It Must Have Been Hard – Matthew 21

A text – Matthew 21:23-32

21:23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
21:24 Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things.
21:25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’
21:26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.”
21:27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
21:28 “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’
21:29 He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went.
21:30 The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go.
21:31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.
21:32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.

A reflection:

Jesus and his followers entered the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus began teaching there instead of out on a hillside somewhere. The people who ran the Temple – the elders and the chief priests – interrupted him to ask him by what authority he was doing these things (teaching? healing?) and who gave him that authority. It was a question they might regularly have asked a wandering rabbi who came to the Temple. I suppose that if the rabbi in question replied, “The Council of Capernaum sent me here to teach. Did you not get their message?,” then someone would send for some clerk or other, and space would be made for this person sent by someone important. Scholars from Jerusalem might attend a class or two and ask some questions to make sure the rabbi was doing his proper job, and then the elders would let things go as they might.

But of course no one on earth had sent Jesus with a letter of recommendation to the elders of the Temple at Jerusalem. And Jesus was already ensconced in a place in the Temple and already engaged in teaching a rapt crowd of listeners. So Jesus named his terms for dealing with the interruption about his credentials. “I’ll tell you if you can first tell me who authorized John’s Baptism.” They wouldn’t answer, so Jesus did not answer their question either. Except Jesus was answering, in the way he seemed to be claiming that the same God who sent John the Baptist on his mission also sent Jesus as Messiah.

I am really taken with the plight of the religious professionals of Jesus’s day. How natural it must have been for them to be suspicious of Jesus! How hard they must have looked for reasons to disbelieve him – was he a lunatic? A deliberate fraud? A self-deluded scholar? They hoped he was one of those. Then they could ignore his teachings and get him out of the Temple. But 12 non-church-professionals from several different walks of life, without religious status, believed in him, followed him. Thousands of Samaritans believed in him without even seeing a healing. And people who were healed in body or spirit by Jesus were certain he was sent directly from God into their lives. Of the high-placed elders and teachers, Nicodemus came close – he tried hard to believe. But for a religious leader of the chosen people, well-versed in centuries of Law, to see Jesus as the Messiah must have been nearly impossible.

How might we be more like Jesus’s disciples and those who heard him and believed in him? How might we shed our desire to find a reason NOT to, and just know that Jesus is our loving savior? And when Jesus asks us to share our faith in him with our neighbors no matter what, no matter how many times, how might we immediately do it, knowing Jesus is as good as his word and will bring life to them?

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us chance after chance to hear you and know that you came just for us, to make our lives better and more free from fear.  Help us to know you are our savior, and that you want to save everyone, no matter who, because you love them.  Amen.