Today's Scripture Reading (December 23, 2020): Luke 20
What would you do if you knew beyond a shadow
of a doubt that you could not get caught? And even if you did get caught, there
would be no consequences. Life is filled with consequences, and understanding
the consequences often keeps us on the narrow path. Every time I drive down an
open highway, it is the thought that I can't afford the speeding ticket that
keeps me from seeing how fast my car will go. We might not steal because it is
wrong, but even a moral judgment like that is based on the idea that if we get
caught, there is a penalty to be paid, and if we don't get caught, God will know,
which implies an eternal punishment. Years ago, I had a conversation with a medical
doctor who admitted that he had "stolen" some small items during his
internship. It was something that everyone did, purposefully or accidentally, and
this doctor felt that he needed to make it right even though no one knew what I
was that he had taken. If he refused to set things right, he knew that he could
never get his relationship right with God.
But what if none of that was true. What if God
closed his eyes for a day, and all law was suspended. What would you do? Most
of us will never live in a time when that situation might arise. And many who believe
that they do live in that kind of a world are deluded. Consequences might be
different for different people, the rich and powerful may not seem to play by
the same rules, but there are still rules by which they live. And what we do
matters.
Jesus tells the "Parable of the Tenants,"
which tells the story of an owner of a vineyard who decides to rent his
vineyard to some tenants. But once the tenants gain control of the vineyard,
they believe that the vineyard was theirs and that the owner no longer had any
right to the fruit. Three times the owner sends a servant to collect the rent,
and three times the servants are rejected. Finally, the vineyard owner sends
his son, believing that he would not be dismissed and that the tenants would
make good on the debt owed to the vineyard owner. But the son is also rejected,
and in this instance, killed. Jesus argues that the vineyard owner will send in
his army and have the tenants executed and that the owner will then rent the
vineyard to different tenants.
The Pharisees understand the parable too well.
And they should. Everything that they did, the way they lived their daily lives,
was so that Israel would never have to suffer that kind of rejection ever
again. The end of the Jesus parable had already been lived out in the Assyrian
and Babylonian exiles. It would not happen again. God would not do that to
them. They were unique, and they were doing nothing wrong that would require
that kind of response from their God. They were the Pharisees, and they were
beyond reproach.
But the problem with the Pharisees was that
while they were keeping the law, it was their law and not Gods. But they missed
that. The Pharisees and all of Israel were mistaken about what their future
might hold because they had missed the presence of God's Son, who had been sent
to them to remind them that they were stewards of all that they possessed and
not the owners of it.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Luke 21
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