Monday: Authority, Taxes and Marriage

I continue to be indebted to Adam Hamilton for the concept of this series. I have understood Jesus' teachings in vignettes but not in the totality of the week.

Luke 19:47-20:2

A. Introduction
The conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders had begun years before in Galilee where they had sent their representatives to challenge Jesus especially for his seeming disregard of their Sabbath laws, and his association with sinners. (see Lk 13:10-17) But now this upstart from Nazareth was teaching in Jerusalem in their Temple. This country bumpkin who had no education, who had not sat at the feet of the great teaching Rabbis, who had just thrown the money changers and merchants out of the Temple, who did he think he was? And it says, the people were spellbound by what he said. They were hanging on every word.

Today we focus on Monday of Holy Week. Although that day is four weeks away on our 21st Century calendar, we’re taking a day of Holy Week each Sunday to follow Jesus during his final week on earth. Three months before, he had resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem to arrive during the Passover festival where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims would have been gathered. He had entered Jerusalem yesterday, Palm Sunday, and been declared Messiah, anointed one, King by the throng who shouted, “Hosanna (God save us), Hosanna to the son of David.” Surely this was the King who would throw off the shackles of Rome and restore Israel to the greatness of his ancestor David. Surely this is the one.

By the drama he had played out, entering Jerusalem on a donkey as it had been foretold, Jesus had declared himself King, but as we know, not the kind of king they were expecting, and before the week was out, he was rejected by those same crowds.

Yet the New Testament writers go to great lengths to point to Jesus as the Messiah, the Hebrew word for anointed one. The Greek word is Christ. From Matthew to Revelation, we know that Jesus is King. So as part of this series, we are asking the questions,
What kind of king is he?
What kind of kingdom is he ushering in?
What does he expect of his subjects?

I guess that is kinda’ what the religious rulers of that day were wondering. “By what authority are you doing all of these things, saying all of this stuff?” But their motive was more than just wondering; after three years of conflict, they’d had enough. They believed Jesus a threat to their comfortable life. While it seems extreme, they sought to kill him. He was either blaspheming, claiming to be God, which was punishable by death, or he would cause an insurrection which would bring Rome down on their heads, a chance they couldn’t take. He had to be dealt with. So they send waves of people to question him, trick him into incriminating himself. We’re going to talk about three of those encounters today.

B. Body
Let’s hear the first of the encounters. Reading from Matthew: 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?” 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. 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?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” 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. (Mt 21:23-27) Jesus had turned the tables and put them between a rock and a hard place, but Jesus didn’t stop there. In rapid succession, he told them to the delight of the crowd, three parables:

One of a man with two sons, both told to go to work in the vineyard. The first said he wouldn’t go but did. The second said he would but he didn’t. Then he said this: 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. 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. (Mat 21:31-32).

That wasn’t enough. He then told the parable of the wicked tenants. Remember the story? The land owner went away leaving the tenants in charge then sent slaves to collect his rent. But they beat them, one after another. Finally, he said, I’ll send my son, surely they will respect him. Jesus says, 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ 39 So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” (Mt 21:38-41).Do you get the picture? He was talking about and with the religious leaders, those standing right in front of him!

Even that wasn’t enough, he then told the parable of the wedding banquet. The wedding was all planned, the invitations out to the finest guests. But when the final arrangements were made, they said they were too busy. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Mt 22:7-14).

Luke added, “None of those invited will taste my dinner.”

What had set this off? The chief priest’s response to Jesus’ question, “We do not know.” We do not know whether John’s authority came from heaven or earth? We do not know. Get serious. Of course they knew. I would ask you, how often do we say that? How often do we know full well what God requires of us and we say to ourselves, “Well, I’m not sure whether that’s God telling me that or not.” We do that don’t we? We need to ask ourselves, are we the child that said we would but didn’t? Are we the one who accepted the invitation but when we found out the details, decided we were too busy to have Christ in our lives?

Who is invited to the kingdom? Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom ahead of you.” Just so we don’t misunderstand, we don’t have to become tax collectors and prostitutes to get there, we simply need to acknowledge Christ’s authority in our lives.

By the way, was this question, “by whose authority?” an authentic question? Not on your life. It was a trick. They were looking for Jesus to incriminate himself. They had hoped Jesus would say, “Because I’m the Messiah, the King, that’s why.” They would have marched right over to Pilot and said, “You’ve got a man out there claiming to be king, and we know, there is no king but Caesar.” Gotcha Jesus. It didn’t happen. They went away more furious than ever.

So, the next wave arrived. Mark says, the Pharisees and some Herodians came to entrap him. Herodians, Jews who were influential supporters of King Herod Antipas. The Pharisees and the Heroidans were going to put Jesus in a conundrum, between a rock and a hard place of their own. So listen to this “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (Mt 22:16b-17)

Aha, they had him now. If he says, “No, don’t pay taxes,” it’s off to Pilot again. But if he says, “Yes, pay taxes.” The crowds expecting him to throw off the oppression of Rome will go nuts. The crowds may kill him themselves. He’ll certainly be discredited in their eyes and we won’t have any more problems with this Jesus.

