Handling Attack

I. Introduction:

He did not Jump.

He must have known it was coming. He had watched the human race for thousands of years, and they were irrevocably committed to never admitting they were wrong. He had watched His own people, the Israelites, reject and harm so many of His prophets…He must have known. So why didn’t He jump? It would have been a preemptive strike. It would have stopped all of it.

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:

`He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'”

Jesus answered, “It says, `Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'”

Jesus didn’t jump from the most prominent place in the Jewish society of His day: the Temple Mount. Had He jumped off that pinnacle and then come gently down in the care of the great angelic powers of heaven it would have awed them all. It would have been spectacular! They would have been impressed and then when they, as scholars, reflected on Psalm 91:11, 12 they would see that God did indeed favor Jesus of Nazareth. They would have read a little further in the Psalm and saw, “I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.” Had Jesus jumped off the Temple they would never have attacked Him. They would have been afraid to.

Jesus didn’t jump. He chose instead to quote to the devil that the proper response to frightful situations or unpleasant situations is to trust the Lord. He quoted Deuteronomy 6:16 about when the Israelites did not have faith but complained about the lack of good water. They never learned to trust. The Israelites never learned to do what the beginning of Psalm 91 says (91:2), I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust”. He seemed to be saying by His actions that we are not to wish for safety from difficulty but learn from and in the midst of it.

Jesus didn’t jump. He could have stopped any of the verbal attacks (and possibly saved His life from crucifixion) that were to dog His entire public ministry. The amount of space given by each and every Gospel to the tests, questions and outright verbal attacks made by the religious leadership against Jesus is amazingly large. His jumping off the Temple mount could have stopped it all but instead Jesus was repeatedly tested, rebuked and questioned. Why?

Maybe, just maybe, Jesus did not jump because many of you can’t jump out of your troubles. He foresaw that and knew your troubles were coming. Maybe, just maybe when you can jump out of your troubles, you should stay on the Temple Mount. You are not to doubt but are to stay where you will be tested, questioned and even harassed by others because of your belief in God. Many times, we cannot dodge the questions, do not have good answers, and often we do not answer well.

Those who can, often jump. Pastors, parents and teachers often do. They make it terribly uncomfortable and make it seem totally inappropriate to question them. Another way “to jump” is to put themselves in places where such attacks cannot take place. Many often stay in safe environments and never let college or high school kids ask the questions they really want to ask. Another good way “to jump” is let it be known if they question you they are really attacking God because you are God’s servants. Perhaps, the subtlest way “to jump” is let the potential questioner or tester know that if they continue the attack they are personally insulting or questioning the true faith (which of course the jumper claims to represent).

Jesus didn’t jump! Therefore Jesus was attacked, questioned and tested. It was brutal and to what avail? Let me offer four answers and maybe after you read what is below and what is in the Gospels you may come up additional reasons. First, as mentioned above, Jesus knew we would be harassed and questioned, and so He let Himself be attacked so He could model for us how to handle and deal with it. He chose to be humble so He could give to us, the non-jumpers (either because we couldn’t or chose not to) the practical insights we need in order to give an account of the hope that lies within us.

I believe the second reason is that Jesus loved the attackers and wanted to give them answers so they could have another chance to see the truth and be saved. He was like the prophets of old who were attacked and harmed in their attempts to turn their audiences from coming destruction. Jesus didn’t jump because Jesus loved those close- minded religious leaders and corrupt and hardened political leaders. Allowing them to approach Him (as rudely as they did) was the height of humility and the height of love.

Third, Jesus didn’t jump because He modeled for us what He hinted at in His quotation of Deuteronomy 6:16. The attacks are to be accepted not to be run from. We are to accept and therefore bear the brunt humbly and confidently because we trust it is His will that we do so. By faith, we trust in God that accepting such hardship will demonstrate our respect for the minds of those who attack us (so much witnessing today is hated because it is so condescending). We trust that others will learn from our handling of such things (the best way to grasp a difficult skill is to be able to watch it in real life situations, not in seminars). It is by faith that Jesus bore the verbal abuse of the soldiers, religious leaders and one of the thieves on the cross. His humility bore fruit; it opened the eyes and saved the soul of the other thief.

I like what John Curson said in a sermon: “All Jesus had to do was to flip one of them to China and they would have stopped their verbal attacks.” I think He could have as easily given His attackers leprosy with a word as He so easily removed it from others with a word. In Luke 9:52-56 Jesus was not given common hospitality as He traveled through a Samaritan village. His disciple John was incensed and asked permission to call down “fire from heaven”. Jesus rebuked him. We are to bare the attacks. It is His will.

Finally, since the attacks were to be born they served God’s greater agenda. The attacks on Jesus served to bring blessing on the entire earth. The attackers seemingly won or succeeded. They eventually silenced Jesus’ prophetic voice and stopped His irritating and convicting actions, but it only was temporary. The culmination of their opposition was seen in the cross and thus their triumph was not the victory of evil over good but the very reversal of that. God took what was meant for evil and brought good (Genesis 50:19-21). If we allow the attacks, we do so in the hope that the Sovereignty of God will bring about the blessing of those who watch us in sympathy, those who suffer with us and even some of those who are the opposition.

So how do we do it well? Seldom is this talked about despite the large amount of material the Scriptures give us. So what will follow is a beginning investigation of that question.

II. Those Involved in the Opposition:

It is surprising when one thinks about it: when God came to earth the human authorities that dealt with Him were rude to Him, arrogant, unjust and killed Him. What is more surprising is who His main detractors were.

Of course, some of those who mistreated Him do not surprise us. We would expect a corrupt government to be against Him (Matthew 2:16 says Herod tried to kill Jesus while He was still a baby) and the Roman Government was involved in interrogating, sentencing and carrying out the crucifixion (23:1-7, 23:13-25, 23:32-34). The Roman soldiers mocked him and did the actual killing (22:63, 23:36 and 23:33-34). He is also mocked by one of the thieves on the cross (23:39) and treated unjustly and with sarcasms by Herod’s son in an illegitimate trial (23:8-11). This is only 9 of the roughly 35 times in Luke that Jesus was opposed or mistreated.

The surprising aspect is that His main opposition was from the religious leaders of His day. The Roman crucifixion was carried out, all four Gospels say, at the behest of the religious leaders. In modern terms, if Jesus came to earth again His opponents would be the leaders of the Christian church.

Conservative Bible-believing Christians could understand the Sadducees being against Him as they controlled the moneymaking corruption that took place at the Temple and were much more politically oriented than religiously concerned. Jesus’ trial was before the Sanhedrin that was chaired by the High Priest (22:54), and he was a Sadducee. In addition, the Sadducees had tried to stump Him with their hypothetical situation about the woman who was married seven times in 22:27-40. The opposition from these religious leaders is more understandable. Today, we are much more suspicious of high ranking religious leaders especially when money is involved.

Jesus made trouble for the Sadducees. Jesus sided with the Pharisees on the issue of the Resurrection in 22:27-40 and no doubt they believed Jesus was filled with similar Pharisaical doctrines, which they rejected. Jesus was also a threat to the main priests, especially the High Priest who presided over the corruption at the Temple, which brought in an enormous amount of money. Their false demands for using their coinage or animals that were “temple approved” were obtained at exorbitant prices. In 19:45-46 Jesus cleansed the Temple of their practices. It was this event (in 19:47), at the end of Jesus’ ministry, that seemingly prompted the chief priests (who would have been Sadducees), scribes (the scholars of that day, some of which would have probably have been associated with the Sadducee party) and elders to start to question Jesus’ actions: 20:1, 20:19, 20:20) and then move to eliminate Him (22:2,52-54, 22:66, 23:21). Their final act was to mock Him in 23:35 when His messianic claims seemed to be invalidated as He died helplessly on the cross. Jesus was a threat to them, and it is easy to see why they opposed Him, His teaching, His actions and His claims.

The more surprising group involved in opposition to Jesus was from the religious right. Half of all opposition against Jesus in Luke’s Gospel comes from the Pharisees or the scholars (lawyers) of their party (18 out of 35). The Pharisees were the ones who believed all of the Old Testament was God’s Word and that it applied to daily life. They were the heirs of a revival a few centuries earlier by a group called the Hasidim. The Hasidim were sort of a back-to-the-Bible movement of its day. Similar to them, the Pharisees had deep respect for the Torah and believed it was to serve as the guide for faith and practice. They were much more serious about the religious life and more numerous than the Sadducees. They believed in angels and demons and in an after-life. They believed in the resurrection of the dead either to heaven or hell. Jesus was theologically quite similar to the Pharisees. He was theologically on the side of the religious right.

This opposition is recorded in longer sections and elicits a longer and more protracted response from Jesus. The other encounters with government or Sadducees are briefer and except for the one interchange with the Sadducees on the Resurrection and the questioning at His trial the interchange in these controversies are not as theologically charged. It is the series of interchanges, attacks and controversies with the conservatives of Jesus’ day that dominate the attention of the Gospel writers.

These opponents would be, in many respects, very similar to those who hold Scripture in high esteem today. Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament and yet the guardians of it were to become His enemies (for the most part). Could it be that today if Jesus was here it would be the conservatives, those who know Scripture extremely well who would be most offended by His teaching? What was it in Jesus’ teaching that made the conservatives, the very ones you would expect to welcome Him, be so against Him? Would many today who believe the Bible to be the very Word of God and proclaim that they look for the Second Coming of Jesus be like those who were eagerly looking for His First?

We often know how to respond to those who are secular and despise our beliefs. Jesus’ reactions to the Romans and rulers of the day are our guide for similar interactions today. Jesus’ interactions with Sadducees would give us insight into how to handle those religious leaders who do not hold highly to the Scriptures in the same way that we do. What is seldom discussed, but important to know is how to deal with the religious conservatives and that for two reasons. How do we help them see “spirit of the Scriptures” and not merely “the letter” and how do we avoid being like them ourselves?

We will look at the issues involved with all three groups that opposed Jesus and how Jesus dealt with each group. He will become our teacher in how to handle conflict. He will lead us into what types of techniques we should use, what should be the content of our responses and finally what should be the attitude in our hearts towards opposition. Before we look at His response we need to look at two more issues that dominate this material: who initiated the conflict and were the interactions ever positive ones from the religious right? Nine times Luke tells us that Jesus initiated the controversy and seven times the conservatives were not in opposition to Him.

III. Positive Interactions:

What is often lost sight of was that the Pharisees did not always treat Jesus poorly. The first instance of a positive relationship with the leadership of the Jewish community is found in Luke 7:1-10. Those in charge are not said to belong to a particular group but they were elders (leaders) and tightly attached to their synagogue (7:3, 5). They had approached Jesus at the behest of a Centurion (a Gentile) who had a highly regarded slave who was near death. They respected this Roman and approached Jesus on his behalf telling Jesus that he deserved His help as this Gentile loved the Jewish people and had built them their synagogue (7:4, 5). What is interesting is that Jesus acquiesced to their request (7:6) and started on His way to help the Centurion’s slave. Jesus was willing to help these elders, and they were willing to ask for such help.

This same positive regard is found in Jairus the synagogue ruler who asked Jesus to heal his sick daughter in 8:40-42. He needed help, was also willing to ask for it, and again, Jesus was willing to help.

In fact, Jesus would help anyone, even those whose views He did not in all aspects share. It was not whether someone was a disciple of Jesus’ group or not that determined Jesus’ willing to help someone. Jesus was willing to help the Gentile Centurion (7:6-10), the Gentile demon-possessed man in 8:26-40, and the heretical leper (what a Samaritan would be regarded as today) in 17:11-19. Of course, the most famous of these types of episodes that portray Jesus’ openness to those outside Orthodox Judaism in Luke is when Jesus tells the scholar in Luke 10 the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus did not dissuade those of a different religious viewpoint or nationality from seeking help. He was open to all.

Besides the stories of Jairus and elders in chapter 7, Luke goes out of his way to let us know that early on in Jesus’ ministry the Pharisees extended hospitality towards Him. Three times He was invited to dinner. Eating a meal with someone in that culture communicated a strong message of extending communion and hospitality. This is much like the story in Genesis 18 when Abraham extended kindness and offered a meal to the three strangers. The Bible is fair to the Pharisees; they did not always do the wrong thing. In essence, Luke is telling us that they tried to be open to Jesus by these dinner invitations. It must also not be forgotten that it was a religious leader, Joseph of Arimathea, who would offer to give Jesus a proper burial.

This balanced presentation of those who were not overt disciples of Jesus is similar to the stories found in the Old Testament. Old Testament stories portray a positive attitude towards those outside the believing community based on what they did and what their character was despite their nationality. For example, it is surely an intentional statement to have Moses saved by the Pharaoh’s daughter (Exodus 2).

This fair portrayal in Luke surfaces in several other ways. Three times when Jesus is asked legitimate questions by those in authority He gives straight forward helpful answers: 17:20-21 when the Pharisees ask Him about the timing of the coming of the Kingdom of God, the honest request about eternal life by the Rich Young Ruler 18:18-25 and in Pilate’s questions in 23:1-7.

IV. The Initiator of the Controversies

A. Jesus as Initiator

Luke is also very fair to Jesus’ opponents in another manner. Jesus seemed to take what could have been positive or at least neutral interactions and initiated controversy. In 20 out of 35 situations where there is an intense controversy, Jesus is the initiator. He does or says something that starts a firestorm. Jesus creates many of His own problems and seems to want to engage them rather please them.

