On Tuesday, Jesus had several encounters with religious leaders…Scribes, Pharisees, members of the Sadducees…and none of them turned out well. It was a day that seemed to go from bad to worse, until an encounter near the Temple, later in the day, that changed the tone.
The day
began with Jesus publicly speaking a parable that directly spoke of what the
Jewish leaders were doing to the nation.
Then in a series of encounters, that Luke records, we see Jesus facing
His accusers and with wisdom as he deals with their attempts to embarrass him
in public. While it seems to go from bad
to worse, it is Jesus who is doing the work of exposing the nature of
“religion” without real faith.
“(Jesus) began to tell the people
this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into
another country for a long while. When the time came, he sent a servant
to the tenants, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard.
But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed.
And he sent another servant. But they also beat and treated him
shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent yet a third. This one
also they wounded and cast out.
Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my
beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ But when the tenants saw him, they
said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance
may be ours.’ And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What
then will the owner of the vineyard do to them?
He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” When
they heard this, they said, “Surely not!” But he looked directly at them
and said, “What then is this that is written: “‘The stone that the builders
rejected has become the cornerstone’? Everyone who falls on that stone will be
broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him” (Luke
20:9-18).
The plot
thickens as Jesus confronts the leaders of the Temple. The scribes, Pharisees,
religious elders, and Chief Priests controlled the machinery of the Temple and
the Jewish religion. Yet it was not a
Faith they were leading, but an institution where the bottom line of money and
power ruled. They cared about these
things and used their positions to control the rest of the nation – not for
God’s sake, but for their own.
Jesus
was the cornerstone of a New Covenant, a relationship with God through Christ
Jesus, and yet they wanted to control their religion of which Christ Jesus is
the cornerstone. Rejecting Christ
results in stumbling on Christ as the only way.
They had religion, but they didn’t have God. The nature of religion without faith is that
the outside appearances do not match the interior faith. Religion is a substitute for relationships. It is human pride saying – as Adam and Eve
were tempted to say – “If you do this, you’ll be like God.” This pride will always fail. The leaders knew
Jesus was speaking about them.
“The scribes and the chief priests
sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had
told this parable against them, but they feared the people. So they
watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch
him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and
jurisdiction of the governor. So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you
speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of
God. Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” But he perceived
their craftiness, and said to them, ‘Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and
inscription does it have?’ They said, ‘Caesar’s.’ He said to them, ‘Then
render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are
God’s’. And they were not able in the
presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but marveling at his
answer they became silent” (Luke 20:19-26).
The
religious leaders and the elders approached him to trap him in choosing between
their religious authority and the Roman religion of Caesar as a god. Would Jesus oppose it – and perhaps be
arrested as a rebel? Or would he uphold it – and lose the support of the
people? Jesus asked his questioners for a coin, not because he did not possess
one, but to demonstrate that they also used Caesar's money. The silver denarius,
which bore Caesar's head on one side and the other the goddess of peace, was
inscribed: 'Tiberius Caesar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus, chief
priest.' If the people used Caesar's coinage, they were under obligation to
pay back what was owed to him. But then Jesus went beyond the original
question. People also have a parallel debt to God for they belong to God as His
people. They had no answer.
There
were a couple more encounters worth reading in this section. First, the
Sadducees try to trick him with a question about the Law and what should happen
upon the death of a husband. According
to the Law, a family was obligated to keep the family line going. Yet, the Sadducees – who didn’t believe in a
resurrection – made up a stupid story of seven husbands and who would be her
husband in the resurrection. Jesus’
answer is to remind them that in the end… “Now he is not God of the dead,
but of the living, for all live to him” (Luke 20:38).
The
scribes responded – seemingly positively – by saying… “Then some of the
scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well’. For they no longer dared to ask him any
question” (Luke 20:39-40).
Now that
Jesus has stopped their trap, he returns to the theme of the ruler's inability
to lead the nation in the faith of knowing God.
Jesus proposed a question to them, that cuts to the heart of the
differences between the scribes who do not believe in Jesus as the Messiah, the
Son of God, and who Jesus is showing himself to be. It’s not just that they don’t agree, it’s
that they are the force that will move the people and the Romans to later
crucify him.
“But
he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? For David
himself says in the Book of Psalms, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my
right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ David thus calls him
Lord, so how is he his son?”
And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples, “Beware of the
scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the
marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at
feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They
will receive the greater condemnation” (Luke 20:41-47).
The
danger of the scribes is in their pretensions and pride that they believe makes
them better than the rest of the people.
It is at this moment that another event takes place to heighten the
awareness of the scribes and whom God approves of. Unfortunately, we have a chapter division,
but the events are connected. As we turn
to Luke 21, Jesus is still in the Temple, and this is what he sees and says:
“Jesus
looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he
saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell
you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed
out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live
on” (Luke 21:1-4).
This is
the final point to be made. The widow
who gives up her last penny is of greater virtue and faith than the scribes and
Pharisees who gave out of their riches and had plenty left over for their
gratification. It is not the quantity of
the gift before God that matters, but the quality of the gift when it comes
from a sacrificial heart.
The
Lenten season asks us to enter into an “examen”, or “examination” of our
hearts, our motives, our attitudes, and our works. We might want to consider a daily examen of
these things. Take some time today,
towards the end of the day, and walk through the day in your mind. Look at the interactions with others, the
times of turning or not turning towards God in prayer. Let God’s Spirit do the work of turning us
back from “hardened hearts” to the living God we can know.
When the
day is over, He returns at night to Bethany.
Peace
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