Engaging Scripture

Do you hurt from the pain of betrayal or denial?

Have you ever been betrayed? Has a friend ever denied your relationship? It hurts, doesn’t it? I want you to think about a time that you were betrayed. Maybe you invested a lot of time into a child or grandchild, and they turned away. Maybe it was a friend who you thought was so close, but then you didn’t get invited to their party. I think about people who I have invested in, who have gone away. It can hurt.

Betrayal and Denial cut very deep. And when we get hurt like that, we think we would never do that to them.

In the Old Testament God had been hurt bad by the nation of Israel. He used the imagery of an unfaithful spouse. So to show the nation how bad God hurt, he had the prophet Hosea marry a prostitute, a women who he knew would be unfaithful. Imagine that. It was painful for Hosea, just as Israel’s betrayal and denial had been painful for God.

This coming Sunday at Faith Church, as we continue through the story of Jesus’ life, Jesus will be betrayed. Denied. Who will be guilty this time? You? Me?

We invite you to join us at Faith Church on Sunday May 15 as we look at Luke 22:47-62.

What to do when you don’t want to do what God is asking you to do

Jesus did not want to do what God wanted him to do.

Does that surprise you?

After 33 years of life and ministry, Jesus is on the cusp of the crowning achievement of his mission. He was going to be named “King”, but the crown wasn’t going to be so glorious. In fact, the actual crown in his crowning achievement was an apt metaphor, as it was a crown of thorns. Pain. Suffering. The weight of the world on him. Added to the physical pain, he was also going to endure betrayal and denial from his closest friends. Loneliness. Agony of all kinds. And finally, he would die.

Imagine how he must have felt as he was just hours away from experiencing all that.

He felt like just about all of us would feel, that he didn’t want to go through with it. Would you want to give yourself over to unimaginable suffering? I wouldn’t.

So Jesus prays a prayer that makes a lot of sense to me: “Father, if it is possible, take this from me.”

Many of us can identify with that because we pray that exact same prayer ourselves, and we pray it often, maybe every time we are going through some kind of hard time. Jesus is in a pickle. God is asking him to complete the mission for which he was born. But the completion will require sacrificing himself, and all the pain associated with being beaten and killed. Jesus wants to obey God, but he doesn’t want to have to experience all that pain.

I’ll admit that at this juncture, I’m asking the same question as Jesus, “Lord, is there no other way?” Did Jesus have to go through that? Did he have to die? People have been asking that question for centuries. It seems like a strange way to save the world. So if that question is leaving you scratching your head, I urge you to read Hebrews 8-10, as much is said there, and more eloquently, than I will endeavor here.

Instead I want to focus on what Jesus chose to do while faced with a task that God had given him, a task that he didn’t want to do. You and I are faced with many such tasks, though much less consequential ones, and we can feel the strain, the weight, the stress of wanting to obey God, but also of not wanting to obey him at the same time. If obedience to God means that we will likely have to endure pain, change, give up something, or do something that we are uncomfortable with, we usually don’t want to do it. And we pray “Lord, is there no other way?” Or we simply procrastinate, or avoid. We delay, seeking escape.

Let me ask you this: at what point does delay become disobedience?

Jesus didn’t delay. While he did tell the Lord his true feelings, that he didn’t want to go through with the crucifixion, take a look at his approach. He says, “Is there any other way?” He doesn’t say “I’m not doing this.” He doesn’t procrastinate, to make it look like he will obey, but then not do anything. What he does is remain up front with God by asking if there is another way. We can learn from Jesus’ approach. We can be honest with God and ask if there are other ways. God may choose to say “Ok, yeah, there are other options.”

When God said that he was going destroy Israel and start over with Moses, Moses prayed “Is there any other way?”, and God said “Yeah, Moses, good point…I’ll give Israel a second chance.” When God said that Hezekiah was going to die, Hezekiah prayed, and God said “Okay, Hezekiah, I hear you, and I’ll give you 15 more years.”

It is okay, when you don’t want to do what God wants you to do, to ask God for another way.

But there is something more. Jesus also prays, “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” That is an intense prayer. A dangerous prayer. It is not just tacking an empty or perfunctory “Lord-willing” at the end of the prayer. It is a description of a heart, mind, and will that is submitted to the Lord. Jesus, though he didn’t want to go through with the completion of his mission, was still willing to do so!