The Gospel of John (2:13-22) starts Jesus’ controversies with religious authorities with the episode of His cleansing the Temple in Jerusalem. All three Synoptic Gospels also record a Temple cleansing, but they begin their presentation of Jesus’ debates with the religious establishment with the healing of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof by his friends (Luke 5:17-26, Matthew 9:2-8 and Mark 2:3-12).

Luke starts his story of this incident by placing Jesus in a teaching setting, and Luke describes in detail one particular part of the crowd. He lets us know that Pharisees and teachers of the Law were present from all over Galilee, Judea and even Jerusalem. So often people criticize religious teachers without sufficient knowledge of what they really said and make their criticism by only examining “sounds-bites”, by reference to secondary sources, or by hearsay. To the Pharisees’ and Scholars’ credit Jesus was heard, in person, (5:17) by an extensive body of religious leaders. We are not told what they thought of what Jesus was teaching, but we do surmise that their presence was due to the healings Jesus had done (see 4:23, 4:37 and 5:15). Luke then tells us that Jesus’ teaching session was interrupted by the zealousness of a paralytic man’s friends. Jesus is seemingly not irritated but rather creatively began to teach off this interruption. How He handles this interruption is what starts the controversy with the religious leaders. It did not seem that they were offended by His teaching up to that point or by the healing.

Had Jesus healed the man like so many other healings there might not have been a ruckus. It is Jesus’ deliberate choice of words that begins all the fireworks: Friend, your sins are forgiven. We are not told how Jesus knew this man needed this approach or how He knew that the religious leaders were negatively reacting to His statement, but this is what started the controversy. Then Jesus asks them a rhetorical question: Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, `Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, `Get up and walk’? He then heals the man and Luke says everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

Two things come to mind. Luke says everyone was amazed and praised God which appears to mean the Pharisees and the Scholars as well as the crowd were in awe. Luke wants us to see these men as seemingly open to His argument, and that they left in true scholarly fashion by pondering what they had witnessed. Luke is being fair to them. Second, Luke is being fair in letting his readers know that Jesus started the trouble. He seemed to deliberately start the controversy. This is in concert with the first example sermon Luke gives us of Jesus’ teaching in 4:16-30. There too Jesus deliberately caused an explosion by not performing the miracles they no doubt wanted to see (and be impressed by, see 4:23), but by telling Bible stories with politically incorrect heroes (i.e. Gentiles). The crowd was furious and made an attempt to murder Him (4:28-29). Jesus seemed to want trouble.

Jesus seems to deepen the crisis by what He did next. What follows are three episodes recorded in quick succession of Jesus making a tax collector a disciple, then attending a banquet where He ate (communed) with a group of tax collectors, and then answered a question about fasting (5:27-39). This second act brought another question: “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and `sinners'”? Jesus answered with some of His famous aphorisms or pithy statements: It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (5:31-32).

Luke does not record a response on the part of the Pharisees or the Scholars to Jesus’ metaphors about spiritual needs and spiritual doctors but tells us another question they posed. It was concerning the fact that Jesus did not seemingly make His disciples fast as they must also have been eating with these disreputable people. This could have been the only response they could come up with to His statements about who needed spiritual help (concerning the metaphor about the sick needing a doctor). Jesus could then have spelled out what regimen He had taught His disciples. No doubt his disciples did fast at certain times as most pious Jews did. Instead, Jesus began to speak (in metaphor) about the significance of His presence, and that it was going to be limited and therefore highly prized (5:34-35). He could have calmed some of the implicit criticism about His behavior by trying to assure them of His proper pious behavior but rather seemed to increase their suspicions by indicating that His ministry was special.

He then quickly made matters even more problematic by telling them two more short parables about adding the old to the new. By implication, He said He was bringing something new that necessitated careful attention because it would not mix well with the established order of things. What is interesting and again seemingly quite fair on Jesus’ part is His concluding statement: And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, `The old is better’ (5:39). Jesus was aware of the natural inclination to be suspicious of a new way of doing things and a preference for the old.

This theme of Jesus as the initiator of conflict continues in Luke with two Sabbath controversies in 6:1-11. Jesus has already raised suspicions by claiming the prerogatives of God in forgiving the paralytic, by both His association with those they shunned and His claim that His ministry was indeed significantly new. These new episodes further define what was new (or a creative true return to old ways) by how He handled Torah teaching or how He viewed the Law or Scripture. The controversy was centered on a prominent issue of Torah instruction: how to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.

The first story (6:1-5) was caused by what His disciples did. They seemingly worked on the Sabbath by rubbing their hands together while eating a few heads of grain as they traveled. Jesus could have apologized for their behavior and promised to instruct His disciples to be more sensitive to religious expectations. Instead He justified their behavior by quoting a story about King David from I Samuel 21.

He then said their view of the Law was askew or that He had a right to re-interpret Torah with His deliberately vague statement: The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. What did “Son of Man” mean? Did He mean He was the divine “Son of Man” of Daniel 7 and therefore was Lord over His own rules? Did “Son of Man” mean human being like in Ezekiel 1? Was He speaking about their incorrect views of Sabbath traditions because they focused on the rule and not on the purpose of the rule which was to serve the well being of people? Was human need the real focus of Torah interpretation in these situations and the proper rule of thumb by which to gauge the correctness of their interpretation? In their case, He was out of line with accepted interpretations of His day: He was deliberately controversial.

The second story (6:6-11) concerned the healing Jesus performed on a Sabbath. Again, He was teaching and there was not seemingly anything He said that was cause for censure, but no doubt His reputation had preceded Him, and they were by now on edge. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. His relationship with the religious right had changed and now their neutral stance had taken on a negative tone. They were looking for Him to do something they could disagree with. They thought that healing was an exertion of energy that could be interpreted as work. Like the issue with the rubbing of their hands together to clean the husks of a few heads of grain their interpretation of the Sabbath law was obviously rather narrow and far from the law’s intent.

How Jesus handled this was again not to avoid controversy but to almost invite it. Luke tells us He knew what they were thinking (6:8) and called the man up to the front of the synagogue. He could have quietly approached the man and told him to come back the next day after the Sabbath. To have healed the man the next day would seemingly have demonstrated humility, a more pious attitude as it showed respect for the Sabbath and a wise and culturally sensitive use of His power to heal. Instead, Jesus asked another of His rhetorical questions: I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath; to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it? He then surveyed His audience and told the man to stretch out his hand, and it was completely made whole. Their response was one of rage and began to discuss among themselves what to do with Him. He had sown the seeds of His own death. He had alienated the religious right, His ideological base.

In the next chapter Jesus would continue on the offensive. Though He agreed to help the Centurion who had built the Jewish community a synagogue at the request of the Jewish elders and eventually did the healing from a distance with just a word, He spoiled any hope of winning them over. He did not end the episode in a manner that could have won Him their favor. Instead, He followed it with a controversial phrase. When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel” (7:9). Had Jesus not told them this Gentile had greater faith than the entire believing community, He might have won some allies by His action. It seems He deliberately stated something controversial.

Later in the chapter, one of the Pharisees still showed Jesus respect by inviting Him to dinner (7:36). Jesus accepted Simon the Pharisee’s offer of hospitality and went to the formal dinner. However, things took an unexpected turn similar to the interruption of the paralytic. The interruption was not planned by Jesus, but He took full advantage of it. He deliberately and aggressively revealed once more His proclivity towards those who had made serious mistakes but had wanted to change. His formal dinner was interrupted by a prostitute who, no doubt overcome with guilt, cried at His feet and wiped them with her hair. Jesus did not back away from the woman, nor did He protect His reputation by stopping the woman from touching Him. His behavior garnered criticism from His host for His association with the wrong sorts of people (7:38) : When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is — that she is a sinner.” (7:39).

Jesus’ response to what the Pharisee was thinking was to tell a parable about two debtors and ask the Pharisee to make a judgment as to which would be more grateful for a full pardon. Jesus then went on to criticize Simon’ hospitality as inferior to that of the prostitute. It is not polite to criticize a host but maybe Jesus’ criticism was not wide of the mark. Simon might not have given Jesus the full attention a Middle Eastern host should have given to a guest in that culture as Simon does not defend himself. He may have been drifting in the direction of where the other authorities on the right were headed.

Jesus had won the day and theologically defended His allowing the woman to express her guilt and repentance; however He did not stop there. It would have gone much better for Jesus had He not said to the woman: Your sins are forgiven. The other guests (but interestingly Simon is not named in this group) began to protest as Jesus had again taken up what they considered was the prerogative of the Lord. Jesus declines to defend Himself but swiftly dismisses the woman.

B. Success at Alienating the Religious Right and Why

Jesus had successfully turned the religious right against Him by the time we get to the end of chapter 7 (see especially 6:11). He had done it with the three consistent attitudes that were expressed in what He said or did. These three issues drove a wedge between them. First, He accepted those who had made mistakes that were socially unacceptable such as prostitutes, tax-collectors and Gentiles: 7:39 and 5:27-32 and 2:32, 4:25-27, 7:9. He also catered to those considered undesirable which would include those who were demon-possessed, the ill and lepers: 4:33-37, 40-41, 5:13. He was doing what He predicted in what could now be seen as the inaugural address to His ministry. The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (4:18-19). The religious right of His day had abandoned the work of trying to bring repentance and therefore hope and salvation to those who had sinned in socially obvious ways or were outside the believing community. They now saw condemnation of such people as the proper expression of religious piety and Jesus and John the Baptist disagreed.

Jesus sought to help such people as He saw their need of spiritual healing (5:31-32) and saw those who were ill both spiritually and physically as His target audience and the reason for His anointing in 3:22. He saw these people as needing to hear good news because they were poor, bound, blind and oppressed. However, He also saw the religious right as spiritually poor, bound by a false legalism, blind to compassion and oppressed by their oppressors of others. His deliberate controversial acts had to be done or He would have left them in their illusion of righteousness and thus left them to damnation. He had to call into question their lack of openness to Gentiles as humans like themselves whom God loved, and sinners as worthy of God’s concern and the ill and demon-possessed as the object of God’s empathy. The attitude of most of the Pharisees that encountered Jesus demonstrated that they were worshipping another God than the God of the Old Testament. Though they had good doctrine, they did not have the heart of the Father. Jesus was like His Father and it offended them.

Second, Jesus also saw the Torah in much more practical and less legalistic terms as His handling of the Sabbath laws showed. He objected to a legalism that refused to see the forest from the trees. The narrowness of their interpretation of the law bred a judgmental spirit that was not the intent or focus of Torah. The Torah’s goal was to bring opportunity for the expression of submission by faith to God’s will. Of course, when followed, Torah brought health both physically and psychologically to people who by faith obeyed its dictates. The Torah was a gift (Psalm 19:7-10) and God’s Scriptures were to show us how God wanted us to love Him in ways that He determined were acceptable and how to love our fellow man. The tweaking of the Torah by some of the practices of some the Pharisees had lost sight of doing what God wanted (their narrow interpretation actually put themselves in charge of what God rather than God in charge). God wanted the following of His law to bless others. If Jesus did not deliberately attack such procedures He would have abandoned the heart of His Father and left the Torah open to disrespect.

Third, and finally, Jesus was deliberately, though subtly, expressing that He was not only Messiah (the Bridegroom in 5:33-35) but God Himself in His forgiving of sins (5:20 and 7:48) and that a different blessing and movement of God was beginning (5:36-38). His actions could be interpreted as arrogant (to claim deity) but it was accurate and His manner of doing it was not to push others down. He did not “lord it over others” but used His deity to bless, forgive, heal and remove their spiritual blindness (if they allowed Him to).

His taking up the prerogatives of deity were quite humble. He read their minds (6:8, 11:17), but did not practice mind control. He was always, even what we have seen so far, appealing to their reason and giving tangible proof of His claims to their inquiring minds. He healed all those in need, despite their social standing, financial ability, or nationality (demonstrating that He was God of all the earth as would be appropriate to Genesis 1 and 2). He obviously had amazing powers over the physical world but would not use them to dominate or control people but to serve them. He healed not punished those who would not agree with His status or position. He spoke in metaphor about His status and thus left it up to those who would think it out to come to a proper conclusion. Submission was not by the sword but by choice and like John, Jesus wanted to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous — to make ready a people prepared for the Lord (1:17). He wanted to turn hearts not compel them.

He spoke of sin but did not execute or implement judgment but rather preached repentance and granted forgiveness as demonstrated with the paralytic and the prostitute. Again, like John, Jesus was to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace (2:77-79).

C. Jesus Continued to Initiate Controversy

In the chapters that followed Jesus continued to show his same concern for the less fortunate. He treated the sick woman in 8:43-48 before He heals the prominent man’s daughter in 8:40-42 and 49-56, attacked Lawyers for hurting people in 11:41-50, compassionately healed a woman on the Sabbath and pointed out His detractor’s lack of proper priorities in 13:10-17, healed a man who had dropsy on the Sabbath for similar reasons in 14:1-6, gave hope to sinners in 15:1-31, cleansed the Temple of the abuse of pilgrims in 19:45-48, and chastised scholars for pretending spirituality while abusing widows in 20:45-47. All of this drew intense opposition. He had “caught their hands in the cookie jar” and they deeply resented it.

