side of the hospital. I began walking at 9:30am. I did not stop the rest of the day.

The pager exchanged hands from one chaplain to the next as the Department of Spiritual Care team members covered the duty for one another. And where it went, I followed. The Resident Chaplains had yet to begin their unit, so nearly every page was responded to by people in my cohort. Some patients were barely alert and responsive. One was aggressive, and the nursing and security staff rushed in to help him to his bed. Others, though, were cheerful and in good spirits, all things considered. With the veteran chaplain taking the lead, we prayed, and then the pager sounded off, and we ventured to the next patient’s room.

At roughly 4:30pm, the pager alarm sounded, and the message read: CODE. We rushed to the floor and then to the unit and then the room of the patient, and at the scene were a score of medical staff, pharmacists, and technicians. The team worked harmoniously on the patient. A kind of buzzing came out from the room, with various people calling for different treatments and kits, and others responding immediately and fluidly. And the work continued longer than seemed good, and the calls for interventions became less frequent, as each idea had already been tried. And staff began chest compressions, and the hum from the room became quieter, more resigned, and more solemn.

I saw the face of one of the nurses as she lost her composure, her forehead wrinkled, her skin flushed, her eyes shining with the beginnings of tears. The interventions weren’t working, and this man was dying in front of us. Like the nurse, I felt heartache (I do now). In that moment I felt urgency. I felt powerless over death, fate, or the dark side of providence – whatever you call it.

I saw pain in a person who has made it her profession to face those feelings of heartache and urgency, to stare down powerlessness, time after time. And I prayed for her and her team as I stood there. I did what I could to support their effort. It wasn’t a heroic act to pray. It wasn’t a saintly thing to stand by someone who was struggling to help a stranger. It was just a very normal, very human, very God-given thing to do, to care. You would do the same. So would the Son of God.

What Jesus did was care about his neighbors. What John the Baptist did was care about his people. It’s not a question of whether that care was something that was given to them by God or demanded of them by their community. God would have each of us care for each other. And God’s own Spirit moves in our hearts to help us to recognize when we are being blessed and cared for by others.

The only question worth asking yourself is what do you do with your days, with this week, with this afternoon, to be a blessing to your neighbor?

I invite your response. Amen.