Read
Matthew
22
The Pharisees and their sometimes
rival, the Sadducees, ca me at Jesus in tandem hoping to bring him down. How?
They will expose something that makes him unqualified to be a prophet or
even the Messiah. These are smart men
who have studied all of their adult lives.
They knew more than the scriptures. They had a political savvy about them. These were men who were concerned that this
Jesus was cutting into their status. He
already said that the
tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of them.
If that were not enough, the people
believed that Jesus
taught with authority, not the way their teachers did. They had to put Jesus down for the
count. The only other alternative was to
kill him and they couldn’t even arrest him as the people would not stand
for it, at least in broad daylight.
The Pharisees would take the first
crack at Jesus. They sent some of their disciples
to question Jesus. Let me put this in
military terms. This was not the captain
saying: Follow me! This was the officer saying go get him
and let me know how it goes.
These disciples were accompanied by
some Herodians. These Herodians were proselytized
Greeks who were politically aligned with Herod.
Why bring these Hellenistic Jews who were more secular than
religious? That will reveal itself in
the question asked Jesus.
While on another day, the questions
asked might have truly been to gain understanding, on this day, we are told the
religious hypocrites wanted to trap Jesus.
The Pharisees went to bat first.
“Teacher,” they said, “we know that
you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with
the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who
they are. Tell us then, what is your
opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”
Feigned sincerity preceded the
question. It is a good tactic for someone
trying to gain your trust before giving you the velvet knife, but the question
carried enough consequences without the pretense of desiring understanding.
Is it lawful to pay tax to Caesar? Tax to Herod or the temple tax were not
included in the question. The people
probably didn’t like any taxes but the tax to Caesar was especially heinous to
them and surely would put Jesus on the spot.
If Jesus said yes to the
question, he would be acknowledging the authority of one who had declared himself a god. That dog don’t hunt.
If he said no to the question,
he would be on record before many witnesses, some of them—Herodians—less concerned
about the theology but only present to offer a report to Rome and other
political authorities. Surely that would
bolster their own standing and bring this Jesus matter to a quick close if he
told the crowd not to pay taxes to Caesar.
You know the rest of the story. Jesus asked for a coin used to pay the
tax. He was given a denarius.
Jesus asked the Pharisees, surely with
the crowd playing along, whose picture is on the coin? Whose inscription is on it?
They all replied Caesar’s.
Jesus replied, “Render unto Caesar
that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.”
Everyone was amazed. The disciples of the Pharisees went
away. They had to regroup.
The day continued with another
religious group—the Sadducees. They came to trick Jesus with a special
question. The Sadducees did not believe
in the resurrection. There is a
universal law that says that every preacher must follow that statement—they did
not believe in the resurrection—with this statement. That is why they are sad you see.
The Sadducees noted what Moses had
said about a woman who dies without giving her husband a child. His brother must give her a child. This happens, and one brother takes her to
give her a child but he dies.
There were 7 brothers in all and each
one took her and did not give her a child but died. You have seen the movie, Seven Brides for
Seven Brothers, but you didn’t see One Bride for Seven Brothers.
At some point—brother 3 or 4—someone should
have let everyone else know not to take this woman as a wife and try to give
her a child. It’s fatal. It’s sort of like the new medication advertisement. It might bring sinus relief but you have to
listen to 90 seconds worth of side effects, including blood clotting, stroke,
seizures, and death.
But this isn’t about how lethal this
woman was.
The question is at the resurrection, whose
wife will she be?
Now that’s a good question. Some thought went into that question. I don’t think it was the first time they
asked that question.
I think that every time the Pharisees
went one up on the Sadducees, the Sadducees would whip out this question which
surely the Pharisees could give not answer.
I think the Sadducees had played the 7
brothers card before.
Jesus knew that the Sadducees did not
believe in the resurrection. They didn’t
have to tell him. That made it easy for
Jesus to say, you’re just wrong.
You don’t know the scriptures.
You don’t know the power of God.
Jesus went on to say that there is no
marriage in the resurrection. We won’t
be angels, but we will be like them.
Then comes the kicker.
But about the resurrection of the
dead—have you not read what God said to you, “I am the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the
living.”
The crowds heard this and were
astonished. We don’t know where the Sadducees
went but the word of Jesus silencing the Sadducees spread quickly.
The Pharisees huddled again—a huddle
of hypocrites. They didn’t send the
trainees this time. They sent one of
their experts in the law to test Jesus.
You know his question.
“Teacher, which is the greatest
commandment in the Law?”
This was an excellent question that
had no deviousness about it. The
Pharisee might have hoped he could stump Jesus, but the people surely would
like to know the answer to this question.
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ‘This is
the first and greatest commandment.
Surely the expert in the law was
expecting one commandment for one question, but Jesus would answer as he
answered not restricted by the expert.
And the second is like it: ‘Love your
neighbor as yourself.
Jesus didn’t stop there. He continued
his response to this one question.
All the Law and the Prophets hang on
these two commandments.”
By the end of these encounters that
conclude in the next section, the scripture said that no one dared to ask him
any more questions. By no one, that did
not include the disciples. It meant no
one would publicly try to test Jesus like this again. He really did speak as one with authority.
Other than being three interesting encounters
between Jesus and those religious hypocrites who would try to best him, what’s
in it for us?
None of us walk around wearing
phylacteries, but we are all susceptible to becoming hypocrites. In the next chapter, Jesus chastised the Pharisees
in many ways, but this
comes to mind as we consider these scriptures in the present chapter.
You strain out a gnat but swallow a
camel.
How often do we become so myopic in
our interpretation of God’s word that we get wrapped up in the things of this
world and miss the redemptive work of Christ?
How
often do we become so myopic in our interpretation of God’s word that we forget he is God of the living?
How often do we become so myopic in
our interpretation of God’s word that we lose sight of our command
to love one another?
Do we look at God’s word and see his
guidance and his sustenance and his fulness that should enrich us, or do we
look to see what aligns itself with what we believe?
Are we confronting Jesus? Are we trying to make his
words fit our comfort zone?
Are we becoming Pharisees? It is a legitimate question.
Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
We need to get
in step with him and not our own comfort zone. Don’t defend your comfort zone. Let Jesus move your boundaries every
day. Don’t defend doctrine and dogma
when the
Spirit of God himself will lead you in the truth.
Let’s put it in simple terms. If you find yourself in conflict with Jesus
or his word, you are on the wrong side of the argument. It’s just that simple.
How many have traded in their
teachable spirit for what they know and are comfortable with now? I call it
requirement freeze. At some point in
business, you have to stop adding new stuff to your new device, freeze the
requirements and build the thing. It's called requirements freeze and is essential to take the theoretical to production.
Sometimes, we don’t want to learn anymore. We just want to solidify what we
know, close the book, anchor ourselves to our comfort zone, and just be done
with learning. We want to have a requirements freeze as well, but as long as we walk this earth, we have more to learn.
We
have more to
learn not to
prove.
We should come to know God’s word to
be qualified
workmen not experts in our own eyes.
So as we continue into 2021, let’s love
mercy, be generous
towards God, have Christ
as the cornerstone in our lives and be ready to learn from him, not relying upon our
own understanding.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and
today and forever.
We are to learn from him and be more
like him every day. We have more
to learn not to prove.
Amen.