Though he knew that it would be severe and painful, he was still willing to go through with it because God wanted him to. Jesus placed his life in God’s hands and is basically saying, “Lord, you know best. Though this thing you are asking me to do sounds crazy, and though it will hurt like crazy, I trust that you not only have my best interest in mind, but you also have the best interest in the world in mind, and you love us. So…since you will it, I will do it.”

When God wants us to do something we don’t want to do, we can pray for another way, but we must also pray that we are willing to do what God wants us to do.

So what is God asking you to do that you don’t want to do?

In what ways is God asking you to change that you don’t want to?

Are you sensing that he wants you to start something? Stop something?

On Silent Sunday this past week at Faith Church we gave people an opportunity to physically express their desire to the Lord, saying to him that though it might be hard, they still want do his will. We placed a large vase on a table in the front of sanctuary, and around the vase, we placed small cups of colored sand. We broke the silence by praying the Lord’s Prayer together, which talks about God’s will being done, and then we sang Oceans, during which people could walk forward and prayerfully pick up a cup of sand and pour it into the vase, an act of saying to God “I give _________ to you, so that not my will, but yours will be done.”

Again, what is God asking you to do that you don’t want to do? Will you pray like Jesus prayed? And then will you do what Jesus did, which was to do what God wanted?

Why our worship will be silent this Sunday at Faith Church – May 8, 2016

A few years ago we started holding Silent Sunday around the time the Christian Church world-wide observes Jesus’ Ascension. We’re told in the earliest historical account of the first followers of Jesus, the Book of Acts, in chapter 1, that after Jesus ascended to heaven, the very first act his followers decided to do was pray.

Our best calculations put about ten days between the Ascension and the day of Pentecost, and we read in Acts 1:14 that during that those ten days “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”

Influenced by the first followers of Jesus, and by Quaker and Taize worship, both of which include periods of silence, of listening, we give an entire worship gathering over to near total silence.

After dismissing our preschool and elementary kids to their classes, the rest of us will follow on-screen prompts, guiding us through worship for the morning. We’ll have a couple contemplative, soft songs which we will sing audibly, quietly, but the bulk of our worship will be silent prayer, listening for the voice of God, especially through the Bible. We will include a handful of five minute periods of total silence.

Take a look at how the passage we have come to in our study through Luke is a great fit for Silent Sunday. In Luke 22:39-46, it is Thursday night of Passion Week. Jesus has just eaten his final meal with his disciples. What should have been a joyous celebration of the Jewish Passover, now had a palpable ominous tone. Jesus talked about giving up his body, his blood, about betrayal and denial, and how they should have swords ready. Was this the moment so many in the crowds, including the disciples, had been waiting for? The moment the Messiah would start a battle to kick the Romans out of Jerusalem?

Under the cover of night, Jesus leads his disciples out to the Mount of Olives, the same place he would lead them on Ascension Day. But rather than round up more weapons, rather than draw plans for a coup, in verse 40 Jesus urges his disciples to pray that they will not fall into temptation. What is he talking about?

Temptation?

Of what?

Jesus wanders off about a stone’s throw away, praying alone. It is late. We don’t know how long the disciples prayed. Perhaps they debated amongst themselves what might be happening. Was Jesus getting spiritually ready for battle tomorrow? Did they try to guess which one of them was the betrayer Jesus talked about? And what of his words to Peter saying Peter would deny him? One disciple might have scolded Peter, and Peter might have reacted strongly, just as he did to Jesus, that he, Peter, would never deny Jesus. One by one, as the night wears on, as Jesus is still praying, the men’s eyes droop and they fall asleep. Is sleepiness the temptation Jesus was referring to? They all give in.

We’ll look at this amazing passage more intently during Silent Sunday, particularly as Luke tells us precisely what Jesus prayed for. This passage, then, is perfect for Silent Sunday. I’ll admit, it might seem weird, strange for a church to give an entire worship service to silent prayer and meditation! How many of us spend an hour in prayer on a regular basis??? Almost never. So what Jesus said to the disciples is what we need to hear to prepare ourselves for Silent Sunday.

We will wrestle in prayer. We will be tempted to feel frustrated by this long time in prayer. We will be tempted to let our minds wander. Our fast information society has trained us to have short attention spans. So will you join us this Sunday at Faith Church, to fight your inner desire to be frustrated and to fight your mind that wanders?