Some of these stories double as instances of His compassionate and practical view of the Torah in refusing to wash His hands ceremonially (11:37-41) that gave Him the opportunity to show them that helping the poor is the true way to ceremonial purity (11:41). He initiated controversy at the same dining experience by labeling the Pharisees hypocrites (11:42-44) and their Scholars as insensitive of human need with their espousing a legalism that denigrated and demeaned God’s Law and thus encouraged others to despise it: Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering (11:52). He boldly told the crowds that the Pharisees have added interpretations to the law (it was leavened by them) that had changed and perverted it by their hypocrisy (12:1). He irritatingly pointed out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in their view of money and marriage in 16:14-18. He flatly rejected their hypocritical piety at prayer when it morphed into a judgmental attitude of other’s struggles when He told the story of the tax-collector and Pharisee who went to the Temple to pray in 18:9-14. Jesus was definitely the one who started the conflict with those who skewered the Torah and brought it into disrepute.

Jesus also was the instigator of trouble when He told the Parable of the Tenants in 20:9-19. As earlier in Luke, He would again make Messianic claims. He let them know they had rejected God’s Messenger and therefore their Lord. They clearly understood the parable was aimed at them and they would have laid hands on him except for their fear of the crowds (20:19). He had earlier pared off their attack in 20:1-8 by trapping them because of their rejection of John. He had won the debate and might have gained their respect but instead plunged into the Parable that so infuriated them. Had He stopped with His clever response in 20:3 and not gone on to give the parable there would have been less anger. He did the same thing later in the chapter when He brilliantly refuted the Sadducees (20:27-40) and had gained Scribal praise (20:39) but He followed that up with more subtle Messianic claims (20:40-44) and then a frontal attack on their hypocrisy (20:45-47). He clearly did not want to be admired but wanted to let them know where they were wrong and where the truth was to be found.

D. Other As Initiators of Conflict

There were times that He was not the initiator of conflict. It is a Pharisee who tried to trap Jesus in 10:25-37 under the guise of asking for the way to find eternal life. Jesus had irritated them and perhaps this scholar was searching for some error in Jesus’ orthodoxy that could be used to discredit Him. In 11:14-36 Jesus was attacked by those who must have been frustrated by Jesus’ ability to control demonic forces. They accused Him of being in league with Prince of Demons and thus derived His power from that. It was a wild and fruitless accusation and Jesus intellectually crushed it (11:17-22). According to Luke others demanded a sign but again it was a poorly thought out demand. Jesus had just miraculously restored a man’s ability to speak (11:14) and so they already had a sign. In 13:31-35, they tried to scare Him away by saying Herod was seeking to kill Him. We know differently in that Herod actually wanted to meet Jesus hoping to see a miracle. They grumbled again about His association with tax-collectors in 15:1-2, and scoffed at His views of money in 16:14 and demanded that He silence His followers when they sang at His triumphal entry. The Pharisees are portrayed as making weak criticisms. These seem to be the actions and words of frustrated people who cannot stand on their own religious texts to defend themselves. However, their attacks were, in a significant way a reaction to Jesus’ attacks.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem in chapter 19, His opposition came less from the religious right than from the religiously entrenched. In 20:1-8 they reacted and questioned His right or authority to cleanse the corruption going on in the Temple. These detractors were more aligned with Sadducees and Temple establishment and not necessarily with the Pharisaical movement. This group tried to trap him with a question about paying taxes (20:20-26) and tried to humiliate Him about His view of the Resurrection (20:27-40). In each case they are foiled and Luke, again in fairness, does not associate the religious right or the Pharisees with these particular attacks. In fact, some of the scribes present were probably Pharisees, and they praised His answer to the Resurrection question (20:39). The Sadducees and High Priest were motivated less by ideology than by greed and power.

If it were not for the controversies, primarily initiated by Jesus then He would not have been arrested, tried and killed. Had Jesus not irritated both the religious right and subsequently the religiously entrenched Priests He would not have been turned over to the Romans. It is the religious opposition to Jesus that led to His being arrested by brute force in the Garden of Gethsemane and accused of blasphemy at His subsequent trial (22:47-53, 22:63-65, 22:66-71 and 23:10, 23). He was interrogated by non-religious officials (Pilate in 23:1-7 and 23:25 and Herod in 23:8-11) but both of these government authorities found Him innocent of the charges brought against Him. Jesus would have been set free by these authorities but they caved into the pressure brought about by the religious leaders. Once the government authorities gave into the pressure brought to bear by the religious authorities, it led to His being mocked by Herod and His soldiers (23:11), the rulers (23:35), the Roman soldiers (23:36-37) and one of thieves who is crucified with Him (23:39).

E. Why Jesus Started the Controversies.

Had Jesus been politically cautious and adopted a more pleasing approach to the powerful in His community He could have had a stellar career. Had Jesus not irritated the religiously powerful of His day there would not have been the controversies. Had Jesus been as open and kind to the powerful as He was to the sick, the Gentiles and sinners there might not have been the tragedy of Golgotha. Had Jesus jumped off the Temple (and thus used His power over nature, death, demons and disease against His detractors) then they would not have dared to oppose Him openly. Jesus could have avoided everything controversial by being more congenial with the powerful and/or made use of His divine powers to quiet and intimidate His opposition.

Instead, He vulnerably started conflicts with them over their incorrect and hypocritical actions, their corrupt behavior, their misunderstanding and use of Scripture, their lack of compassion for the sinful, Gentiles and the sick and His valid claims of being the Messiah and God. His vulnerability did leave room for the possibility of their being converted back to the truth of their religion (and it worked with some) and it gave us a model and example for initiating and handling conflict.

The question arises then, if we do not start such controversies are we true Christians? Are we abandoning truth, the needy and the heart of God’s will? Are we refusing to help our fellow religious followers who are so seriously harmed by corrupt religious leaders and refusing to warn those leaders who are harmed by self inflicted wounds? Are we in danger if we are not properly controversial? Was Luke 6:26 meant for us? Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for in the same way their fathers used to treat the false prophets.

V. How to Deal with Controversy

A. Dealing with the Religious Right: the Pharisees.

1. His Response

The First Attack and Response

The first controversy with Pharisees in 5:17-26 is carefully set by Luke. The Pharisees and teachers of the law were present in a home where Jesus was teaching. Because Jesus had healed, spoken in multiple places (4:14) and had garnered high praise the Pharisees must have been compelled to see Him for themselves. As the spiritual guardians of the people, they came to hear and see what this new Rabbi was doing and saying. Jesus had quite an audience, and you would think He would have wanted to make a favorable impression on the theological faction that most closely resembled His own. Luke tells us one more fact: And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick.

Jesus’ teaching was interrupted. A group of men did not want to hear Jesus teach but wanted healing for their friend, and they could not get their friend to Jesus because of the crowd. They broke through the roof and lowered their friend into Jesus’ presence and then things got dicey. First, Jesus chose not to impress them by doing a healing. Instead, Jesus pronounced the man forgiven of his sins and the Pharisees thought this was usurping the place of God: Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?

His response to their criticism is instructive and can serve as paradigm for much of what He did in these situations (which Luke implies were frequent). Jesus was aware of their reaction (Jesus knew what they were thinking) and confronted their criticism in the form of rhetorical questions. Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say, `Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, `Get up and walk’? Then He followed with a bold declaration: but that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….” It was then that Jesus called to the paralyzed man to stand up, take up his mat and walk home. The man did and left praising God. All were amazed and said so.

What is Jesus modeling for us in handling critique from religious conservatives? Should we get defensive or nervous lest we offend them and lose their support? How should we actually respond? Should we seek to be controversial and if so, how and why should we do so?

If we are to follow His lead, then we notice that Jesus’ opening statement was in the form of rhetorical questions. He would do this often with the religious right, in fact in six of the controversies with the Pharisees His opening words in discussions with them are a rhetorical question. Jesus is not defensive, rather, He is aggressive. He goes right at them and starts asking them questions that require them to think. A rhetorical question does not desire an answer but invites the listener to think and the question guides the thinking in a certain vein. Jesus wanted to engage His detractors in thought. He was inviting them to think things through. His question forms the beginning of His argument.

Jesus wanted His audience to understand that forgiveness of sins and the power to heal both come from God. He claimed to be able to pronounce forgiveness of sins, but He went on to prove His ability to heal. He opened with rhetorical questions, and then based on the deductions gained by their own pondering; He logically pushed the issue further with a statement about the Son of Man. Then He directly addressed the paralytic and told the man to stand and the man was instantly healed.

Several things are being modeled here. Jesus uses logic and reason in His debates with religious leaders. The extensive use of rhetorical questions in His discussions with them implies that His usual practice was to reason with them. He then made a statement that was both bold and subtle.

Who was the Son of Man? Was it the Son of Man referred to in Daniel 7:13, 14 which is clearly a divine figure or was it the Son of Man reference in Ezekiel 1 which basically means “human being”? Was He claiming the right of forgiveness of sin for human beings in certain settings or was He implying that He was divine? Jesus leaves them hanging, so to speak, just as He does in Luke 6:5 when He also ends that controversy with similar “saying”: The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Did He mean that human beings are more important than rules or that the Rule Maker is lord of His rules?

His final move is healing, and it has a double emphasis. It serves to prove His claims. We applaud His divine compassion but as a model for our own actions His response is disturbing. Here is where most of us, even most Conservative Evangelicals, part company with Jesus’ model. We seldom do miracles. We can admit that good logic, honest engagement and subtle sayings are good, but the miracle issue is beyond human control. We do not learn how to do miracles in Western Seminaries or in most Churches. Two things could be ventured here. First, miracles have always been reported by viable, honest people through out every age, but they tend to be where people are more humble and poorer (i.e. the poorer churches in America and the Third World). Second, what is at issue here is a dependence on God to back our arguments. The presence of miracles represents God weighing in on the discussion. So often we rely on our own force of personality, logic or education in our theological disputes. The presence of the miracles brings God into the debate and a dependence on His help.

The miracles were a large part of what brought Jesus into controversy because they served as attesting signs and thus made Jesus all the more dangerous in the minds of His opponents. But if one carefully looks at each miracle story the miracle contributes but does not eliminate logical discussion. The miracles did not over-power Jesus’ adversaries. Obviously, they helped the audience learn of the care and beauty of God and brought welcome relief to suffering people, but as far as the controversies go, they became, in essence, part of the argument.

Do these texts point us in the direction of humbly asking God to validate our biblically conservative positions? It could remove some of our defensiveness and/or arrogance in our debates with those who criticize our efforts. If God is truly on our side, then we should expect Him to contribute to the discussion. The greatest miracle worker in the Old Testament, Moses, saw miracles work in this fashion with those authorities who criticized him. First, there was the opposition of Pharaoh and miracles became signs of the “finger of God” (Exodus 8:19) and that eventually led to the freeing of the people of God. More directly to our point is the episode in Numbers 16. Here the controversy was with fellow Israelite leaders. The Korah rebellion against his authority was solved by Moses directly saying “let God choose”. God acted in an unambiguous manner via a divine intervention. Very similar to Jesus’ ministry, Moses faced constant criticism despite the repeated presence of miracles appearing after Moses prayed (Exodus 14:11, 12, 15:24, 16:2-3, 17:2, 11:4-6, etc.). Miracles were not meant to silence the opposition either in the Moses stories or in the Gospels. Key to this was that the power involved was never expended against those in the debate. Jesus never gave anyone leprosy (like a Pharisee), He just cured it.

There is another edge to the act of healing in the examination of Jesus’ response. It brings up a consistent ability displayed through the controversies. Jesus can see others’ needs in the heat of the battle. He did not merely heal the man to prove a point, but carefully, thoughtfully healed the man, in a manner that gave long lasting strength to this man’s soul. The man got more than healing: he gained faith. Jesus demanded he take up his bed and walk. The man had to express faith, take a risk, and be involved in his own healing. Jesus had the presence of mind to see past His own vulnerability in a debate and focus on someone in need in the crowd. This will appear again and again in the stories that follow.

The Second Attack: A Different Response

After this incident, Luke says Jesus went and saw a disreputable individual at work. A man named Levi was collecting taxes for the Roman Government. Levi was a Jew and was employed in collecting taxes so that the Roman army could be funded. It was that army that kept the Jews from political freedom as well kept Levi protected as he became rich by being a traitor to his own people. Tax collectors were not well liked. They were tolerated because of the fear of the Romans but hated by their countrymen. To good Jews, they were politically incorrect people to associate with. Jesus went up to Levi’s booth and invited him to follow Him. Levi left all and accepted the invitation.

Levi was no doubt filled with joy over this Rabbi’s acceptance. So he gave a large banquet in Jesus’ honor and invited all of his tax collector friends and others (5:27-28). This started the next controversy. Jesus had accepted the wrong type of people. What is more, Jesus physically demonstrated His acceptance by eating a meal with them (a clear Middle-Eastern symbol of fellowship). This would not be the last time such criticism was leveled at Jesus. In 7:39 Jesus allows a distraught prostitute to cry at His feet and in 15:1-2 He was criticized for having a lot of sinners and tax-collectors come to hear Him speak. In 19:1-10 He drew criticism from the crowds for His willingness to go to lunch with Zacchaeus the tax gatherer. To make matters worse Jesus will make Levi one of His elite twelve in 6:15 and tell a story in 18:9-14 about two men who went to the Temple to pray. Jesus made the tax collector in the story the one who received forgiveness and the Pharisee the one who did not.

