This week's readings are  Exodus 17.1–7 and Matt 21.23–32.  The Exodus reading feels a bit like a repeat of last week, just with water at stake instead of food.  One thing to notice, though, is Moses' question to the people, 'Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?'  It resonates, I feel, with Jesus' question in the gospel reading to the religious leaders, 'Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?'  Both set up the same dichotomy between authority and oversight on earth vs. that of heaven.

It seems to me that the question of authority was central to how the Israelites lived in the wilderness: did they believe God was the one who had it, and could they trust in it are the questions that follow them.  It was also central to the lives of those whom Jesus encountered in his ministry - to the religious leaders the question was whether the could overcome their sense of self-importance and get out of their own way in order to encounter God; to the general population it was whether they would look to Him in place of the system that clearly wasn't working, and consistently shown up as hypocritical.  

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, I think it's still a central question to us today - who, or what, exercises authority over our lives?  What are the voices we listen to in shaping our thoughts and behaviours?  Both from without, but also from within - do we get in our own way when it comes to approaching God, either by thinking ourselves too great to need him, or too low to be loved by him?  Most of those voices have a tendency to lead us away from the God who loves us, strengthens, and sustains us.

The extraordinary thing, though, is that it doesn't have to be that way.  We discover through faith is that if we choose to get out of our own way, to lay aside our self of self importance and quieten the voices of arrogance and fear, we can hear a voice closer to both our own heart and God's - the voice of Jesus, Christ within us, speaking his words of truth and love into and through our lives.  And his voice is one that carries authority - authority enough to call the universe into being, authority enough to call you into fulfilment - and he's telling you he loves you, even as you are, and that if you will walk with him, and follow him, he will lead you into the Kingdom of Heaven.  As you walk that path in him, and he in you, you will become the person he knows you to be  - glorious and beautiful not from your own merits, but because of the God who shines in you.