If you watch flowers during the spring, you spot all the signs of growth. Sprouts will appear out of the ground and mulch. The sprouts will grow into leaves. The leaves will grow and take shape. It’s as if the plant is building your anticipation for the flower. But, then there’s a pause…everything looks healthy…but there’s no bloom. You wait. You look. You wait. Nothing.

If we took a poll of the next 10 people we encounter today and asked them if they have positive or negative feelings when they hear the word: “authority,” the poll would not lean toward positive feelings. For many, the phrase “abuse of authority” is familiar vocabulary. Leadership gurus will often go so far as to say that the weakest posture of leadership is leading by authority.

It’s interesting then, as our church has been reading through the Gospel of Matthew, to see how often the word is used, and how it is not used negatively but instead positively.