Fr Paul Gooley reads from the Gospel of Matthew (21: 23-27) in which Jesus is asked by the chief priests “What authority have you for acting like this? And who gave you this authority?”.

Fr Paul says this Gospel reading comes from the beginning of the final confrontation between Jesus and the Temple authorities. Jesus has already ‘cleansed’ the Temple, that is, made a demonstration that the worship carried out in the Temple was vain. He will soon go on to tell the parable of the Wicked Vine-Dressers, indicating that the current custodians of the Temple were no better than the ones whom Isaiah, in the days before the Babylonian Exile, had castigated as unworthy keepers of Israel, the vineyard of the Lord.

The fascinating information hinted by the reading is that John the Baptist had been better known and more popular than Jesus – and that Jesus was quite happy to refer to this. He was not jealous of John’s greater fame and reputation. This coincides with the information given by Josephus, the Jewish historian, who tells us that Herod Antipas had taken John into custody for fear that a messianic rebellion might occur. Presumably John’s message had just that hint of possibility of expelling the Romans which Jesus so carefully avoided, by his unwillingness to be known as ‘Messiah, son of David’.

Fr Paul says, in closing, as we approach Christmas it is valuable to reflect once more that Jesus’ Kingdom was founded on other values than those of the world.