We know Jesus’ reply don’t we? We know it whether we’ve ever read the Bible or not, whether we’re Christian or not. What did he say? “Show me a denarius,” a Roman coin. “Whose image and inscription is this?” Caesar’s. Then what did Jesus say? “Render to Caesar’s the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s.” And then Matthew tells us, “When they heard this, they were amazed. And they left him and went away.”

So let’s talk about this (Again, I'm indebted to Adam Hamilton's interpretation). Here’s a picture of a denarius, the coin of the realm. And that picture is of Caesar Tiberius, the inscription says, “Son of the divine Augustus.” In other words, this, to begin with, is a graven image. It’s made in the image of Caesar who claims to be divine. In the image of Caesar. “Render to Caesar.”
What about you? In whose image are you made? Genesis tells us, “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them.” You were made in the image of God.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” But the more important part is you: “Render unto God the things that are God’s.” How is it going?

It’s still Monday, and here comes wave number three. Matthew says, “That same day some Sadducees came to him.” (Mt 22:23a) Now the Sadducees were kind of the religious elite. They believed in the books of Moses, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, but thought all the rest was Johnny come lately. They didn’t believe in the books of the prophets, they didn’t read any of the wisdom literature. As a result, they didn’t believe in the resurrection. And when Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” they certainly didn’t believe him. So they too devised a question that would stump Jesus, and would show just how dumb his idea about the resurrection was.

One other thing before we read the passage. Remember how important we’ve said the land is? God promised the land to Abraham 3500 years ago, and we’re still fighting over the land. Well, one of the laws to ensure that the land passed from generation to generation was the levirate marriage law. If a man died and his wife was barren, in other words, no heirs to inherit his land, the brother was to marry the wife and have children with her that they could inherit the land. It was a law of necessity for the survival of the nation. The land had to be passed on. By the way, it also shows us the place of women in their society. They were property who really couldn’t own property themselves.

So (reading Mt 22:23-28) 23 The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, 24 “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. 26 The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. 27 Last of all, the woman herself died. 28 In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.”And Jesus replies, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. 30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 31 And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.” 33 And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching. (Mt 22:29-33) Let’s take this in reverse order. The second point is the most important point. There is a resurrection. Jesus said it. I believe it. Jesus said it. I’m staking my life on it. You should too. You.. should.. stake.. your.. life… on .. it!

But here’s the thing, Jesus used their own arguments against them. What did they believe? The Torah, the books of Moses. What does Jesus use? The Torah, God’s encounter with Moses at the burning bush, one of the most famous stories of all. God says to Moses, “I am the God of your father. the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” I am, not I was. I am the God of. God is the God not of the dead, but the living. Like I said, I believe in the resurrection. Jesus said it. I believe it. I’m staking my life on it. You should too.

Now back to marriage. Jesus tells them they don’t understand. They don’t know either the scripture or the power of God. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” One person said, (You judge whether he was wise or not) “Well, it makes sense, it wouldn’t be heaven if there was marriage.” I’m not touching that one.

But here’s what I would say, the culture of Jesus’ day, and even in the day of levirate laws had a shallow view of marriage. The woman was property. The woman needed protection. The woman could not survive without marriage. Yet God in his wisdom had called marriage to be more, for us to become one flesh. In heaven, we will be one flesh again, in this case the body of Christ. We will all belong to someone again, in this case we will belong to God. We will all love completely once again, and in this case the source of that love is God. Will we see and love those who are dear to us? Certainly and we will love them more completely that we can imagine.

Remember, Paul tells us, now we see in the mirror dimly, then we shall see face to face. We will understand how the widow can love all of her husbands equally and need not be the property of any of them. We will see how we can love God and one another completely in the Kingdom of God we are being called to. If we now lack understanding, it is because like the Sadducees, we too do not know the power of God. We do know this: It will be heaven. And I’m staking my life on it.

C. Close
“By whose authority?” Do we say, “I don’t know.” Or do we say, “By your authority, Jesus Christ.” Do we say, “I am wonderfully made in your image; I render myself to you.”? Do we say, “I believe you are the God of the living; I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting”? I believe it. I’m staking my life on it. I am yours. I am submitting my life to you. I will do whatever you tell me to do.

That should be our prayer, shouldn’t it?

John Wesley had a similar prayer that he asked his people to renew every year as part of their covenant relationship with God. It’s on the screen in front of you. I would ask you to place your hands open, palms up, in front of you. Open in a position of submission, but also open as a means of collecting the grace of God flowing to you. A covenant relationship is a two-way street and we receive grace upon grace. Let us pray Wesley’s Covenant Prayer

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low by thee.Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou are mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.