#41: Holy Week Monday, 15 April 2019

**Luke 20:1 -- 21:4**

I'm sorry about the length of the readings for all of this week, but Luke wrote four very long chapters to get from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday. I've just had to divide them up in roughly equal parts, while keeping with my principle of finding the logical breaks in content. These don't necessarily match the chapter divisions, as in today's.

You may be seeing now why in the last couple of days, I've been focussing on the political machinations going on behind the scenes. You may have felt in the last few reflections that I was even being a little harsh on some of the players. Today's reading should remove any doubts.

We have to keep reminding ourselves that these people who are sending out spies, trying to trap Jesus into saying something wrong, pretending to be genuine seekers while trying to find ways to murder him, are actually the Temple Leaders. They are the chief priests, the religious guides, and the senior academic staff of the Temple Theology College.

Jesus' enemies were not the Romans; they were his own religious overseers. When religion turns political, it is far more deadly than mere political party in-fighting.

In the first eight verses of our reading, we see the very top echelon, clearly on a mission planned with Annas, Caiaphas and others, to entrap Jesus. It is possible to enquire of God with a wicked heart. Honest seekers will never be turned away, but those who approach Christian enquiry with a heart that is set on destruction may find the doors firmly closed.

After Jesus tells his parable of the wicked tenants, the religious leaders were furious. The story so clearly tells the narrative of Israel and its priests. "A man planted a vineyard, rented it out to some farmers, and went away for a long time." This is a barely-disguised re-telling of the story of how God planted Israel in the Promised Land, gave them responsibilities to manage the deposits of faith which had given them, and then left them to it.

Over the centuries, the Owner (God) sent special envoys (prophets, righteous people in general) to lead them. But the religious leaders and wicked Kings, often in collusion, killed and marginalised the prophets and those of good faith in the land.

Then Jesus adds the final touch. The Owner (God) sends his own son, 'whom I love. Surely they will respect him!' But the tenants meet in secret, plot and carry out his murder so that they can gain all the inheritance for themselves.

Jesus quotes from Psalm 118:22, the same Psalm that they had sung as he entered Jerusalem on a donkey. The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone. Jesus is teaching that he himself is that capstone. He is the one who can tie together all those old laws, festivals, customs, words, scriptures.

But he warns, this stone is heavy. If you try to fight against it, you will be broken to pieces, and if it chooses to place its weight on you, you will have no escape. Buddha, Mohammed, Stalin, Marx, Mao, Dawkins -- don't try to destroy this capstone. He will outlast all of you. He is the Son of God, the King of Israel and King of the world.

No wonder the priests and theology faculty turned on him. They couldn't beat him in open debate, so they sent out spies.

And then, so typical of Jesus... When the cards are all stacked against him, when he is being tricked and trapped on every side, so that he has to watch every word, he finds time to commend a little old widow. Jesus stood in the open space at the Temple watching the money roll in.

He turns to us again, to remind us about money. "It's just a set of counters. It's just a way of indicating where your values lie. Stop fussing about it." The widow gave everything she has. No need to ask why. Because she loved God and was doing what she could.

Does God notice you and me? We're just the little people. But he notices. Oh yes. Depend upon it. And he loves. "Look, there's a sparrow, just there!"

**Prayer:**

I am so sorry, my Lord, that you had to undergo all that wicked treatment. It was so wrong, so wicked. But you did it for me. For the world. For us. Thank you. Amen.