In so doing you’ll find that your fight against yourself just might enable you to hear the voice of God like never before.

How to identify if you are good or bad leader

As we have seen in Luke, Jesus is pretty good at throwing rocks in the still pond of people’s lives, creating waves. He does it again at his final meal with his disciples, the Passover meal in the Upper Room, the meal we commonly call The Last Supper. Jesus gets a bit ominous, telling his closest followers that the bread is his body and the wine is his blood, and they will use those elements to remember him. “Remember him”? Was he going somewhere? Was he leaving them?

Numerous times he had mentioned to them that he was going to suffer and die. The disciples knew all too well that the religious establishment was boiling mad at Jesus. Things were hot in the city. But wasn’t Jesus the one who was going to become king? Wasn’t he going to kick the Romans out of the city? Think about the crowds, and how they adored Jesus, followed him all over the place.

“Remember him”? Maybe he is just talking about the long distant future. Except he says one more thing: one of the disciples seated right there in that room, around that table, will betray him!

How could this be? So they start talking among themselves, “Who could do such a thing?” Judas, the one who had already set up the betrayal with the religious establishment, is there thinking “How could he know?” It was an awkward moment. I can imagine one of the disciples, such as bigmouth Peter, saying “Well, I would never betray him.” And then maybe Peter’s buddy would say “Ha, I’m better than you, Peter, so it’s not me who Jesus is talking about.” And Peter say “Better than me, are you? No way, I’m better than you.”

Perhaps then an argument breaks out, just like school children on the playground, arguing over who is better.

It is the perfect opportunity for Jesus to step in and teach. He had surprised them by washing their feet earlier that evening. From that demonstration, he now says leadership is not about greatness, but about serving.

The disciples’ discussion of who is the greatest is almost shocking in that it occurs at all. Think about it. Jesus is just hours away from being arrested. He is very serious talking about his body, blood, and how his suffering is upon them. And at that moment they start arguing about who is greatest? How quickly they become petty, lose focus.

How quickly we, too, can lose focus on what is important. Have you ever been involved in a worship service, class, or Bible study and you came away very convicted about something, but then by the afternoon or the next day you’ve forgotten about it? You were so convicted to make a change in your life, to do things differently or start something new. Maybe while you were on a spiritual retreat you made a decision to change your life, but by the next week it seems like that retreat was months ago. Maybe it was a trip to a different country. Remember the powerful spiritual impact that trip had on you. Does it seem like a distant memory now?

How fickle is the heart of humanity.

The disciples are distracted. Having just heard about one who would betray him, they now start arguing about who would be greatest. How did this happen? You and I know how it happened because we know how easily we can be distracted.

Jesus responds by giving them a new vision for what leadership is all about in his kingdom. Serving. To lead is to serve. We often get pictures of arrogant leadership.

But what does it mean to be a servant leader?

Mother Teresa is considered by many to be one of the most excellent examples of servant leadership. She said “It’s not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.” I could have chosen another 50 quotes of hers to mention. What is amazing is not her quotes, but her life. Her life of serving the sick and hurting. It is her life that makes her quotes and writing so powerful. She walked the talk.

Another example of a servant leader is a man I met in Guyana, he who would do anything, even change dirty diapers and clean up vomit.

Other examples, I meet right here at Faith Church. People serving in the Nursery. Providing loving child care. Waking at 3am to start the fire for the Chicken BBQ. Many people give time, energy and money serving behind the scenes and never get credit. And they don’t want credit because they want God to receive the glory. That is servant leadership.

At the heart of a servant leader is humility. Not wanting credit. Not wanting a name for themselves. Willing to help, do to the dirty work. Wanting God to be glorified.

Parents and grandparents are almost always servant leaders by the nature of their roles. Not saying they are perfect. We parents know that we often have bad attitudes, that we can struggle with being selfish, and can fail. But if you are a child or a grandchild, I urge you to open your eyes to the sacrifices your parents and grandparents are making for you. I urge you to thank them.

Too often whether we are children or whether we are the people on the receiving end of servant leadership, we can grow a sense of entitlement, that we deserve what they are giving to us. They should be sacrificing for us, we can think, and we can forget how hard it might be for them. We can forget to thank them.

Think about what is going on here. Jesus on the eve of his trials is not freaking out, not moaning and groaning, but he is ministering to the disciples. They should have been ministering to him! They should have been reaching out to him. But there he is trying to help them.

