You Will Know Them By Their Fruits

From removing fence posts to avoiding Tarot Cards - something is your authority

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

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I didn’t grow up in a home where I learned “handy” things. Anything that resembles a repair or home project I had to learn along the way. And the accepted way of learning such things - unlike an ancient apprenticeship under the tutelage of a craftsman - is YouTube (as everyone knows). A few years back, I replaced a part of our fence, which included removing an old fence post. That sounds simple, but they are big and heavy and set in concrete and buried. I wanted to find the easiest way possible to remove the fence post, so I turned to my authoritative source, YouTube. The video I found was entertaining and instructive - but not as the creator intended, I think. The ‘home project authority’ showing me how to remove the fence post (by removing one of his own) had a channel where he made such videos on various around-the-house projects. The video opens in the morning, and he is fresh and clean and ready to instruct homeowners. He dug to one side of the post and tried to push it over - and tried and strained and dug some more … and then the video cuts to late morning, where he, a little dirtier and perspiring a bit, says what seemed obvious - that wasn’t going to work. He tried another method - video cuts to later in the day - dirtier, sweatier - again stating the obvious. Yet another method - cuts to what appears now to be at least mid-afternoon - pretty dirty, very sweaty … you get the idea. Finally, the fence post comes out. And, if the video intended to let me know that removing a fence post will take a while, will be very hard - that fence posts are very heavy … etc - well, it was a very successful video. As it turns out, he had no more of an idea how to remove a fence post than I did, even though he had a YouTube channel and a following and a steady income - even though he was a purported ‘authority’ on the topic. I think this discovery might apply to other topics one might find on YouTube - and on social media more generally - and on cable news shows - and perhaps other places.

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Some would say we have a crisis of authority in our country, but that can mean different things to different people. The institutions we would have thought authoritative some years or decades ago have, in many cases, squandered that position. Our government, the news media, the church, doctors, parents (to name a few) all to different degrees and in various ways are not seen as the sources of truth and authority they used to be. I don’t think, though, that means we live without sources of authority. I think, rather, we implicitly grant authority to other sources for reasons we may not be able to name and are often unaware of. My fence post has to come out. My views on the election and Ukraine and vaccinations and masks - and parental discipline and career advancement - and the meaning of life all have to be formed. They are all being formed - unavoidably, often subconsciously. The old sources of authority might be rejected, but that doesn’t mean we operate without it. It might mean we don’t think about who and what we are granting authority to - who and what we are trusting. I believe a (limited and with eyes wide open) return to some of these traditional sources of authority is needed. If we don’t choose our sources of truth and authority consciously, we will likely grant authority without thinking.

As I write this, it is about a week after a young man, following his ultimate source of authority - a religious fatwa, stabbed Salmon Rushdie. I don’t think the fatwa authoritative for lots of reasons, of course. But I have encountered, these last few years - as I believe you may have as well - people whose views and actions seem so detached from reality, it is as if they are operating under an invisible fatwa. Their source is YouTube or Facebook or cable news or Uncle Jimmy or whatever. Their justification, the authority for their views and actions, are often tribal and self-validating. Asking about why they believe what they believe tends to go nowhere, possibly because there isn’t a great answer to the question. This invisible authority is worse than granting (limited and with eyes wide open) authority to flawed institutions. There is often no check, no self-awareness, no skepticism, no intentional evaluation - things we may bring to some of these institutional sources of authority as we encounter them. We can’t live without granting authoritative status to something or someone - consciously or unconsciously, if we are going to have an opinion. So what does a healthy relationship to authority look like?

I don’t mean to condemn YouTube as a source of information for home repairs. I have used it often and it has almost always been very helpful. But you can’t just pick a video at random. You have to evaluate. Is this someone who knows what they are doing? A lot of the home repair expertise I have gained is by working alongside people who know what they are doing. I have seen it, I have experienced it … I have come to trust their knowledge - I have come to grant these few people authoritative status in the area of home repair. And I have become better at figuring out who knows what they are doing.

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Recently, a friend asked me about Christian Tarot Cards or Tarot Cards for Christians. A friend had asked her. She didn’t feel good about it but couldn’t articulate her hesitation. She turned to me because she had come to trust my knowledge and had granted me authoritative status in practical theology (so to speak). (See a brief take below.) That there are lots of people willing to falsely assume an authoritative stance doesn’t mean there aren’t people who truly can be trusted. It doesn’t mean there aren’t accepted practices and a field of learning and practical wisdom I can benefit from. It just means that some claiming that wisdom don’t have it.

This is not a new problem. Here is what Jesus said about those who falsely claim God’s authority:

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

(Matthew 7:15-20)

I am a part of the Christian church. As an institution, the church has damaged her claim to authoritative status through scandals of sex, money, and power. Some were and are in sheep’s clothing but “inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” That truth can be used as a way to dismiss all who have authority in any church - especially if you would rather dismiss all who have authority in any church. But that truth doesn’t mean that community, meaning, grace, wisdom, and love isn’t found in the church. It means that sometimes it isn’t. This is bad, but this isn’t new.

The apostle Paul taught, following Jesus’ lead, some things that were fairly radical for his time. He taught that the grace of God is found in Jesus and confirmed by the Spirit - and not in legalism or gnosticism or through leaders in a church. As a result, some people in this newly forming church challenged his authority. They said his message of freedom and grace through the work of Christ was too simple, too easy - that they had the true answer. Others said that his message of holiness and personal transformation away from promiscuity and power plays was too difficult, unnecessary - that they just had a few rules to follow. Some just wanted the authority he seemed to have. How did Paul answer these challenges? Not with power, but with an appeal to the fruit of transformation and love and care that they had seen in him and in those he had been with.

He said to the church in Corinth:

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

(2 Corinthians 3:1-3)

Instead of appealing to power and authority for himself to the believers in Thessalonica, his appeal was his life and their lives. He said, ‘we were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority, we cared for you.’

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.

(I Thessalonians 2:6-9)

Jesus said you will know them by their fruit. Paul said - you are my fruit, the work of God’s Spirit in your heart is my fruit, my life is my fruit, my hardship and toil so as not to be a burden is my fruit. What I did for you and with you and among you is my fruit. There it is, he says, decide based on this whether I can be trusted.

I know people who have lives that speak authoritatively of the transformation and peace and love and grace and truth they increasingly, but not perfectly, inhabit. Those people are often not in the limelight. I seek, in the church, to continue to be transformed to increasingly, but not perfectly, bear the image of God - in peace and love and grace and truth and impact. And I need the rhythms and community and truth and grace and love to continue that journey of transformation. I have had my negative experiences with the church. It has disappointed me. I, as a part of the church, have disappointed others I am sure. But there is fruit there that I have come to trust. And it is the fruit that validates the trust. There are reasons to walk away - there are always reasons to walk away. But there is fruit. And it is the fruit that must be reckoned with.

This is already too long, but let me say again here at the end - that we need to grant authority to some people and some institutions. We do grant that authority - so we should be responsible for that choice. We should look for the fruit. It is out there.

Links

A look at being an authority and the need for authority - Authority is Dead - Long Live Authority - Cassandra Nelson

A classic essay on authority - What is Authority? - Hannah Arendt

Take

A very, very brief take on Tarot Cards: I believe they fall under what the bible would call divination. This is bad for a number of reasons, but to pick a not-very-spiritual-world one - it is an attempt to manipulate reality through special knowledge - an attempt to be God. A limited attempt, but an attempt. I think it contradicts with a life of faith and a life of trust in God. I think there are lots of other things that may also contradict with these things, but this is one of them.