Authority

In this opening sermon of the Movement series, Matt Crummy explores a word that many of us instinctively distrust: authority. Drawing from Matthew 28 and the famous image of The Treachery of Images, he invites us to consider how easily we confuse distorted images of authority—coercion, control, manipulation—with the real thing. In contrast, the risen Jesus meets a group of hesitant, doubting disciples not with force or pressure, but with nearness, presence, and a steady kind of authority that heals and invites. Rather than demanding certainty or performance, Jesus shares his authority and sends his followers into the world with a simple, lived rhythm: show up, draw near, listen, and go. This sermon reframes the Great Commission not as pressure to achieve, but as participation in the life of Jesus—an authority grounded in love, legitimacy, and relationship. For anyone carrying wounds or skepticism around authority, this is an invitation to rediscover it as something that frees rather than constrains.