He is our example. When we are going through tough times, we want people to care for us. But no matter what we are going through, Jesus is our example, of how to serve, to give, to minister, to reach out, even in the midst of our difficult times.

How can you let Jesus transform your heart, make it new, so that you serve like he did?

The beginning of the end for Jesus

This is it. Thirty-three years of Jesus’ life has led up to this moment. We’ve covered the life of Jesus, as told in the Gospel of Luke, through our sermon series which began on November 30, 2014, with Luke chapter 1. Nearly 70 sermons later, we have 7 left.

After learning about his birth and early years, we jumped into Jesus ministry years, and we’ve been there ever since. Ever so slowly Luke’s telling of the story of Jesus’ life has been building to this moment.

During those ministry years, we watched Jesus burst onto the scene starting with his baptism, temptation and his testy early ministry days in his hometown, where he almost got lynched. But from that dark day, his star shot up. The crowds grew and grew, amazed by his miracles and his authoritative teaching. We watched as he chose his 12 disciples, and had a following of close friends, men and women. Little by little he taught them, gave them behind-the-scenes access into his life and thinking, and eventually sent them on two mission trips. Somewhere in year 2, we think, he turned southward, moving his ministry focus from Galilee in the North, to Samaria and Judea in the south. He left the Galilean crowds behind, but rather quickly huge crowds formed in the south. His ministry had grown nationwide, and Jesus and his disciples had become household names. We watched the religious establishment as they watched Jesus, jealous of him, suspicious, and not happy at all.

All in all, we have seen the words, works and way of Jesus.

The Jewish people in those crowds, including his disciples, thought they were witnessing the rise of their long-awaited political Messiah who was going to save them from the Romans. Jesus was a very different Messiah, however, with a very different salvation message, for the whole world.

The Jews hoped a Davidic warrior King was entering Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday. But Jesus wept, knowing that Jerusalem, the temple, the religious establishment and the people had him figured all wrong. So in his last few days of ministry he fended off their attempts to trap him, and he taught them, or at least tried to teach them, who he really was and what he was really about, the mission of God’s Kingdom.

Now this Sunday we reach the end.

Or rather, the beginning of the end.

Jesus has left the temple, never to return. No more crowds. No more teaching. No more miracles, except one.

Luke tells us that it was a holiday, the Passover, the day the Jews celebrated the miraculous act of YHWH as he interceded for them, freeing them from slavery in Egypt thousands of years before. A fitting historical context for what is about to happen. Jesus gathered with his disciples to celebrate Passover, just as all Jews across the nation would be doing. Except that Jesus injects a new meaning into that celebration. A new meaning that had life-changing implications for the disciples, and still does for us.

Join us at Faith Church on Sunday as we study Luke 22:1-38 to learn more.

What future societies might say about American Christians in 2016

Imagine people 2000 years from now studying Christianity. What would they say about us? What is important to us? They would have to conclude that buildings are very important to us, and what happens in those buildings on Sunday mornings is also very important to us. Take away the building and Sunday morning, and some (most?) churches have almost nothing left. Is that what Jesus wanted? Did he want our focus, our worship, our system of church to be on a building and what happens in that building for a few hours one day of the week?

No. In fact, Jesus never mentioned, in all his teaching, anything about building buildings and gathering for worship on Sunday. In Luke 21, after the disciples comment about the majestic temple in Jerusalem, Jesus says something terrifying to them. He tells them that the temple would be destroyed!

Reading between the lines a bit, Jesus is saying to the disciples, “Guys, don’t lose your focus on the mission of my Kingdom!”

The mission of God does not change: make disciples. But the system of church can change and it has numerous times over the centuries. There are certain components to church that must be included. Many have looked over the Scriptures, studied them, and believe that Jesus and his disciples taught that any system of church must have at least these four areas: worship, fellowship, discipleship and outreach. How we express our faithfulness to that mission is quite open for consideration.

What, then, should we do with our building? And what system of church should we have?

The answer starts with heart and attitude. We should not be focused on a building, or a system of church, as these will pass away! Instead we should be focused on being Jesus’ disciples who make more disciples for his kingdom. We should be focused on the mission of his Kingdom.

