Then, with the crowds listening, he turned to his disciples and said, “Beware of these teachers of religious law! For they like to parade around in flowing robes and love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces. And how they love the seats of honor in the synagogues and the head table at banquets. Yet they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property and then pretend to be pious by making long prayers in public. Because of this, they will be severely punished.” (Luke 20:45-47)The religious leaders had just tried to trick Jesus. And, of course, it didn’t work. Jesus threw their arguments back in their faces and asked them an even harder question. Then he turned to the people around him and began talking about these men.
He didn’t say these things in a quiet voice. He didn’t take the crowds aside and whisper to them so he wouldn’t hurt the religious leaders’ feelings. He just said it out loud: these men are dishonest and fake.
It made the people about whom he was talking really mad. And ultimately they killed him.
But the thing is, he didn’t care that they got mad when he said bad things about them. The Son of God didn’t really care that he hurt their feelings or made them look foolish in front of everybody. It did not bother him, nor did he temper what he said. They responded by killing him.
They didn’t kill Jesus because they didn’t like the way he dressed or what he did. They killed him because he insisted on doing the will of God differently than what he wanted and he didn’t care who knew it.
If Jesus had come and asked their opinion, gotten their stamp of approval, everything would have been fine. They would have given him good counsel, they would have shown him the best way to go about it, the best things to say, the best place to buy his special robes, all that. They would have liked him if he had come with their approval.
But instead he came with the stamp of God’s approval on him, not theirs. He came in the power of the Spirit, not in the power of the church.
And the religious leaders couldn’t stand that. They couldn’t stand being bypassed, especially by
someone they considered of inferior intelligence and education.
What does that say to us today? It says that those around us are not going to like what we do because they didn’t like what Jesus did. And we are followers of Jesus. If they didn’t like him, they are not going to like us.
It also says that we need to say what we need to say and tell people what we need to tell them. if we don’t, we and they will die.
Jesus didn’t care what anyone thought. He did what he needed to do. And he knew that God was on his side.
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