In this instance with Levi, Jesus was not confronted personally by the Pharisees but rather they expressed their disapproval through Jesus’ disciples (members of His ministerial staff). This happens often enough in today’s world. Pastors and teachers hear plenty of criticism indirectly.

Jesus obviously knew of their displeasure, and He does not dodge the issue. He directly confronts it. This is similar to His immediate response to Simon in chapter 7 in regard to the prostitute, quick acceptance of Zacchaeus’ luncheon invitation, and His intense response in telling three parables about the heart of God in Luke 15. It seems almost second nature to Jesus that such people could gain acceptance as His parable on prayer in 18:9-14 demonstrates. He shows no hesitancy at all in healing lepers (512-15) even Samaritan ones (17:11-19), and dealing with Gentiles (4:24-27 and 7:1-10). Political correctness is not one of Jesus’ long suits. What He models first for us is an extremely aggressive approach to the matter of the Gospel being open to all. There is no hint of apologetic embarrassment in defense of His reputation (something most in ministry spend a great deal of energy doing).

His manner of response to criticism of this kind is insightful. It opens with a metaphor about doctors and sick people (5:31) and follows with an explanatory statement that was to be remembered as one of His famous “sayings” (5:32). This type of response is symptomatic of other controversy passages as He will often respond with metaphors and with sayings. He understands His mission so well He can turn it into a memorable word picture or catchy statement.

We have to know before a confrontation whom we are open to and whom we wish to reach in order to be able to come up with a metaphor or saying in the heat of a debate. Jesus knew His reason for being here: to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Isaiah 61:2 or Luke 4:19). To whom the favor of the Lord was to be given was also clear in His mind. It was not to the elite or “the well”, but to the poor, those imprisoned, the blind and those oppressed (Isaiah 61:1 or Luke 4:18). In short, to use the metaphor in this confrontation, His ministry was to the “sick”. Even though Jesus was not directly addressed and could conceivably have slid out of this criticism He welcomed it. It became an opportunity to boldly express the nature and tenor of His ministry.

Luke does not record a response to the metaphor about the sick, nor the healthy needing a doctor. Neither is a direct response given to the interpretive saying, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (5:31-32). There might be two reasons for this. First, one could hardly argue against such a point of view. The great heroes of the Jewish faith, the prophets, preached repentance to sinners and Moses came not to save the elite or well off but the Israelites caught in Egyptian slavery. The other reason they might not have responded was the clever use of metaphor. It was not completely clear who the “sick” or “sinners” were. Was Jesus referring to them or to those who were obviously sinners such as the tax collectors and sinners at that dinner? They might have been worried that their lack of compassion would put them in the classification of those who were “sick”. Instead of directly commenting on His answer they move the agenda to what they thought was safer ground.

In their view, Jesus did not conduct Himself well as a rabbinical teacher. They could not attack the fact that Jesus reached out to the “sick” but they could criticize how He did it. In a seemingly silly fashion they criticize Jesus’ disciples as not being sufficiently disciplined. They were eating and drinking (though they were, after all, at a feast) and thus not directly showing that they were involved with fasting. They claimed John the Baptist’s disciples and their disciples fasted, but obviously Jesus’ disciples did not portray such a pious image at that moment.

This is a cheap shot, a ridiculous attack, but Jesus did not call them out on it. Neither did He defend Himself and His role as a Rabbi by showing them all the various disciplines that He had taught His disciples. No doubt, they were involved with fasting as all serious Jews were. He could have mentioned His own 40 day fast in the wilderness (4:1, 2). He could also have mentioned His extensive prayer life (4:42 and 5:16), but He declines to do this. He was not defensive, but rather uses the attack to begin teaching them further about the nature of His ministry. This same lack of defensiveness is present in the next controversy of 6:1-5. There His disciples had rubbed their hands together to clean a little of the grain they picked as they traveled. The Pharisees blame Him for letting His disciples show disrespect to the Sabbath. That too was a ridiculous reading of the Sabbath laws, but Jesus uses that occasion, not to defend Himself but to teach. He opens with a rhetorical question (6:3-4) and ends with a saying in the form of a metaphorical play on words about “Son of Man” (6:5). Jesus wants to teach more than defend His piety.

In similar fashion, in response to their attack on His poor leadership with His disciples, He opens with a rhetorical question that is part of a metaphor about bridegrooms (34-35). This is quickly followed with two parables about garments and wineskins (36-38) and then closes again with a saying (39) that plays off the last parable. Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast (5:34-35).

The metaphor is illusive. What did He mean? What was He saying about Himself? What did He mean the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken? None of this explained, but left to simmer and move through the recesses of their minds (and no doubt the minds of His disciples). He is clearly speaking of His mission, and it is clear that His presence is of vital importance and it is clear His mission will entail His being taken. What precisely He meant was deliberately left vague. His disciples would later see that His mission would entail the Cross. Perhaps, this mention of the Cross is more than predicting the future. It could also be His telling us the secret to His remarkable freedom from defensiveness. We will take this up later.

Then He moves into different metaphors in the form of two short parables. He told them this parable, “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins (5:36-38). Again, there is no explanation of what the new patch or new wine exactly referred to. What was the old garment or old wine skins? He does not explain.

There are a few things clear. It is clear that something of significance is present (He was present as the bridegroom). It is also clear that something new is important and present, and the new and the old cannot mix without damage to both.

Jesus ends His response with another saying: And no one after drinking the old wine wants the new, for he says, “The old is better” (5:39). What is He doing with this statement? Is He saying that the old religious ways will always be preferred by those used to them? Or is He saying those with a refined pallet will always prefer the old? Is He predicting His rejection by those who are already in the believing community? Is the established church always out of step with a revival, with something new?

The Purpose of Metaphors: His Messianic Claims

Is His vagueness or His use of unexplained metaphors due to their inability to perceive? We know He will answer some questions directly and positively. He agrees to come to the Centurion’s home at the request of the Jewish elders in 7:3-6. He directly responds to their request just as He does to others who ask sincere questions who wish to be healed. Is it their inability or His high regard for them that causes Him to couch some of His answers in metaphors? Could it be a mixture of both? Perhaps, He knew that what He needed to tell them could not be heard directly. He was the Messiah and in a form they were not expecting. They were smart men and if open minded and given enough time would filter through the metaphors and begin to see what He was saying. There is some evidence for this right from the beginning.

In the episode of the healing of the paralytic Jesus initiated the controversy by telling the man his sins were forgiven (5:20) and this is true for the controversy with the Pharisees over His association with tax collectors (5:29-32) and the issue of fasting (5:33-39). He seems to want to use the situation to spring His rhetorical questions and metaphors or extended metaphors (parables). He uses the critique of His leadership of His disciples who “worked” on the Sabbath when they rubbed their hands together and when He healed the man with the withered hand on a Sabbath (apparently healing was considered work). In both of these cases He uses rhetorical questions (6:3-4 and 6: 9) and then either says something or does something that implies the supernatural nature of His ministry (the Son of Man phrase in 6:5 and the healing of the man in 6:10). In all of these cases Jesus has maneuvered the episode into a teaching one focusing on His messianic claims. The claims are subtle, but they are there. They are not technically blasphemy but Jesus deliberately pushes the discussions in a dangerous direction by action and by word.

Perhaps the key to understanding what Jesus is doing in these early controversies is found in 7:30-35. Previously, Jesus had, in effect, eulogized John as a powerful and disciplined servant of God, a prophet, in fact more than a prophet. John was the forerunner of the Messiah and the greatest man born among women (7:24-28). The people who heard these words agreed because they had responded to John’s preaching and had been baptized (7:29). Luke then interposes one of his rare interpretive comments as the narrator: But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John (7:30). These men had refused to respond to God even though God was speaking to them through John. These men were the representatives of God on earth but had tangibly rejected God’s earthly messenger on this earth. They had not been baptized because they were not open.

Jesus then begins to speak, not about John, but that particular generation’s religious leaders. He characteristically opens with rhetorical questions (31): To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? Then He again goes into a metaphor (32) that He unpacks a bit (33-34) and then ends with another saying centered on another metaphorical reference (35). The metaphor is about children who refused to play with other children even though those calling for the interaction are willing to be versatile or willing to alter the manner of play. Jesus then comments on His recent criticisms of being open to sinners and seeming lack of serious religious discipline: For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine and you say, `He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, `Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners’ (33-34). He says the problem is not with the approach but with the earlier choices of those who were approached. They were not open.

His final statement in this response is to again end with a saying that hints at messianic claims: But wisdom is proved right by all her children (35). If the Pharisees would only look at what Jesus and John were doing they would see that their actions (children) all point back to similar actions by Yahweh. The rejection of John and Jesus is the rejection of their own religion, their own Scriptures.

A Parable about Receptivity

Luke records several controversies in chapters 5, 6 and 7. He responds to His critics with proof of divine approval (miracles) and logic. He is not interested in merely winning the debates but instead attempts to get His audience involved in thinking through the implications of what He is teaching. It appears that it has little or no positive effect. He is teaching His disciples through the encounters, and He has another reason for hope. After these chapters, Luke informs us that Jesus while traveling to various locations was preaching the good news (8:1). We have an example of His preaching in 8:3-8 in the famous Parable of the Sower. The parable is addressed to the multitudes, but has implications for our discussions with the religious leaders.

Jesus speaks of four kinds of soil and only one of the three is productive. This becomes important for our investigation because Jesus has been fairly unproductive in communicating positively with the religious leaders. As you well know the Parable of the Sower emphasizes not the sower, nor the seed but the ground. The problem is not with the message (the seed) or the communicator (the sower) but with those receiving the message (the soil). Some people are not able to productively receive the good news. There are those hardened (compacted soil of the path), shallow (cannot handle adversity or difficulty) or ruined by materialism and temporary goals or needs of this world (the weeds).

The disciples do not understand the parable and some explanation is given (8:9-15), but only some is given. After additional teaching via the Parable of the Lamp Stand (8:16-17) He concludes with a warning in 8:18: Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him. We are warned “how” we are to listen or suffer judgment. Then Luke records for us the short interchange between Jesus and the crowd who tell Him that His family is attempting to see Him (8:19-20). His response to the crowd also picks up the word “listen” or “hear”: My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice. This statement goes back to the warning given after the parable of the Lamp Stand as both concern the importance of listening. They would be judged if they listened improperly and how to listen properly is given to the audience in 8:20. To listen well is to put the teaching one hears into action.

The Pharisees are contrasted with the common people in7:29-30 because the latter group did hear (or listen as the same word shemah is used in Hebrew for both the concepts of “listen” and “obey”). To truly hear God’s word is to obey God’s word. If one did not obey John, then their reaction to John would blind them to understanding Jesus. If the Pharisees and their scholars rejected God’s purpose for themselves (7:30) then no matter what approach was used by the messenger (7:31-35) the message would not be taken in. Then whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him (8:18). The Pharisees were not good soil.

There is one word of hope help held out to the Religious Right: sorrow. Good soil can be gained from compacted, weedy or stone filled soil by plowing it. Plowing puts oxygen into the soil (as anyone who has done gardening knows how important it is to loosen the soil before planting). Plowing turns the weeds into fuel for the seed you plant by turning the weeds over so they decompose, and locates the rocks when the field is plowed so that the stones can be pulled out of the soil. In 8:22-56, Luke will narrate four vignettes or short stories about four different types of people being “plowed” in various ways by sorrow. The first group is oddly enough the disciples who are forced to see their blindness or lack of faith when they panic before Jesus calms the storm (8:22-25). The demoniac begs for release from the demons and then accepts instruction (8:38-39) because of the horrors of demon possession. The woman with twelve year long illness shows faith by reaching out for Jesus’ garment (8:43-48) due to her illness and the parents seek Jesus help because of the sickness and approaching death of their child (8:40-42, 59-56). The death of a child, illness, demon possession, and a near death experience made these people potentially better soil.

Perhaps, if the Pharisees ever lost the safety of their social standing (6:22), their wealth (6:20) or their health (6:21 b) or the health of those they loved (6:21 a) they would be more open to the teaching of Jesus. If in some extensive manner they had their lives turned upside down, they would “listen” better. Indeed, Jesus understood why the Pharisees, who were rich (16:14), from their privileged leadership position were headed for a state of judgment: Woe to you who are rich…woe to you when all men speak well of you…. (6:23, 26).

So how does one handle the rejection of those who should understand your message? Realize your opponents are predisposed not to understand. They are too satisfied with the status quo even when the contradictions between what they believe (their actions) and what they say they believe (what is Scriptural) is pointed out.

Engaging Your Opponents

One does not like to be tricked or “set up”. Seeming sincere questions about precious doctrines or truths are asked but everything is on a false footing. If one has opponents and they are smart and devious it is hard to be gracious. One is tempted to cut short such discussions or try to avoid them altogether. However, Jesus allowed others to question Him, even those who were clearly deceitful in their intentions. Such is the case with the expert in the law who stood up to test Jesus (10:25-37).

He opens with a respectful title of address. He calls Jesus “teacher”. He then asks a question that was at the forefront of the discussion of that day: life after death. The question succinctly put: what must I do to inherit eternal life? The Pharisees (who traced their name to meaning the “pure ones”) were called Parsees (Persians or those who adopted foreign and therefore false views) by their theological opponents the Sadducees. Native Persian religion (Zoroastrianism) believed that an after life awaited all based on how they acted. One either spent an eternity in heaven or in hell. The Pharisees also taught this (and so did Jesus, see 16:19-31) and so how one answered this question placed one in the appropriate religious camp.