Here’s the amazing thing about the church. If a church’s buildings are destroyed, it does not affect the church. The church is not the building. The church is the people. We do not need a building to be a church. My Rt 340 widening story might not be true, but disaster can happen. In 2009-10 our sister congregation, Kimball Avenue Church in Chicago, had a one of those disasters. Their boiler exploding sending super-hot water vapor throughout their building, which did serious damage. Their building was condemned.

But Kimball Ave Church did something amazing. They decided not to build again. At least not a building, that is. Instead they decided to use their property to reach out to their community, by making a prayer garden.

KAC prayer garden

Kimball Avenue Church is still a church. Because the people are the church! And what’s more, they kept their focus on the mission of God’s Kingdom when they considered whether or not to rebuild. (View the entire process of the deconstruction of their building here.)

Is your focus on the mission of God’s Kingdom? Are you a disciple, a follower of Jesus who is making more disciples for him?

Here are some questions to help you evaluate: Who is discipling you? Mentoring you? Leading you? Investing in your life? Helping you to be a follower of Jesus? I’m not talking about believing. I’m talking about learning to be, to do, to live, to serve like Jesus did. And what is the task that Jesus spent most of his time doing? Making disciples. Jesus tells us that his disciples will do what he did, make more disciples. So just as we are to be his disciples, we are then to make more disciples.

All of us should have a plan we are following for making disciples, and together as a church we should have a plan as well. So let’s spend our lives on that mission, let’s use our building for that mission, but let’s not focus on our building, let’s keep our focus on the mission of making disciples. Then 2000 years from now when a possible future society evaluates us, they’ll be able to see clearly that we stayed focused on the mission of God’s Kingdom.

Could Lancaster County Tourism Destroy our church?*

Imagine this scenario with me: we receive a disturbing letter in the mail.

And by “we”, I mean Faith Church.

Say it is a letter from a joint meeting of the Lancaster County Planning Commission and the East Lampeter Township Supervisors. The letter details how they have been studying traffic flow on our road, Old Philadelphia Pike (PA Route 340), for the last few years, and the experts have concluded that Old Philadelphia Pike is no longer suitable to handle the amount of traffic in our area, especially during tourist season. Because of our Lancaster County Amish and Mennonite heritage and residents, thousands of visitors journey to our farmlands every year. So imagine that there have been surveyors recently studying the stretch of 340 from the Route 30 Junction heading east through Smoketown, Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse.

Rt. 340 was not originally designed for the volume of traffic that currently uses the road. Traffic is only projected to increase, especially with tourism and as the new housing complex between Greenfield Road and Willow Road is completed, bringing 1400 units to our area in the next few years.

The County Tourism Bureau, in particular, would be driving some of the changes. What tourist wants to come to Lancaster with dreams of spotting horse and buggies and eating whoopie pies and shoo-fly pie, only to be stuck in traffic? To keep those tourist dollars flowing, we need wider roads. Given how many dollars we’re talking about, theirs is a powerful argument. Put that all together and the plan would be that over the next two years, Route 340 would undergo widening becoming a five-lane road. It would have two lanes each way, with a turning lane in the middle.

Using eminent domain, the State would take over all of the land needed on the 7.5 mile stretch between Route 30/340 junction and the town of Intercourse to facilitate this expansion. The result would be that Faith Church’s sanctuary would no longer meet code requirements for distance from a roadway.

The sanctuary will have to be demolished*.

How would you feel?

In our next section of Luke, Jesus pretty much tells the disciples that a scenario like this is going to happen to their church. Their church? Did they have a church? Sorta. The building that they looked to as the center of their faith in God was the temple building. It was a magnificent structure that was the heart of their nation’s heritage and identity. Being from Galilee in northern Israel, the disciples would likely have only seen the temple a few times per year, so it could have held an even greater pull on their hearts and emotions. In this section of Luke’s story, they are standing in Jerusalem, looking at the temple, enthralled by its beauty. They say to Jesus something like “Isn’t the temple great, Jesus?”

And what does Jesus say? “It’s all going to be demolished.”

Why would he say this?

If you want to find out, check out Luke 21:5-38, and join us at Faith Church on Sunday 4/24!

*Have no fear for our sanctuary! The story above is false, created to illustrate what the disciples might have felt like that day. Lancaster County Tourism won’t demolish our church. In fact the opposite is true! By all means, come visit Lancaster County! I may be biased, but our county is a simply beautiful place to live and visit. Come discover our incredible PA Dutch food, the fascinating Anabaptist (particularly Amish and Mennonite) heritage, the gorgeous farmlands, our history (did you know Lancaster was capital of the USA for a day?), and our city which has become an arts and music hub. Not to mention that Faith Church, located along one of the busiest tourist routes in Lancaster, LOVES tourists!

