Authority and Power - the Christ-ian difference

WORD 2day: Friday, 1st week in Ordinary time

January 14, 2022: 1 Samuel 8:4-7,10-22; Mark 2: 1-12

There is a discourse in the Liturgy of the Word today, which brings home to us the difference between authority and power, credibility and dominion. The difference can be noticed on three counts:

First, power comes from a title or a status possessed, while authority comes from the person that you are. Power comes from what one has, while authority comes from what one is. Jesus' authority, that is why, was so unquestionable. It came from what he was and therefore no one could outdo it. 

Second, power is exercised over others, while authority is exercised in relation to oneself. Power refers to the capacity to command or get things done. Authority refers to the competence of a person, the personality traits of an individual, the sense of integrity that a person manifests from within. There are certain people who look so ordinary and normal, but no one dares disrespect them - where does that respect come from? Not power, but authority.

Third, power is to control, while authority is to set free! A logic of power puts me in the center, and looks at everything from my own perspective, wishing to have a control over everything and everyone around. The sense of authority lets people be themselves, sets people free, forgives, lets go, and loves genuinely, because it is creative and it seeks to construct and not to control.

The difference we just mentioned, make up what Christian vision is all about. An interior sense of integrity that seeks the well being of the other - that is the Christ-ian sense of authority and that is what Christ manifested in his lifetime. It is the same that he has give to each of us his disciples, his brothers and sisters.