Jesus’ handling of this issue is rather insightful. He is being tested, but He has a creative twofold way of taking the test. First, He turns the table and gives the test giver a test. Second, His goal was not to pass the test but help the test giver gain a higher way to deal with religious issues. In this one episode He models several techniques, and an unusual perspective to religious debates, tests or attacks.

As regards the first point, if one diagrams the entire episode a curious pattern emerges. The man asks a question (obviously a loaded one and meant to put Jesus on the defensive about His theological position on this issue) in 10:25. Jesus counters the question with a question (10:26): “What is written in the Law?” he replied, “How do you read it?” Now Jesus has the man answering His questions and being tested on how He reads the central concerns of the Law. The man answers with an orthodox and concise summary of the Ten Commandments (and therefore the entire Old Testament Law): Love God and love your neighbor as yourself (10:27). Jesus then compliments the man’s answer and leaves the man the recipient of a grade from Jesus’ test. However, the second aspect of Jesus response is lurking in the background (10:28). It is this ending statement: “You have answered correctly”, Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

Jesus has totally turned the tables on this man who began a test, who got tested himself and then challenged. Now the man cannot let things stand as they were because he came there to test Jesus and not be tested and challenged. Thus in seeking to justify himself he poses another question, but it is a weak one: And who is my neighbor? It could have two origins, a desperate need to justify himself (10:29 a) and so he grasped at straws or he could have in mind another way to trap Jesus. He could be reaching for the known proclivity Jesus had to reach out to the undesirable elements of their society. Jesus made neighbors of the wrong sort. Jesus went back on the offensive and did so with one of His favorite methods of dealing with attacks: a parable, a word picture.

He told the famous Parable of the Good Shepherd (10:30-35). This is quickly followed with another question matching the first question He was asked (10:36): Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The man gave a cautious and carefully worded reply (10:37 a): The one who had mercy on him. He probably did not want to be quoted as saying a Samaritan was his neighbor, so he referred only to the hero of the story (the heretic) by reference to his action. Staying on the offense Jesus then again challenged the man (10:37 b): Go and do likewise.

In this interchange Jesus moved from being a victim to being the aggressor. He turned the tables by asking questions. He did this by replacing defensiveness with humility. He asked questions that put his inquisitor in the role of a teacher. Instead of panicking and trying to justify Himself, Jesus asked questions that put the expert into the role of the expert. He asked the scholar for readings: first of the Torah and then of Jesus’ parable. The man was allowed use his abilities as an intelligent and shrewd man to display his learning and insightfulness. Both times Jesus accepted and complimented his answers. It takes humility and great confidence to let someone else have the floor in a debate and to encourage them to display their expertise. It also takes humility to compliment good answers. It also takes confidence to challenge a great scholar to act (10:28, 37).

This is the second point. Jesus does not want to win the debate but help the man gain eternal life. He actually took the surface question seriously because He knew that the man’s learning had left him empty. In each of the two exchanges Jesus asks the man to “do” something (10:28, 37). Like the answer to the crowd in 8:19-20 and the subsequent answer to the well-wisher in 11:27-28 Jesus knows this man must move beyond intellectual debate to active submission to the will and heart of God: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (11:28).

Jesus uses all of His skill to help this man. He tips His hat, so to speak, to the man’s intelligence and places him in the role of the interpreter both of the law and of His parable. He tries to get under or around the block we all have to truth in a debate: our pride. This attempt to subdue the scholar’s pride is in the compliments the man receives for his answers (10:28, 37). It also traps to take seriously what needs to be done because he has been made to articulate it with his own mouth.

Jesus is also trying to catch him off guard with the story of the traveler on the Jericho road. All knew of the peril of that road and a story entertains and opens our imagination as it creates a mental image in our minds. We are naturally drawn to the plight of the man robbed and are emotionally stirred by the denial of hospitality by the very people who should have helped. We are also naturally glad when someone finally helps the man and astounded at the extensive nature of the help (10:35). The story was a brilliant way to help the scholar see people as God sees them. People in need are people in need, and it does not matter about their theological position or race.

The challenge to “do” something also had a double edge to it. Jesus did not challenge the man’s loyalty to Yahweh. Committing idolatry, using the Name in vain, Images or Sabbath breaking was not this man’s problem. Jesus correctly saw that the man’s problem was with the latter half of the Ten Commandments (commandments 5-10) which center on how to love one’s neighbor. This man struggled with sectarianism and racism. He was out of line with the Torah’s understanding of God as the Creator of all humanity (Genesis 1, 2) and that hospitality was to be extended to all people (witness Abraham’s hospitality to strangers in Genesis 18). The way to salvation was pointed out to this man and his particular need was to come under submission in a particular word from God.

A similar question about the inheriting of eternal life will come up in Luke 18. Again, Jesus will bring up the Ten Commandments, but in a reverse approach. The man is asked to comply with the latter half concerned with loving your neighbor. The man says he has lived by those teachings (commandments 5-9) but still feels a lack. Jesus’ next move is to point to the first half of the Ten Commandments. The first commandment says we are not to have any other gods before Him. This man had an idol or another God, and it was money. This tailoring of specific Scriptures in common situations to specific people is brilliant.

These observations of Jesus’ brilliance bring to the fore a problem. It is similar to Jesus’ use of miracles in His debates. How does one learn how to answer in this manner? How does one know what answer goes to what person? Is this another example of a divine or charismatic gift like those spoken of in I Corinthians 12 and 14?

The skill of answering questions with questions, engaging the mind of the opponent by letting them answer, the use of parables and the challenge to move from thinking to acting can be learned. What is less certain is how one can stay calm under attack and how one knows how to turn the attack to the benefit of the attacker. What is more is how does one even gain the desire to want to turn the debate to the benefit of such people?

The Proper Use of Logic and Power

In Luke 11:14: Jesus drove out a demon from a man who was mute and the man began to speak. The reaction was surprising: But some of them said, “By Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons.” Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven. No joy is expressed with the freeing of this poor demon possessed man. There was no joy over the man with the withered hand being able to work in 6:6-10, not joy in 13:10-17 when the woman crippled for 18 years was healed, or in 14:1-6 when the man with dropsy was healed in 14:1-6. This is from our point of view an odd reaction and not at all the reaction of the common people. In 13:17, the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing. As mentioned above their hearts were hard. They could only find fault by pointing to a legalistic use of the Sabbath laws in these latter four cases, but in 11:14 He had not committed even a minor infraction. So the attack became an ad-hominine attack. If you cannot attack the action or argument then attack the man.

The attack is a serious one. He was accused of being in league with the devil or basically of being a Satanist. How does one respond to such personal and vicious attacks that impugn not only our character but are blatant libel? Luke says again He knew their thoughts and began to present a detailed response to their accusation and model for us how to do the same.

He opened His argument with a saying: Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall (11:17). This little proverb is establishing what most proverbs do; call our attention to an obvious fact. Once the fact was made plain Jesus followed with a rhetorical question: If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? The rhetorical question again asks the listener to make a logical deduction after thinking on the specific truth brought to the fore by the question. Then Jesus applies these two principles in specific to His case with the statement (11:18): I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebub. He has gone from a general principle with the saying to a more specific realm with the rhetorical question to a specific application with His final statement. He has logically refuted their accusation.

He does not stop there. Instead He asks another rhetorical question and adds a comment that now brings them and their logic into question (11:19): Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your followers drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. Their disciples had done exorcisms (something that distinguished them from the Sadducees who did not believe in demons and angels) and so if He was accused of being in league with the devil because of an exorcism then so were their disciples. Jesus has shown that exorcism is done by God.

Good Pharisees believed in only two powers: the devil and God. If there was divine power then it was one or the other. Our culture sees a third source, a neutral or white magic as no doubt did most of the ancient world. However, the Old Testament taught them to stay away from necromancy, witches and those who engage in such things. Therefore, Jesus follows up with a final logical conclusion that by deduction would be the only possible answer given the Pharisees’ world view (11:20): But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you.

Then Jesus tells the Parable of the Strong Man in 11:21-22: When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils. The debate has been won but Jesus does not leave things here. His goal is not “to win” debates but to help those who hear the debate and to help He debated. The parable is rather touching in its place here and reminds us all of the proper use of power in Christian ministry: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners (4:18)….

Jesus is consistent in His use of power: it is to help and not be used to dominate other human beings. The strong man was obviously Satan and he sat safe with his spoils which were in this case part of the demon possessed man’s basic humanity: his ability to speak. Jesus overpowers Satan in the exorcism and thus restores the man’s speech. Jesus divides the spoils but does not keep them but freely gives them back to the man who had lost them. Like Abraham in Genesis 14:22-24 who refused to take any payment (part of the spoils) from his success when he defeated the raiders from Mesopotamia who had invaded Sodom, Jesus will not demand allegiance from or payment from the demon possessed man. Abraham did not attack to gain power or riches but only to deliver his nephew and Jesus did the exorcism only to free the man. However, the man is only partially freed as the subsequent words will show. All who have ever been involved with an exorcism or the freeing of an individual from drugs or alcohol know the wisdom of what Jesus does next.

He opened in 11:23 with saying: He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters. The exorcised man was free to join Jesus who according to the argument of 17-20 was a manifestation of the “finger of God” and the representative of the Kingdom of God and free to “scatter”. Jesus then warns the demon possessed man with a parable (11:24-27). When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, “I will return to the house I left.” When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. An exorcised man is free temporarily of the devil’s direct influence and oppression. An exorcism does not make a man or woman a Christian, it only frees them of their horror and restores their free will. It is then that they must choose.

The warning is clear a man freed of the devil is made clean but now needs to be refilled with the Holy Spirit. Those caught in demon possession must grab on firmly to righteousness. Those who get free from dependency on drugs, pornography or alcohol must replace that addiction with new behaviors. A good twelve step program amply and wisely teaches this.

Jesus is modeling how to handle ourselves when under direct attack on our character: stick with logic and be filled with other-centeredness. Jesus was not concerned about His reputation but focused on others (those with whom He debated and the man freed of the demon). He stayed calm, collected and brilliantly logical. He had been in the wilderness and made decisions not “to jump” and that decision freed him of the slavery of self defense. Jesus did not just want to merely defeat the Pharisees in debate. He wanted to show them why they were in error so they could logically see the mistake they were making all the while giving special attention to the man who had been freed of the demon. Jesus had decided to set free the demon possessed man but he had yet to gain a greater freedom which would entail his own decisions.

Redirecting the Attack: A Word about Signs

After Jesus had dealt with the charge of being a Satanist and had extended valuable words to the man who was freed, He turned to the issue of signs. Luke says the crowds had increased and does not tell us that He was addressing the Pharisees but rather leaves it open. However, Matthew 12:38 says it was a Pharisee and some of the Scribes. Jesus’ response to this attack is surprisingly harsher. He was personally impugned in the early criticism and His reply stayed with the issue and was extremely other-centered. This answer opens with an accusation (11:29): This is a wicked generation.

They are told that they will not be given a sign except for the sign of Jonah. Luke does not press being in the belly of the fish for three days thus guaranteeing the sign is understood as the resurrection. Luke instead goes back to the incredulity of their rejection of Him. He then defines their wickedness. He does so by first picking up the theme of His first sermon recorded in Luke (4:16-30) which ended in an explosion on this very issue. Foreigners were more perceptive than the Israelites and more responsive. He pronounces that the Ninevites and the Queen of the South would be witnesses against this generation because of their lack of a proper response. The foreign Queen had searched and the men of Nineveh repented (11:30-32). Twice He punctuates His references to these foreigners who responded to the witness of Solomon and Jonah with the phrase: and now one greater than Jonah (Solomon) is here (11:32). They had a greater witness and they did not take advantage of it.

This theme is picked up with the metaphor of the Lamp of the Body (33-36). He opens with stating the obvious function of a lamp (11:33). It is to be used to lighten a room. This is followed with the saying: Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. The metaphor is a common sense one. If we close our eyes we can see none of the world around us. If we open our eyes then we can, provided our eyes are not defective. If our eyes grow defective so does the darkness in our minds or our ability to see the physical reality that encompasses us. Of course, “eyes are the metaphor of perception” in biblical thought. Thus, if our ability to perceive spiritual reality is damaged then we cannot see God actions which might be all around us.

As harsh as this section on signs opened (with the harsh accusation) it ended in a gentle warning and an extensive interpretation/explanation of the metaphor that is often lacking in Jesus use of metaphors. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body if full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.

Jesus’ method of response to the issue of signs is a model for responding to those who ask us to prove our ministry’s validity. Jesus had decided before His ministry began to not be goaded into such proofs: Do not put the Lord your God to the test (4:12). He did not jump off the Temple mount then, and He would not now. Instead, His response to such calls is to show his attackers what they had become. Their refusal to use the information available to them had destroyed their ability to see truth. Others had (even foreigners) but the conservative leadership of the believing community of that day was blind and moved in a darkness that was self induced.

His response used some, by now, familiar aspects. He used metaphors. Two were historical ones. The historical event became a type of a truth that could be applied to the present historical situation (in this case Jonah and the men of Nineveh and Solomon and the Queen of the South). The last metaphor was a common household experience tied to a reference to the human body: lamps and our eyes.

