Playing the crowd

 This week's verses are Matthew 21:23-27:

Now after Jesus entered the temple courts, the chief priests and elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus answered them, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Where did John’s baptism come from? From heaven or from people?” They discussed this among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From people,’ we fear the crowd, for they all consider John to be a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Then he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

The priests and elders were trying to protect their cheese, but Jesus uses it as an opportunity to challenge them. They are caught in their own trap and we are given a strict lesson as a result.

Imagine you're a pastor, and some guy shows up in your parking lot and sets up a tent meeting. He's preaching a bunch of weird stuff, some of which makes you look bad. Wouldn't you want to find out what's going on? Wouldn't you secretly hope to find some excuse to call the cops and make him leave? That's where the priests and elders were likely coming from. "Who is this guy, what is he doing, and why does he have to do it here?"

Jesus' counter-demand cuts to the heart. He is basically asking them, "have you been paying attention at all?" John's baptisms were the warning shot for all mankind. He proclaimed the arrival of Jesus and repentance from sin. Everyone knew who John was and why he was there. If they had been paying attention, they would have known the correct answer.

The chief priests and elders would have been especially qualified to answer the question correctly. They had access to the holy scriptures. They had been schooled in Bible history. They had access to the temple and should have had a well-established prayer life. If they were paying attention, and were doing their jobs as intermediaries between God and the unwashed masses, they would have tracked down the truth and had it ready to share when asked.

Instead, they fumbled badly. Instead of looking at John and Jesus in terms of what God was doing on earth, which should have been their priority, they looked at it in terms of how they would look. Their real priority was not God's truth and the faithful execution of their duties as priests. Their priority was to gain power and live in comfort.

You can see it in their deliberations. If they admit that John was sent from God, they lose their reputation as experts in all things religious, because they didn't get behind it or do what he warned them to do. But if they say John was not sent from God, when everyone knew he was, there would be an uprising when people realized their devotion was a fraud. So, in cowardice, they refused to take a position.

What's worse is they asked the wrong question. They wanted to know who gave Jesus authority, when Jesus was the authority. God isn't God because of the outcome of a vote or having the right connections. God is simply God, and if your only job in this world is to serve him, you should know him when you see him.  So, naturally Jesus refuses to indulge their question.

But we are often just like these chief priests and elders in how we answer those who ask us about our faith. Do we dig deep to understand what God is doing in the world? Do we have reasons for our faith that we are willing to share, even if they make us look bad? Are we doing our jobs as priests? 

More often we try to play both sides of the issue so that we don't need to take a stand. We talk about our faith like it is just one of many "faith traditions" of equal value. We downplay our involvement in church when telling colleagues about our weekend. We don't directly admit to being Christians. When someone asks us a question about it, inside of us there is that hurried board meeting of elders and priests, trying to figure out just the right answer that makes us look good but also lets us pivot if we get it wrong.

But Jesus calls us to know him and to represent him to others. We have to get the answer right. Whether it's a colleague's question at work or finding ourselves in tough life circumstances that require us to live out the correct response, we have to know the truth and be confident in following it.

Much like the priests, we have everything we need. We have the full scriptures, translated into our native language, even simplified for easy reading, even audio versions where someone reads it to us. We have decades of sermons online, free Bible courses, and books containing several lifetimes of Christian experiences. We have the freedom to study, access to limitless resources, and unprecedented amounts of free time. How are we not the best Christians in the history of mankind? The same reason the priests weren't: It's not our top priority, and we don't want to lose our comfort and power.

But do we want to find ourselves like the priests did? They had become evil even in doing good. Their faith was weak and duplicitous. Jesus refused to indulge them, even though they were the highest ranking religious people around. What could be worse than being snubbed by God in front of everybody?

Advent has been flying by, this year. We have one more Sunday left before we come slamming into Christmas. Are you ready to encounter Jesus? Are you ready if that encounter comes with a difficult question? You still have time to change direction and realign your priorities. Don't worry about the crowds or what people will think of your choices. Only think about Jesus and the response he wants from you.