Angry about taxes or money? How a widow can help!

Last week we looked at Jesus’ comment “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God was is God’s.”

How many of you gave money unto “Caesar” this week as you filed your taxes? Michelle and I did. It is almost always an agonizing process for me. When I work on taxes, I could definitely use a padded cell like the guy in this picture. What gets me upset is a combination of how complex the forms and instructions can be, as well as saying goodbye to my money.

Our son had opened a bank account in 2015, and the bank ran a promotion where if you deposited money in the count through direct deposit, you would get a $150 bonus. It was great! But guess what came in the mail this year? A form 1099 from the bank calling that $150 bonus as interest income, saying it was reported to the government and was taxable. So he had to pay $4 to the Commonwealth of PA for that. It is easy, from a story like that, to quickly get on to a bunny trail about how the government has its fingers picking our pockets.

But we’re not going to do that! Instead I want to ask about the feelings going on in your heart and mind when you hear a story like that. Maybe anger, maybe frustration. Where do those feelings come from?

Let me suggest that the feelings come from an unhealthy sense of ownership of our money.

In that one line Jesus addresses something that can be very hard for us. Giving. Whether it is giving taxes to the government or giving God an offering, if many of us are honest, we can feel negative about it. We don’t want anyone telling us what to do with our money. And not just government, but also God. Or a preacher. Too many government officials and preachers have abused their position and profited off of people. So we can get really jaded about giving, whether to church or state.

Last week we talked a good bit about how to have a healthy attitude when it comes to paying taxes. This week we’re going to see how some people had a very poor attitude toward giving to God. It was the religious leaders. But why? They had a faulty attitude toward giving, Jesus will tell us, because they had a major error in their theology. Jesus is about to lay a smack down on those high and mighty leaders again, and he’s going to get help from the unlikeliest of places, especially consider that culture. He’s going to get help from a widow.

Check it out at Luke 20:41-21:4. And join us at Faith Church to learn more!

How to handle confrontation

Spies, taxes, a woman with seven husbands, and the most intelligent man in the world.

That pretty much sums up the next story in our ongoing series on Luke’s Gospel, which you can read about in Luke 20:20-40. In the story, Jesus is in the final days of his life, and he has bunkered down in Jerusalem, spending each day teaching in the temple courts, and each evening in prayer outside the city. The religious leaders hate that not only is he on their turf, but he is doing their job leading the people, and the people adore him. They send two groups to try to take him down.

The first group the NIV calls “spies”. Jesus had wrapped the religious up in a lose-lose situation just before, so now they are hiding in embarrassment, and they hire secret agents to try to do their dirty work. These secret agents come up to Jesus while he is teaching in the temple courts, and after buttering him up (“You’re such an amazing teacher!”), they try to snag him with a political controversy. About taxes.

One scholar tells us that “The secret agents are in effect asking, ‘Are God’s people exempt from paying such a tax to a foreign power? Jesus, are you loyal to Israel, looking for its independence, or should we knuckle under to Rome?’”^[1]

Though the Romans did bring some benefits, the Jews hated being occupied. As any people would. So obviously the Jews were no fan of paying taxes to Rome. Imagine if China invades the USA and occupies our land. Then they start taxing us. And our taxes don’t stay here to help improve our land, our taxes go over to China to help improve theirs. How would you feel?

Paying taxes was as much an issue back then as it is now! So Jesus is in a really tough spot here. If he agrees with paying taxes, he could be perceived in a very negative light by the people who hated paying taxes (pretty much everyone). If he disagrees with paying taxes, he could be accused of sedition and charged with inciting insurrection, arrest by the Roman governor, and tried as a criminal.

There seems to be no right answer. It’s another lose-lose situation.

As we see in verses 23-26, Jesus asks for a coin, then asks them to tell him whose picture is on it. They say “Caesar” and Jesus responds with genius: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.”

Response by the secret agents? Astonished silence.

Then Luke tells us that the religious leaders come out of hiding. This second group, the Sadducees, try to trap him with a theological controversy.