It is clear what He is displeased with. All the metaphors go back to their refusal to recognize what is before them and the judgment that will follow. They are in the dark and He clearly lets them know that. He tries to startle them out of their slumber. Jesus uses those outside of their community as positive examples in the Jonah and Queen of the South references. He had used this approach with the story of the Good Samaritan, the statement in 7:9 when He says a Roman Centurion had greater faith than all Israel and the references to foreigners who the great prophets served that caused such a ruckus in 4:24-29. Jesus is not a nationalist or a promoter of sectarianism. It is sad that the church so often falls prey to this. To imbibe of this type of thinking is to sink to a low common denominator. It is a poor way to unite a community.

His refusal to drop away from a theme He knows is not popular is another example of how free He is from being a crowd pleaser. His freedom is demonstrated in another way: His lack of the need for revenge. This attack is a poorly thought out one. They ask for a sign and they had just seen one: the mute man was able to speak. They demand He justify His ministry, but instead He does not defensively point to all the miracles He had done, but points to the real problem which was their lack of openness. One has to be clear thinking and free of a defensiveness to focus one’s response in this way. Despite their treatment of His work He still wants them to see the light. He still warns and even tries to shame them into using their minds properly with the metaphors of Jonah and the foreign Queen. He is free of another thing but that is not apparent here as in what follows.

An Explosive Dinner: A Counter Attack.

If one is going to point out the foibles of an enemy or a political opponent it is usually done speaking to your constituency. Most preachers rail against godlessness to their congregations (or the proverbial choir). It is a safe place and a more comfortable venue to express one’s irritation and counter position. Jesus models something different for us in what follows. At first glance, what He does is incredibly bold almost bordering on rudeness, but as we look at this even longer we see something else. It all takes place at dinner in the home of a Pharisee (11:37-54). It is a formal dinner, and it includes other Pharisees and the scholars of that community.

The woman who heard Jesus speak in 11:27 was obviously impressed with Jesus’ ability to heal and His adeptness with words when He was brutally accused of being in league with Satan. Her words of praise express for Luke what no doubt many thought in the audience that day. His handling of the signs question was also a clear portrayal of a nimble mind. The Pharisee who invited Jesus might have been impressed with Jesus’ answers as they were all totally in line with Torah teaching and with references outside of the Pentateuch which the Pharisees (but not the Sadducees) regarded as canon. He might have asked Jesus to dinner for this reason as a dinner invitation was a sign of respect and communion. It could be seen as a chance to place Him in the intimidating presence of other experts in the Law, but as we watch the tone of this discussion, it does not appear that this audience was completely antagonistic.

Jesus accepts the invitation but then throws a religious grenade in the room: He does not ceremonially wash His hands. This was startling. Though the Torah did not state this type of ceremonial action was for layman it had become a standard among the Pharisees signaling at every meal their scrupulous piety. His host is surprised but what followed was more shocking. When Jesus left that dinner He had created quite an impression: the Pharisees and teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say. What had He done?

Jesus follows His eye brow raising action (which obviously was intentional) by pointing out that their rituals were a symptom of a superficial observance of the law (11:39-40): Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? Jesus is bold and making His point not with the adoring crowds but in a private dinner surrounded by the people who were the object of His attack. His boldness continued by first showing them how to be properly clean (11:41) and then by pronouncing a series of “Woes” first on the Pharisees and then on the Scribes.

This was a bold move and depending on how you wish to see it, it was courageous or rude. I think it was the former for the following reasons. He is telling them to their faces and after giving them an intellectual summary of their error (11:39-40) He shows them how to get right with God (11:41) and gives six specific instances of where their behavior had fallen short (11:42-52).

As mentioned above, the choice to use the phrase: “Woe to you” was alarming as it was the Pharisees and their scholarly companions who saw themselves as the ones normally pronouncing judgment on others. His criticism of the Pharisees focused on their practices of tithing properly but neglecting justice and the love of God (42), their addiction to social preferences (43) and that their lives actually made others impure without those associating with them knowing it (44). His remarks to the Scribes centered on their putting burdens on others but never trying to help them with it (46), their pretended honoring of the prophets while acting like their fathers who killed them (47-51) and that their leadership and teaching had blurred the way to true peace with God for themselves and hindered others who were trying to find the way (52). Their leadership had hurt the people.

By implication, doing the opposite of their actions was the way to be right with God. They were to tithe but also focus on justice and the love of God. They were to be free of demanding recognition for their devotion, to help others with the difficult tasks of following God’s will, honor the heroes of the past by listening to their direction and following it, and most of all realize that all leadership roles are predicated on serving those being led. We are to lead by example. If we enter into the gates of righteousness we help others see their way into it as well and this the highest way to deal with the issue of purity has a simple solution: help the poor. But give what is inside the dish, to the poor and everything will be clean for you (11:41).

To be fair to the Religious Right of Jesus’ day they did not get violent. They still held to the importance of words and so wanted to catch Him in something He might say indirectly. They did not send assassins and when they wanted to get rid of Him from a district they told Him Herod wanted to kill Him (13:31-35) instead of threatening to kill Him themselves. Jesus knew that and we should respect them for that. His words would continue and they would continue to try and catch Him in something He might say so they could show the crowds they were the true leaders in understanding the truth of God.

Luke continues to show us that they continued to be more interested in picky legal interpretive details than the welfare of those they led (13:10-17 and 14:1-6). They would continue to refuse to rejoice over the possible conversion or repentance of those who had made outward mistakes (15:1-2) and continue to see on a surface level instead of an attitude of the heart (17:20-21). Therefore Jesus grew in popularity as He was the opposite of their errors and so it was natural that the crowds went wild when He entered Jerusalem. The crowds began to sing praises and herald Jesus as being in a messianic mold and when the Pharisees saw it they objected (19:36-40). They directly addressed Him about the behavior of His disciples (which is different than what happened in 5:29-39) and their open confrontation is met with an open answer. He refused to restrain the singing of the crowds because He thought they were in line with reality (as His metaphor of the stones crying out inferred).

Jesus did not back down from confrontations with the Religious Right. He was bold and often aggressively brought up issues they needed to deal with. Whether it was His not washing His hands, or pronouncing forgiveness or openly praising those outside their approved lists: sinners, tax collectors or foreigners, His actions invited critique. He wanted the confrontation and used it to teach them the way home to God. He was never afraid, never defensive and never filled with hatred over their treatment of either Himself or His ministry. He did not want them damned and logically and patiently debated with them about these issues. He never used force against them and never prevented them from voicing their criticisms. He was willing to dine with them (Luke gives us three examples in chapters 7, 11 and 14) and yet did not cave in behind closed doors but continued in those situations to teach and confront. He certainly did not hate His religious detractors. He modeled for us an amazing attitude that seems beyond reach. So it seems appropriate to see if Luke shows us how Jesus obtained this attitude.

2. How to Obtain the Proper Attitude.

Jesus’ attitude toward the Religious Right is similar to the disposition underlying His confrontations with Secular Authorities and the Entrenched Religious Authorities (the Sadducees or High Priests). What was His attitude?

First, what careful scrutiny of these encounters begins to reveal is that He loved these religious leaders. Deep inside of Him is a desire to help them see the truth which He knows will save them (as well as help the people they influence). This desire to help them is so deep that He foregoes defending His actions or trying to prove Himself. He refuses to defend against their charges of His lack of piety. He is not in fear of His reputation, but worried about their eternal destiny. They will not be saved if they can be made to grudgingly admit his piety (in fasting in chapter 5), but if they can see (with their spiritual eyes) who is before them and that it is the bridegroom of their souls. He does not want to be admired, but to bless.

Second, He never fails to give them the way home to God. He never merely criticizes, but shows them where they can come into line with God. He teaches and models the right way to please God and get in line with the Torah (the Scriptures).

Third, He speaks in metaphors that they with their great learning would understand. He has deep respect for their learning and mental abilities. He does not talk down to them, but logically debates with them. They are thinkers and His approach to them is primarily in that fashion. He actively showed them respect by asking for their involvement in debates and complementing their good answers.

Fourth, He lets them engage Him, attack Him, debate with Him and question Him. He did not jump off the Temple but allowed them to come close to Him and voice their opposition without penalty.

Fifth, He knows their may be penalty, but it will be a penalty He will pay. He actively engages their attitudes and actions and therefore starts so many of the debates by His deliberate actions or words. He is not afraid of confrontation or of the results such confrontation would cause. He is very aware of the cost of such confrontation as His subtle hints of the cross imply.

In short, under attack He is approachable. Under attack, He is calm, mentally sharp, practically loving, non-defensive and without fear either of His life or His reputation. How He became this way I believe Luke has shown us. In short, it could be summarized by two things: decisions previously made and proper focus. Luke shows us these two aspects by the way he began his Gospel and by what Jesus said to His disciples. He wanted them to be like Him. They were to carry on the Gospel message but would not be able to properly do that if they did not become the message.

a. The Desert Temptations Took Place Before He Started Ministry.

The days in the wilderness, the early days of deprivation that preface Jesus’ ministry set the tone for His attitude. The famous three temptations set His mind and His attitudes through out His ministry. He will go back to these decisions in two ways. Luke goes out of his way to let us know that Jesus spent time in prayer and these prayer times seem to reconfirm His resolve (4:42, 5:16, 6:12, 9:28, 11:1, and 22:39-45). Luke gives us extensive teaching on prayer and makes 15 references to Jesus’ acts of prayer. The most famous of these times is His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and as one looks at what He said He is basically restating His commitment to His Father’s agenda and reconfirming what He decided in the desert before He began His ministry.

Just as Jesus’ amazing attitude towards how to handle both success and attack in His ministry, His amazing disposition during His passion week can be seen as based on what took place in the Garden before the arrest. Luke makes clear that His remarkable attitude towards His enemies can be traced back to the decisions He made in the wilderness before His public ministry began. His ability to never let praise or fear derail Him as it has so many in Christian work has its roots in the conflicts and decisions made in the desert.

Key choices, made before the conflict begins settle one’s attitude. The choices in the wilderness Luke says were three. In the first temptation He refuses to use His miraculous powers for Himself to assuage His hunger (4:3-4). He thus will refuse to use His miraculous power to help Himself but focuses on others.

He goes even further by wisely stating the truth in Deuteronomy: It is written, “Man does not live on bread alone.” He knows the limit of miracles. Moses did miracles but gave the people the “better bread” when he gave them the Law. Jesus will do miracles but His focus is always on teaching them the Word of God. The miracles can help their temporary hunger, illness or demon oppression but it cannot give them eternal salvation. Salvation comes from submission to God by faith. Faith comes through the hearing of the Word of God. Jesus knew the Pharisees and others needed primarily the Word of God. Therefore His focus was never on just winning the debate but also in giving them the Word of God. He had decided that before He began His ministry and that was His focus in the very first controversy with Pharisees when He pronounced forgiveness first before healing the man’s body. It showed He all along was not trying to prove that He had abilities but was concerned with what the paralyzed man needed to know about his sin and what the Pharisees needed to know about Him.

The second temptation centered on refusing to get the kingdom of this world by worshiping the Devil (4:5-8). Jesus does not want the kingdoms of this world on the Devil’s terms. He knows He has to die for the sins of the world. He is free of having to prove anything because He knows the way includes the Cross. He need not defend Himself, piety, or ministry as He is not building a kingdom in this world. He does not need a reputation, acclaim or acceptance but only to serve His Father: Worship the Lord your God and serve him only (4:8).

A marine once was discussing things with me in my office and said a startling thing. Once a man decides to commit suicide they become amazingly calm and at peace. In retrospect, the lack of conflict in their minds is over. In much more healthy fashion, we Christians are to take up our cross and are never to descend into a defensive attitude trying to protect our ministry, our reputation or our lives. We have accepted the Cross, our own cross and have confidence that God’s sovereignty will take care of the rest. Someone once said, “It is hard to kill a dead man.” If we have died to our pride and hopes of a kingdom in this world then we will not be agitated and afraid of what those who attack us can do. Our focus should be on His will and that frees us from focusing on ourselves and frees us to instead focus on the spiritual destiny of our enemies.

The third temptation began our opening discussion about handling attack. Jesus was tempted to jump off the Temple and prove His divine ministry and nature. He refused, and thus opened the door to the multiple attacks on His person, His piety, His message and the questioning of His actions. He allowed this and so should we. We are never to attempt to use our abilities or gifts to prevent critique. The gifts of God are for the people of God and all our efforts are to serve and not defend ourselves or our ministry. We can allow attack and be approached and then use such attacks and approaches to intimately and creatively teach. We decide early on to be approachable and allow critique and our prayer life constantly reaffirms our earlier resolve.

b. What He Taught the Disciples

Jesus’ attitude is illustrated by His actions through out the Gospel but in certain places we find that Jesus was deliberately teaching His disciples what that attitude should be and how to gain it. This teaching is primarily found in chapters 6, and in chapters 9-12.

The Sermon on the Plain: Chapter 6 and the end of 11.

