Jesus has been talking with his disciples, and as we saw in the previous post, he gives them a warning. If the world loves them, it could be a bad thing. What Jesus meant is that his disciples might be nominal, “in name only,” saying they are his followers, but actually not living like he lived. Jesus’ way of life brought him into conflict with the religious elite, because he called them to account for their hypocrisy. Jesus is warning his disciples that the same conflict withe religious elite will likely happen to them when they live like he did.
I wonder if the disciples were sitting there wondering if he is talking about any of them. Are any of them disciples in name only? There was at least one, right? Just a few moments earlier he had shocked them by declaring that Judas was going to betray him (see post here). My guess is that most, if not all of them, had a feeling Judas was a nominal disciple. But when Jesus said that Peter was going to deny him three times before morning, that might have been a shocker. Jesus had previously said that Peter was the rock! If bold, passionate Peter was going to deny Jesus, who else would Jesus reveal to be a nominal Christian?
If that is what they are thinking, he has some assurance for them in the rest of verse 19, “You do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
Well, ok, then. So on the one hand he assures them that they are truly his followers, including Peter who was still there, who had yet to deny him three times. That had to be reassuring. Especially when he affirms that he chose them. But on the other hand, Jesus confirms that the world hates them. And in verse 20, he gets even more intense.
“Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”
There’s a bit of whiplash here from Jesus as he gives the disciples conflicting “if” statements. If they persecute me, they’ll do the same to you. If they obey me, they’ll obey you. Jesus’ point is to assure the disciple that they are currently in line with Jesus. They are not nominal disciples. But because they are his true followers, they can expect to get the same treatment as he did, which is sometimes awful, sometimes good.
If people treat Jesus’ followers poorly, why do they do so? It is interesting to think about how a movement based on love, grace and truth could receive pushback. You would think that a movement of love, grace and truth would be extremely attractive. But Jesus is right, again, if we think about how Christians have been mistreated over the centuries.
Of course, a significant portion of mistreatment of Christians is because Christians behaved in ways that are unlike Jesus. But that’s not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is saying that his followers just might be persecuted precisely because they are living the loving Kingdom way that he himself lived. Why does the loving Kingdom life attract persecution? Look at verse 21.
“They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.”
No doubt, Jesus is attuned to a complex reality. The religious leaders of his day, though they claimed to know God, actually didn’t. The religious leaders were exceedingly religious, performing all sorts of rituals and following a plethora of laws. But they missed the heart of God. In fact, their allegiance to their religion was motivated by their greedy hearts. They wanted to remain in power, to have control, to have access to wealth and privilege.
That greed meant they could not accept Jesus. Jesus said that the religious elite were wrong, missing the heart of the father. To accept Jesus they would have to accept his teaching, his way of life, and that would mean they would have to change their way of life, their beliefs. They couldn’t lower themselves. So they had to persecute and eliminate him. Jesus tells his disciples to expect the same treatment from those who are not his followers.
Notice how he wraps up this teaching in verses 22-25:
“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’”
You can almost hear the sadness in Jesus’ voice. He fulfilled the mission the Father gave him. Teach the truth. Do the miracles. Make the way of the Kingdom abundantly clear. Jesus did that repeatedly. His life was a pleading to the people to know the truth about God.
Of course, many did hear his teaching, see his miracles, and choose to give their lives to follow him. After he was crucified and resurrected, and after he ascended back to heaven, we read in Acts 1:14-15 that there are 120 followers. Among that number were at least a couple religious leaders. Nicodemus. Joseph of Arimathea.
But Jesus’ point here is to say that the people of the world, the people who willfully chose not to follow him and his ways, and my guess is that he primarily has the religious power-holders in view here, those people have no excuse. They had every opportunity to choose to follow him. But they refused.
Jesus refers to the Old Testament to support his point. He quotes a line that appears in at least two of the psalms. “They hated me without reason.” Psalm 35 and Psalm 69 both include the line, and of the two Psalm 69 is quite messianic. Read it and notice how many times it seems like it is talking about events in Jesus’ life, yet it was written a thousand years before him.
How about you and me? Will we choose to follow Jesus, even if it puts us in conflict with religious power-holders? Will we choose to follow the heart and way of Jesus even if it is risky?
Photo by John Noonan on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 