Monday 15 December 2025
Numbers 24:2-7, 15-17. Teach me your ways, O Lord – Ps 24(25):4-9. Matthew 21:23-27.
Service and love
We can be a little too obsessed with authority sometimes. Who has it (and who doesn’t), and the extent of it. As a child, a common refrain was ‘you’re not the boss of me!’ whenever someone tried to tell me what to do. We can conflate power and authority, and use it as a way of trying to exert our will onto others. But Jesus approached authority differently. Although he had the right to give orders, given to him by God, he didn’t use his authority in that way when speaking with people and healing them. Instead, he approached people from a place of service and love, giving them the option to freely walk away or to freely engage. In recent times, servant leadership has been popularised as a philosophy of leadership. Jesus was the embodiment of this, 2000 years ago. May we never use what authority we have to harm others, but only ever to serve.
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