Jesus’ first extended teaching to the disciples in the Gospel of Luke is the famous Sermon on the Plain: 6:20-49. As discussed elsewhere, this sermon has only two main concerns: how to deal with sorrow or things we fear (6:20-26) and how to deal with enemies (27-49). A key issue in the first grouping of texts is 6:22 and 26: Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man (22). Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets (26). It becomes apparent that Jesus was teaching that popular acceptance could not be the guiding issue when one spoke. You are not to fear rejection of men, but rather fear their acceptance because your popularity could mean you have compromised and left the camp of God and become a false prophet. Jesus was telling His disciples that their focus was not to be on public acceptance but rather on loyalty to the Son of Man. His loyalty was on doing the will of His Father. Jesus’ focus mirrored that of the prophets who were often terribly mistreated as their loyalty was to what God gave them to speak.

The second agenda in this extended teaching section (6:27-49) was on the proper attitude towards enemies. The main theme is summarized in the opening two verses: but I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Jesus was this message in the flesh. He did not hate His enemies but always sought their salvation and His constant reference to how they could get right with God was His attempt to love them, do good to them and bless them. His teaching contains multiple motive clauses and practical instruction on “how” to love one’s enemies. They were to practically bless their enemies by being aggressive: they were to love, lend and give to their enemies (32-35). If they were insulted (slapped) they were to turn the other cheek and if defrauded they were to let them take more (29-30). They had a goal and it was to be free of taking revenge. They were not to condemn or judge (37) but rather look at their own sins (41-42), and aggressively offer mercy (36) and forgiveness (37-38).

Jesus would do all of these things. He was certainly not passive in the controversy He was involved with; rather He aggressively tried to show them the truth. He fulfilled His own teaching (31): Do to other as you would have them do to you. It is through watching what He taught them (and modeled for them) that we gain how He had set up His own attitude. He had forgiven His enemies and He knew how to do so and why.

The motivations were extensive as well. Jesus criticized the Scribes for not lifting a finger to help those with heavy burdens (11:46) and Jesus was the opposite. He knew to ask one to forgive was a monumental challenge and so the extensive amounts of motive clauses were meant to help His disciples lift the load. He promised great reward (6:35) and they would be sons of the Most High (6:35) and would receive what they gave: mercy (6:36), freedom from condemnation (6:37) and extensive forgiveness (6:37-38). These motivations that He taught would keep his disciples from falling into error (6:39) which was the opposite of the Pharisees (11:44) and Scribes (11:52). If they forgave their enemies then their disciples would do the same (^40) and thus be free of such a burden. They would be able to help others (6:42) and leave hypocrisy (6:43-45) and would declare to the world their discipleship by their obedience (6:46). Finally, they would avoid spiritual ruin (6:47) and remain stable (6:48-49) when the storms of life hit them. He had forgiven His enemies and He did weather the storms of the attacks He endured and the humiliation and pain of His Passion Week. How He did it is by watching what He taught His disciples to do. He wanted them to be Him.

Instructions for Their Mission: chapter 9, 10.

In chapter 9:1-6 Jesus sent the disciples out on their first preaching tour. Along with the instructions to announce the Kingdom of God, He gave them the power to heal and do exorcism so as to help others (9:1 and 10:9). The power to do miracles was merely to help others and confirm their message. They were to travel light or vulnerably (9:3-6, and 10:3-7). They were to gain nothing from their serving and establish no territory or build no kingdoms. Their greatness did not consist of success but in welcoming the little ones (9:46-48) and being hidden in the heart of God (10:20). Jesus had done the same. He built no empire, gained no buildings or wealth, but helped others and did not take revenge (as they were not to, see 10:10-11). He too was hidden in the heart of God, His Name was written in heaven. His will and His Father’s were the same.

Instructions in Prayer: Chapter 11.

The Gospel of Luke has often been called the Gospel of Prayer. As mentioned above Luke records Jesus praying 15 times, and gives us extensive teaching on prayer. Jesus taught the disciples to do what He did. Jesus saw prayer as dialogue and so when He prayed He expected God to speak back. In our prayer times God will confirm things in us, awaken attitudes that have fallen asleep and change us. It is not without reason that the opening request Jesus teaches us to make when we pray is (11:2): Your kingdom come. We are to pray for His reign on earth and that would first start with us. We are to ask for forgiveness (as we give it to those who attack us) and for our daily needs but also for help in temptation. When we are attacked our prayer life can bring us back to how to handle attacks and why we should be filled with an aggressive love.

Freedom from Fear: Chapter 12

One of the repeated attitudes Jesus has is a bold aggressive approach. He associates with the wrong types (the little ones) and gets in trouble for it. He brings up disagreeable subjects and almost gets killed for it (4:16-30) and yet persists in extending such controversial grace (7:9, 10:30-35, 17:18-19). He accepts mistake-makers who bring down His reputation (5:27-30, 7:40 and 19:7) and is not afraid of what will be said of Him. He takes on cherished but misguided readings of Scripture which are held by the religious elite because they are not accurate to the Spirit of Scripture and bring about a false legalistic comfort. He angers the powerful but does not fear. He shows His disciples how to do handle fear in 12:1-12.

After confronting the Pharisees face to face in specific detail at a dinner party in 11:37-54, He acts differently when back in the safety of the crowds (12:1). He merely warns them of the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. He then turns His attention to His disciples who would have to face the same heat He engendered. They would have to deal with fear. He gives them four instructions about fear.

First, they are going to be attacked and lied about. They would have their reputations impugned and this could cause them fear. So He reminds them that in the end all would be known (12:2-3): There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. It takes faith to believe this and relax when we are slandered. It is obtained by re-focusing: focus on God’s sovereignty to bring justice in the end.

Second, they were not to fear death. One was not to fear losing one’s life because after they killed the body, they could do no more. Instead, they were to refocus on fear of God (12:5): But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Without a proper fear of God a person becomes captive to the fear of men.

Third, they were not to fear insignificance. He told them the Parable of the Sparrows to let them know that when they were attacked and they had not gained power, built buildings, acquired money, were facing persecution and never used their gifts to help themselves they would have in the world’s eyes nothing. They would be losers, insignificant. They were to focus on how God ran nature and not be captive to fear (12:6-7): Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Even the greatest rock star or politician or multi-millionaire does not have all of his hairs counted (unless, of course, he is bald).

Finally, Jesus ends with another instance of refocusing. They were to fear being disloyal to Him when persecuted. He predicts there would be temptation to disown Him (12:8-9) and their own eternal significance was at stake. Then He comforts them with the knowledge that if they make a mistake they could be forgiven. Their greatest fear was to be falling into the trap of deceit the Pharisees had fallen into. They were to be different and repent when confronted with wrongs. They were not to grieve the Holy Spirit. They were not to let the light within them become darkness. It is best to be wrong than a liar to oneself. The former can be forgiven the latter can never be.

Finally, when they came before religious and secular authorities (as He would) they were not to be defensive or worried. He would give them the words to say by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit would instruct how to speak but would not necessarily deliver them from persecution.

The Gift of the Spirit

There is another way to say all of this. We are to be like Him. Everything we are to be, He was. He has “lifted His finger” to help us in contrast to 11:46. He became man and lived among us and did not jump off the Temple but in all things suffered like ourselves. We are to watch Him and then become Him. However, as one looks at what He did in the face of attack it goes against our very nature to act in this manner. Sure it is admirable, but seemingly impossible to do. There is one more factor and it could be seen in two things. One thing He taught about prayer and one thing happened to Him. In Luke 11:13, He told His disciples: If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. Then in Luke 3:22, before He was ever attacked He received the Holy Spirit: and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

If we know to the core of our being that we are His sons or daughters and loved by Him and pleasing to Him then no attack can shake us. We are free of the worry about our reputation or even our life. We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, His Spirit. His Spirit is to descend upon us. The Spirit of Jesus is to be given and one of the fruits of it will be to be enabled (not forced) to be like Him. We will still have to choose as His story shows us that He had to reaffirm in prayer His anointing of 3:22 and struggle again in the Garden of Gethsemane. However, if we choose, then He will enable through the gift of His Holy Spirit. How one obtains it is rather simple: ask (11:13).

B. Dealing with the Entrenched Religious Authorities.

The Sadducees were also in opposition to Jesus. They saw Jesus in a negative light for some of the same reasons the Pharisees did. They too hated being called hypocrites and they certainly did not like being exposed as corrupt. They, like the Pharisees saw Jesus as a threat to their power but it took a different form. The Sadducees and High Priest saw their position guaranteed in their titles which came by birth, on their wealth and in their standing with the Roman authorities. Jesus could upset the established order of things and at that time things were quite favorably oriented in their favor. The Pharisees’ power resided in the respect their image of a disciplined piety, and a biblical and therefore respectable theological position gave them. As was seen above, Jesus was a threat to them, but for different reasons. For the Sadducees the opposition was an issue of money and power and that was closely tied to their control of the Temple.

It is not until Jesus reaches Jerusalem that Luke records Jesus had a run in with the elite and powerful Sadducees, High Priest and Elders. Whereas Jesus’ controversy with Pharisees had begun much earlier along more ideological and theological issues when Jesus forgave a man his sins which was something they believed only God could do (5:17-26). For the Sadducees the trouble with Jesus began in 19:45-48 when He drove out those who were selling things in the Temple. It was not the selling of things that brought Jesus’ condemnation but the corrupt manner in which it was done. It is written, he said to them, “My house will be a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of robbers (19:46). The exorbitant prices that were charged pilgrims who came to fulfill a life long dream of worshipping in the Temple made a mockery of the idea that they worshipped the God of justice. They were cheated in the shadow of the Temple of the God of Justice.

The Jewish people were properly proud of their faith. Power and justice were wed in their understanding of how Torah presented Yahweh. He was the one who was celebrated in the Psalms as caring for the widow and the orphan, and celebrated in Exodus as the keeper of His promise to a slave race and thus raising them to the height of the elect of God. Yahweh tore to pieces one of the greatest empires in the world to bring justice and freedom to His people in the Exodus story. They were taught to honor Him and honor one another. Pilgrims came from all over the world for a brief time to their homeland and worship the true God, the Maker of heaven and earth. He was a god worthy of worship. He was powerful, He made the worlds with just the sound of His voice, but He was also the champion of the weak. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heaven and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; He seats them with princes, with the princes of their people. He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord (Psalm 113:6-9). It was to this sacrilege that Jesus objected. To the Sadducees it was not sacrilege but money and power, and they had done it for years and did not like some unimportant rabbi stopping all of their lucrative commerce. There was a twofold response to Jesus’ actions. One the one hand, every day Jesus was teaching in the Temple and the people hung on His every word (47-48). On the other hand, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. The crowds became Jesus’ protection, and so they had to discredit Him. Luke records their efforts in three episodes: a direct challenge or attempt at intimidation, a clever trap to get Him to say something politically incorrect and a riddle to mock His belief system. All three would fail and so because of His protection from the crowd they had to use subterfuge and deal with Jesus when His protection was not around.

Direct Challenge and a Counter Challenging Parable

In 20:1-8 the chief priests, their scholars and elders approached Jesus as He was teaching in the Temple. They wanted to know what authority justified His actions. Who had given it to Him? It might have been a trap (perhaps He would make a messianic claim or a claim to deity as the rumors of His metaphors had implied) or it might have been a bold attempt to intimidate Him. He had started the trouble by cleansing the Temple, and He had earlier in His ministry thrown away a substantial protection in His refusal to use divine powers for His own benefit (He had not jumped off the Temple in Luke 4 and all that implied). Thus, He had allowed this confrontation to take place. His response to it was surprising.

He used a technique we have seen used with the Pharisees. He countered their question with a question. He asked them about John the Baptist and the source of His authority. He had brilliantly cornered them. His answer also showed that Jesus was not intimidated but bold. All their titles, all their learning and all their power did not matter to Him.

The question was a problematic one. The people, who they feared, regarded John as a prophet, and they feared the reaction their denigration of John would have. They probably realized that what Jesus had done in cleansing the Temple was in the same vein as the calls for justice John the Baptist had made. They could not state their rejection of John, despite its reality. They could not openly state what they thought.

If they said John was of God, they involved themselves in a contradiction. They had rejected John but John had witnessed to Jesus’ validity as being superior to even His God-given ministry. In fact, John saw himself as a fore-runner of Jesus’ ministry. If they said John was from God then Jesus could have appealed to John’s witness and his words as support. They found themselves in a trap. They could not say John was of men, but if they said John was of God, then why did they question the One who John bore witness to? They conferred with one another and decided not to answer Jesus’ question. It was then that Jesus refused to continue the conversation (20:8). They did not seek truth and their refusal proved their rejection of their own culture’s great intellectual tradition.

What Jesus did was an amazing display of intellectual cleverness. He had won the encounter. But as noted above He was not in the world to display His greatness but bring health to others. He knew the people were no doubt confused about the validity of their faith in part because of the corrupt leadership. Seldom do people allow themselves to articulate, even to themselves, their disgust at poor religious leadership. He also knew that the leaders were convinced that their learning and their position allowed them to do as they pleased even though, if they thought about it, it violated the very heart of their tradition. So Jesus told them a parable about an owner who rented out his land to some tenants (20:9-16). The parable not only helped the people make sense of who the leadership was but could be seen as an attempt to let His detractors see the danger they were in.