What was their theological issue? Theology is the study of God. So a theological issue is an issue about the Bible or doctrine, in this case, resurrection and marriage. Luke tells us the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. They create what appears at first glance to be a bizarre case study thinking they could trap Jesus and hopefully discredit him in front of all the people.

Maybe it was a real story, a woman who outlived seven husbands. The theological issue? In heaven whose wife would she be?

It sounds outrageous, but their example is using something from the Old Testament Law called Levirate marriage. You can see from this passage in Deuteronomy 25:5-6 that if a husband died, his brother would marry his widowed sister-in-law to preserve his brother’s line. So the Sadducees ask Jesus to imagine a family with seven brothers. One gets married first, then dies. One by one the brothers marry their sister-in-law and one by one they die. Sound impossible?

My grandma outlived three husbands, which would have been enough to prove their point.

The Sadducees believe they have created a situation that clearly shows the ridiculousness of the doctrine of the resurrection. A woman in heaven with seven husbands? Who gets her? You can see them looking at Jesus saying “There, how are you going to respond to that, smart guy? Resurrection, which we have heard you talking about, is stupid! Our situation proves it.” Basically they are saying that Levirate marriage disproves resurrection.

But Jesus theologically outduels them. He says “Well gentlemen, you are wrong in many ways.”

This life is not like the afterlife. They are different!
Not everyone goes to heaven. Only those considered worthy.
And what’s more, there is no marriage in heaven.
Resurrection is TRUE. Want proof? Just open your Torah which you love so much. What do you read there? God is the living God, the God of the Living. Disproving your faulty disbelief of resurrection.

See what he does there? Another genius response that silences the religious leaders.

We can learn from Jesus’ Way. How did he handle people who tried to trap him?

Have you ever been confronted? I’m sure you have. The confrontation could be about what you believe. Could be about choices you’ve made. Could be about a great many things. How do you handle it when you are confronted?

Look at how Jesus handles himself:

Remains self-controlled. He’s okay when people disagree with him. He doesn’t get offended, take it personally, or get angry. He shows us a calm confidence.
Does not cave on the truth just because high-powered people are confronting him.
Knows the Word.
Speaks the truth in love.

In the end Jesus silences both groups. But not by force. Not by telling the crowd to attack them. He doesn’t use aggression or bully tactics.

Let us be people who respond to those who confront us in love.

That is true intelligence. Let us become like the one who was the most intelligent of all.

^{^[1]} Darrell L. Bock, Luke: 9:51–24:53, vol. 2, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1996), 1611.

Spies, Taxes, a woman with 7 husbands & the most intelligent man who ever lived

The most intelligent person who ever lived?

Albert Einstein? Marilyn vos Savant? King Solomon? Leonardo Da Vinci? Stephen Hawking? Shakespeare? Newton? Mozart? Marie Curie?

I researched a bunch of “Most Intelligent People in the History of the World” lists, and there are plenty more candidates. There are lots of opinions as to who should be on those lists, not to mention who should be #1. Furthermore, does intelligence simply refer to IQ? What about those who have shown astounding ability in the arts? What about people who don’t have an astronomical IQ, but they have achieved great accomplishments.

While most lists didn’t include him, one of the “Most Intelligent” lists I found put Jesus at #5. It’s not #1, but considering all the possible names, I thought it was interesting that he even made a list. I was surprised by that because most people and lists don’t think of Jesus when asked to name the most intelligent person in history.

As we have seen in our study through Luke, Jesus was amazingly intelligent too. In fact when I started this series over a year ago, I suggested that we would find out that Jesus was the most intelligent man who ever lived. Now we near the end of the series. We have only a couple more months, about 10 more sermons. We have watched Jesus’ way, heard his words, and seen his amazing works. Now we are in his final days before his arrest. Each day he is teaching in the temple courts, right in the middle of the religious leaders’ HQ. Not surprisingly, this has them shaking with jealousy and anger. Last week, we watched as they had him in what appeared to be a lose-lose situation, and he got out of it with ease, binding the religious leaders in a lose-lose situation in the process.

This week, they are really upset again, and they try to trap him again. The way he handles himself, intellectually, emotionally, physically, is amazing. What do you think? Was Jesus the most intelligent person to ever live? If you want to preview the story, check out Luke 20:20-40.

Join us at Faith Church and judge for yourself. (Oh, by the way, there will spies, a discussion about taxes, and a woman who outlived seven husbands.)