.jpg)
Text: Mark 12:13-27
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
“You are quite wrong.” Jesus does not fit in with our postmodern age, where all opinions are equal, where truth is subjective and flexible, and where we don’t tell people they are wrong, because that is apparently an example of systemic racism and white privilege, or heteronormativity or some other such woke nonsense. And we all know that Jesus was nice, at least when He was alive, and we should never be sarcastic, because Jesus was never sarcastic.
Of course, I’m being completely sarcastic. There are times when sarcasm is called for, when the devil is to be mocked, and when people who try to confuse and bamboozle us are to be laughed out of court, so to speak. Our Lord dealt with this kind of dishonest intellectual discourse without regard to trying to live up to other people’s expectations of niceness. There is nothing wrong with being nice, but when we are being manipulated into either confessing a lie or being silenced from telling the truth, we are called to push back, hard and without being “swayed by appearances.” And no amount of crocodile tears and gaslighting can silence Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. And, dear friends, we are called to confess the truth. Jesus is the truth.
The Pharisees and Sadducees both tried to play semantic games with Jesus to try to either get Him in trouble, or to trap Him into confessing a lie.
The Pharisees try to butter up our Lord with flattery and insincere praise: “Teacher, we know that You are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For You are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God.” You can practically hear the venom dripping from their serpentine, split tongues as they hiss this out at Him – and it is all true, of course. They play a game of gotcha with Jesus, but He traps them in their own trap, “knowing their hypocrisy.”
And the Sadducees likewise play their own game to try to get Jesus, the first-fruits of the resurrection, the one who raises the dead with the ease of rousing someone from slumber – to join them in their denial of the resurrection. Our Lord has no compunction about telling them they are ignorant and wrong. Had our Lord spared their feelings, others might have been led astray.
Dear friends, let us know both the Scriptures and the power of God. Let us confess Christ, who is the way, the
truth, and the life; Christ, who is the resurrection and the Word made flesh; Christ,
who is Lord over both Caesar and the Church; Christ, who is living and who is
the “God of the living.” Even in Lent,
we confess that “Christ is risen, He is risen indeed.” Let us not be intimidated by those who seek
to impose doubt by stealth and by appeals to weasel-words and loose logic, no
matter how much they swagger and bluster.
They are quite wrong. Let us double-down
like our Lord and confess Christ: our Teacher who indeed is “true” and “does
not care about anyone’s opinion.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment