Monday, 15 April Luke 20:1-21:4
Written by Dr Graham Leo. ©2019.
I'm sorry about the length of the readings for all of this week, but Luke wrote four very long chapters to get from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday. I’ve just had to divide them up in roughly equal parts, while keeping with my principle of finding the logical breaks in content. These don't necessarily match the chapter divisions, as in today’s.
You may be seeing now why in the last couple of days, I’ve been focussing on the political machinations going on behind the scenes. You may have felt in the last few reflections that I was even being a little harsh on some of the players. Today’s reading should remove any doubts.
We have to keep reminding ourselves that these people who are sending out spies, trying to trap Jesus into saying something wrong, pretending to be genuine seekers while trying to find ways to murder him, are actually the Temple Leaders. They are the chief priests, the religious guides, and the senior academic staff of the Temple Theology College.
Jesus’ enemies were not the Romans; they were his own religious overseers. When religion turns political, it is far more deadly than mere political party in-fighting.
In the first eight verses of our reading, we see the very top echelon, clearly on a mission planned with Annas, Caiaphas and others, to entrap Jesus. It is possible to enquire of God with a wicked heart. Honest seekers will never be turned away, but those who approach Christian enquiry with a heart that is set on destruction may find the doors firmly closed.
After Jesus tells his parable of the wicked tenants, the religious leaders were furious. It’s not hard to see why.
The story so clearly tells the narrative of Israel and its priests. A man planted a vineyard, rented it out to some farmers, and went away for a long time. (v9) This is a barely-disguised re-telling of the story of how God planted Israel in the Promised Land, gave them responsibilities to manage the deposits of faith which had given them, (not just for their own benefit, but for the benefit of the whole world) and then left them to it.
Over the centuries, the Owner (God) sent special envoys (prophets, righteous people in general) to lead them. But the religious leaders and wicked Kings, often in collusion, killed and marginalised the prophets and those of good faith in the land. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah, Amos – all these were tortured by priests and/or Kings and were martyred. Hebrews 11:32-40 describes those found faithful unto death.
Then Jesus adds the final touch. The Owner (God) sends his own son, ‘whom I love. Surely they will respect him!’ But the tenants meet in secret, plot and carry out his murder so that they can gain all the inheritance for themselves. The people who hear this story are horrified; they understand it, too. Anyone who was an Israelite knew their story and recognised the obvious parallels. ‘May this never be!’ they exclaim.
But Jesus quotes to them from Psalm 118:22, the same Psalm that they had sung as he entered Jerusalem on a donkey. The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone.
Imagine the scene as the first temple builders, fresh from exile, are sifting through the rubble, finding the stones that they can fit into place to rebuild the temple that had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar’s army.
They come across a stone that doesn't seem to fit anywhere. It’s an odd shape. They toss it to one side. But just as they are finishing the project, they discover a gap at the top of the wall that needs a stone just of this shape. They find it and place it where it belongs, and it turns out to be the capstone that ties the whole thing together.
Jesus is teaching that he himself is that capstone. He is the one who can tie together all those old laws, festivals, customs, words, scriptures. Before, they were just pieces of a jigsaw, but now, with the advent of the Son of God, the jigsaw pieces can all come together and make a fully-comprehensible and beautiful temple.
But, he warns, this stone is heavy. If you try to fight against it, you will be broken to pieces, and if it chooses to place its weight on you, you will have no escape. Buddha, Mohammed, Stalin, Marx, Mao, Dawkins – don't try to destroy this capstone. He will outlast all of you. He is the Son of God, the King of Israel and King of the world.
No wonder the priests and theology faculty turned on him. They couldn't beat him in open debate, so they sent out spies (v20). It’s important to realise that right through this Holy Week, Jesus is fighting for his very life. He is battling intellectual dishonesty, ecclesiastical mischief-making and perfidy, academic assassination, shunning, trolling and shaming by whatever passed for the social media of the day. His email inbox gets a new set of documents from his enemies’ lawyers every day, racking up accusations against him, demanding he waste his time reading their thousand pages of false charges.
But he never gives up. He never backs away. He warns the crowds against being impressed by mere shows of religiosity (v46-7). He warns against immorality and wickedness in high and supposedly-holy places. He doesn't hold back. It’s too late, now.
And then, so typical of Jesus… When the cards are all stacked against him, when he is being tricked and trapped on every side, so that he has to watch every word, he finds time to commend a little old widow. I don't know about you, but in the midst of that firestorm of media and legal bombardment, I’d have been bunkered down, trying to survive. Jesus stood in the open space at the Temple watching the money roll in.
He turns to us again, to remind us about money. It’s just a set of counters. It’s just a way of indicating where your values lie. Stop fussing about it. The widow gave everything she has. No need to ask why. Because she loved God and was doing what she could. Her values were shown by her disregard of her own needs and her love of God.
Does God notice you and me? We’re just the little people. We don't meet in sandstone buildings, in huge rooms with polished tables and pointy-arched windows. We don't have bottles of Perrier standing in front of our pile of papers and silver fountain pen.
But he notices. Oh yes. Depend upon it. And he loves. Look, there’s a sparrow, just there!
Prayer: I am so sorry, my Lord, that you had to undergo all that wicked treatment. It was so wrong, so wicked. But you did it for me. For the world. For us. Thank you. Amen.