Obviously the parable portrayed the leadership as against God’s rightful authority. The parable accused them of grasping the prerogatives of God in a selfish and violent way. He equated their present actions with Israel’s sinful past when she had repeatedly rejected the prophets of God. He then predicted (and accurately) their coming judgment and destruction (20:17-18) in His quotation of Psalm 118:22. He had accused the leaders of the people of God as rejecting God. It was done in metaphor via an agricultural metaphor similar to the ones used by the prophets and a construction metaphor with heavy messianic implications. These were intelligent men and they saw clearly, as they were intended to, that the parable and its application applied to them. Their reaction was not one of repentance but rather to arrest Him immediately, but they feared the people.

Jesus had stood up for fair play and religious integrity by the cleansing of the Temple. The controversy had been brought to Him in the form of a questioning of His authority. His beginning move was to answer a question with a question. However, I do not believe He was just trying to out-maneuver them. The following parable amply proves that. He tried to reasonably dialogue with them with His counter question. They could have come to see that their previous rejection of John, something in their past, had blinded them to the presence of the Messiah and the hope of their nation (which they were the supposed guardians of). Had they squared with their rejection of John, it would have been the beginning of their healing. Jesus is demonstrating for us that if we can help people see where they started down the wrong path, they can undo the trajectory they were on.

Jesus was implying that a logical procedure was necessary. If they started with correcting their response to John, then they could logically see what Jesus was doing. His ministry was a continuation of the reformation that John had tried to bring. It had started with the people of the land (and thus their attraction to Jesus) but could be extended to the leadership and their whole handling of public worship.

Jesus also used metaphors. They were carefully chosen, and they all had their roots in the tradition of the people He was dealing with. He knew Scripture well and what it meant. Scripture was a revelation of the will of God, and they knew its rejection would trigger their own destruction as a nation. Isaiah had told a “vineyard” parable and because it had been disregarded the nation was sacked. Jesus now told a “vineyard” parable and added that the rejection was primarily caused by the present leadership, and it would result in another national disaster. The disaster would be predicated by their removal. They picked up on this as their response indicated: May it never be (20:16).

Jesus was teaching us another rather subtle truth about controversy with powerful people. We are vulnerable when we decide not to “jump off the Temple”. However, the gifts of God are for the people of God. Miracles are not to be done for our protection but for the benefit of those in need. If we are to be like Him we are to move in that type of vulnerability, even when we contest those who could harm and destroy us. We are to play by Jesus’ rules and risk our own destruction and death. Second, fear is not to control us. That lack of fear can allow us to be bold, intelligent and spiritually insightful into the needs of our opponents and the needs of those our opponents have misled. When we are not afraid of our own lives we are free to focus on the lives of others. Third, we may be temporarily protected by the presence of the adoring crowds, and we can use it to our advantage for a while. However, two things must be kept in mind: it is temporary and we are not to use their well being for ourselves. Jesus would never send the crowds against the Romans or get the crowd incited to violence to get what He wanted. Jesus loved the crowds and would not use them.

A Clever Trap about Coins and a Coy Response

The second attempt to counter Jesus’ influence came in the form of a trap. They knew He was loved and therefore protected by the people, so the trap they laid out was to bring Jesus into the hands of the secular authorities: the Romans. They carefully watched Jesus and sent in people to pretend to be honest and sincere. The episode of 20:20-26 bristles with irony. First, religious leaders send people to lie: Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor (20:20). The trap they set was to see how Jesus would respond to the tricky issue of paying taxes to an oppressive government that the people who loved Jesus hated. If Jesus responded that one should pay taxes that could compromise His protection by alienating the masses. If He should say that they should not pay taxes then they could run Him in on charges of treason and have Pilate deal with the popular teacher. Pilate had already used force and so was not above quickly stopping what he perceived was anti-Roman activity (see 13:1).

Jesus’ response to the trap was prefaced with a bold ironic statement: Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. It was not that their culture did not deeply respect those who loved truth (their sacred texts were immersed in it) and obviously they were not ignorant of what was right. Jesus had shown no partiality to the rich or powerful but served Gentiles, sick, poor and sinners all with graciousness. They were articulating the very opposite of what they were. The irony was astounding.

The irony continued, their goal was to get a Torah teacher killed by the very people they were supposed to oppose. Ironically, they wanted Jesus to be killed by their nation’s common adversary. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is not a Jewish proverb.

Jesus’ answer to their trap partook of several elements. First, He opened with a demand followed by a question. He asked them to bring forth a coin and then asked whose inscription was on it. He, like in the episode above involved them in the answer with His counter question. They were forced by the question to be part of His answer. Second, He followed with an aphorism or a little parabolic statement: Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s (20:25). Third, since the parable was a metaphor, it forced them to interpret and figure out for themselves the answer by interpreting the metaphor. The skill to use metaphor might be a tough one to acquire for those of us who are not used to using them in our modern culture. Also, it takes respect for your audience to speak in metaphors and credit them with the intelligence to figure things out. Fourth, in essence, Jesus was dodging the answer. He avoided giving an answer to the complete response one should have towards Roman occupation. There was not much spiritually that could be gained from this that could lead one to a deeper walk with God. All it led to was admiration and that had always proved rather worthless to spiritual progress. Admiration did not bring change of action or attitude. They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent (20:26).

They had not sought for truth and they did not take much away from the encounter. It was a witty answer, and they were impressed and rightly so. It kept Jesus from being arrested, but it did not help them come to God. The problem was that those present that day were steeped in treachery and the aphorism given about the coin stopped their treachery, but it did not help them come out of it. They were still in rejection of the chief cornerstone and everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed (20:18). It is hard to teach a willing student, but Jesus still kept trying as the next controversy reveals.

Resurrection and Marriage

The next encounter was an attempt to under mine His doctrine. The Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection in opposition to the Pharisees. Jesus clearly sided with the Pharisees in this issue as His parable about the rich man and Lazarus showed. The Sadducees now took their turn at metaphor and told a hypothetical story about a woman who married legitimately (according to Leverite rules in the Torah) several times before her death without giving birth to a child. The question of whose wife she would be in the afterlife was intended to reduce a belief in the resurrection to a logical absurdity (20:27-33).

Jesus’ answer was a remarkable one, first for its logical nature and second for its appeal, again, through metaphor to the center of the Sadducees’ canon. He does not shy aware from their riddle. He is not afraid to engage them. He first defines some key terms before He logically deduces His answer. He defines eternal life as not open to all, but only to those considered worthy of taking part in “that age”. Also, there will be no marriage in the afterlife. This is logically shown to be true as the purpose of marriage is to continue life through having children and in the after life there is no death (they are like the angels) and so no need of either marriage or children. To see marriage primarily in the context of procreation was a very Jewish approach quite in line with their deep and laudable family values. He then calls those resurrected: “God’s children”. hey are children of the resurrection. The afterlife would be an intensely personal existence as God’s own children.

The second part of Jesus’ response was to again quote the Old Testament, but this time not from the Prophets or the Psalms but from the only part the Sadducees regarded as canon: the Pentateuch. He took them to the famous call of Moses in Exodus 3. There God refers to Himself as the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (20:37). A careful reading of Pentateuch, especially of Deuteronomy with its strong anti-death cult regulations and proscriptions against touching the dead or dealing with necromancy and the strong defiling nature of death would validate Jesus’ next statement. He is not the god of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive (20:39). Since God is the God of the living, and He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then they must be still alive or resurrected.

Again, Jesus has spoken logically but with metaphor. They are again invited to fill in the gaps which they are capable of doing. His answer was well received by some, for some of the teachers of the law responded with praise: Well said, teacher!

C. Dealing with Secular, Governmental Authorities.

Jesus is arrested and held (and abused by three sets of guards in Luke’s account). In 22:63-65 He is mocked, beat, taunted while blindfolded and asked to prophesy as to who had hit Him. Luke says they said many other insulting things. Their mockery mimicked who they worked for. They were temple guards and so saw someone in their hands and under their power that others had held as an exalted prophet. In 23:11 we are told that Herod’s soldiers ridiculed and mocked Him, dressing Him up in an elegant robe sp as to mock His supposed regal status. They work for a governmental official and were perhaps despised for that. Now they have someone in their power that was sent to them from Pilate as “King of the Jews”, as the king of those who despised them. Understandably, in 23:36-37 He was mocked by Pilate’s Roman soldiers while on the cross, given vinegar (not wine as befitted royalty) and taunted with the words: If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself. They reflect their employment and had seen the charge of treason against their government: There was a written notice above him, which read: This is the King of the Jews (23:36). They were Romans and no doubt knew of their employers’ nervousness about a possible Jewish revolt.

All three groups of soldiers were all poorly paid, lived under harsh conditions and no doubt had little self respect. Now they briefly had “one of them”, one who others had looked up to and respected and who was now in their power. In all three cases Jesus response was silence to their verbal and physical abuse. He took it (He allowed it) and was silent. He experienced what so many in the world experience. He did not complain, did not ask for mercy nor did He cower. He was silent. He bore it.

There were others who mocked. Herod himself, as a judge, who should have been above such things ridiculed Jesus (23:11). Herod had wanted to see Jesus for quite a long time (9:9) but it was Herod who had already closed off his heart to the things of God and had beheaded John. Jesus’ answer when they finally met was silence. In 23:35 the rulers sneered at Him and said: He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One. Jesus gives no answer.

Finally, in 23:39 a non-governmental person, a fellow prisoner, hurls abuse at Jesus: Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us? One of the thieves crucified with Jesus who uttered their words was to receive the same answer that Herod and the rulers were to obtain: they are given no response, only silence.

Jesus’ silence was also the response in the face of rabid accusation. In 23:1, 23: 5, 23:10 and 21, 23 the religious leaders vented their frustration and anger. In 23:1 they falsely accused Him of treason before the Roman judge (which was not the charge before the Sanhedrin). When Pilate did not give them the answer they wanted in 23:4 (declaring Him innocent), then they said he was a disturber of the peace in 23:5. In 23:10 they were vehement in their accusations but Luke does not give the content of their accusations. In 23:21 they called for His crucifixion and despite Pilate’s plea for reasons for their accusations they refuse to logically and legally answer but continue their demands for His death. In all four cases Jesus was silent. He seemingly would not dignify their actions with a response. He was clearly not afraid and in other settings quite willing to speak, but not to such irrationality. His silence was chosen.

He gave answers to the Sanhedrin questioning but did complain of their lack of a fair exchange and refusal to answer counter questions (which they should have done in a fair trial) in 22:66-67. When He answered their question about His claim to be the Son of God, instead of asking follow up and qualifying questions which such a phrase in their cultural would necessitate as it had several meanings they quickly jumped to a cry of blasphemy (22:70-71). When they chose to leap into closed minded irrationality, it was then that He became silent. However, when Pilate asked legitimate questions in 23:3 a fruitful discussion took place as all four Gospels in various ways recount. He also spoke at some length to the women who wept as He carried the cross (23:27-31), Luke says He spoke on the cross and forgave His persecutors (23:34), and He spoke to the other thief who was crucified with Him (23:43).
In His trial He modeled for us a clear pattern. Answer legitimate and honest questions, but remain silent when statements are irrational and full of ridicule. To those who were in the vicinity of His crucifixion and witnessed His response, He displayed a freedom from anger, resentment, or inferior feelings. He was not preoccupied with His own suffering. He was completely other centered in His concern for the women who wept as He carried the cross: Daughter of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will, `Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breast that never nursed!’ Then they will say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry? (23:28-31) He knew the eternal danger of those who killed Him because they were killing God. Therefore, He pronounced forgiveness on those who crucified Him correctly expressing the fact that they had no idea what they were doing (23:34). Finally, He accepted and comforted the other thief who confessed his sin and asked for help: I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise (23:43).

He would speak only one more time in the presence of the governmental and secular authorities: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (23:46). This statement takes us deep into Jesus’ attitude towards His humiliation, unfair trial, pain and death. He did not see the people who attacked Him as the issue, but His Father’s will as the overriding motivation. He had placed Himself in God’s hands and so all else was swept under that decision. There was no need for recrimination, anger, hatred or revenge. All was well.

If we can get to 23:46 then we will have come to the pinnacle of spiritual understanding. Then we will know why He did not jump off the Temple in 4:12. We will understand why He prayed in the Garden: Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done (22:42). We will understand why He did not use His power or others to protect Himself, why He was willing to drink the cup of suffering and why He was silent when He was taunted to come down from the Cross. He stayed up there because long ago (and it was confirmed in the Garden and all through the controversies) He had decided to not jump. He understood that certain things had to be accepted and that acceptance was a demonstration of His trust in His Father.

A prelude of the coming church was given to us by Luke in the statement of another soldier who witnessed the final words and subsequent death on the Cross. This time, this soldier did not mock Him or ridicule Him, but had his eyes opened. The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man” (23:47). Maybe only watching someone take it, and take it in such a calm and powerfully peaceful and confident manner opens the eyes of people to what is truly right. This soldier did not respond to preaching, or impressive argumentation, Jesus’ power to heal, His degrees, publications or social standing. He responded to suffering that was handled well.

Three days later Jesus walked along a road in disguise and struck up a conversation with two disciples. Subtly at first, then He directly showed them why He did not jump off the Temple three years earlier. He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” (24:25-26). The choice to bear suffering was necessary. Luke emphasizes this in the last two verses of His Gospel. The final understanding of Jesus’ suffering was not just pain borne well, but it was to end in glory. Then they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God (24:52-53). It was in the very Temple He would not jump from that became the place where His subsequent disciples worshipped and praised God with great joy. They awaited something; they awaited the birth of the church.