A look at the gaps in the lectionary.
This week: the gap between Proper 26C and Proper 27C.
The text: Luke 19:11-20:26.
For those who may have transferred All Saints to Sunday, the story from Proper 26C is Luke 19:1-10—the one in which Zacchaeus climbs a tree.
For the congregation, this is a capstone on a multi-month journey toward Jerusalem. The ongoing themes of the challenge of discipleship and the courage to love, forgive, and trust come to this moment near Jerusalem when a tax collector has a literal come to Jesus moment.
Then Jesus turns and tells a dark, backward parable. One that’s a bit more prophecy than it is instructive. This teaching is known as the parable of the ten pounds. And it easily resembles Matthew’s parable of the talents. But its dark meaning is far easier to see.
The problem is that we often read these two parables as allegories: the master is God and the “wicked slave” who squanders his “talents” in life is punished. But that fixed reading doesn’t deal with any of the details, like the terrible character of the master, the master’s praise of exploitation, or the grossness of the punishment.
Here, Jesus tells the story of a tyrant, demanding wealth from his people, and when one person stands against it, that one is brutalized and killed.
This will sound even more pointed against the backdrop of the very next few days.
The parable ends with a dark demand:
“I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.”
Everyone hearing this is hearing a ruler saying words about his kingdom. Words that run completely opposite the ones Jesus uses to describe the kingdom of God. Where the rich become poor, not richer. The poor become rich, not poorer. And the humble servant rejects the people’s demand for him to become their king.
That is why this parable is clearly not about God. This is a parable about Rome. And those who stand against it will be ground under its boot. And it’s about their rejection of Jesus. The one who will stand up to their tyranny.
Then Jesus enters Jerusalem
The triumphal entry is a fascinating street theater. Perhaps, as Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan argue in The Last Week, it is a public mockery of Rome.
It also seems to be a charge against the Jewish leadership and it’s collaboration with Rome.
And yet, there feels like something else here.
In a very real sense, the story reminds me of a child dressing in her parents’ clothes. And if you have ever been the parent, watching them play grown up, it can get weird. Sometimes they walk around and say “I’m Mommy!” But it isn’t always straight mimicry. Often there’s a bit of role-play and they get to play out how they wish you’d behave toward them.
Maybe he’s dressing up like Pilate. Or maybe like Joshua or David. Maybe he’s evoking Roman triumphalism or Jewish nationalism. Either way, he does so with a donkey or perhaps a young horse. Perhaps he’s contrasting the heights of power to the lowliness of service. Or maybe he’s contrasting the power and control of a mature warhorse with the wreckless and combative zeal of a young, unbroken horse.
The contrast then isn’t with Rome in its specificity, but the power of the empire in its universality.
Given Jesus’s great opposition toward the leadership and its cooperation with empire, I hate to undersell the political character of the way Jesus comes into Jerusalem. And given the parable Jesus uses before showing up, there is clearly a target to Jesus’s critique and he becomes a witness to a better way.
Jesus weeps
The critique at the end of the Triumphal Entry is that witness to this better way cannot be silenced. Much like dealing with an abusive companion, you can’t be silent just because they might hit you. That arrangement is not how God wants us.
Now, as he approaches the city proper, he is overcome with grief and disappointment. We might read this as an expression of deep fear and pessimism for what will happen. Perhaps it is a moment of extrasensory precognition. Or we might mistake Jesus’s sadness as reflecting his pragmatism.
But Jesus knows that the people aren’t the problem. It’s the powerful. And Jesus’s message, standing up to the powerful leaders is not going to end well.
And yet he weeps for them, too. If they weren’t so self-absorbed and scared, they might see what is right in front of them. Hope.
Trashing the Temple
Jesus’s first move inside Jerusalem is to trash the Temple.
Luke’s version is incredibly short. It makes Mark seem like a rambler. But we shouldn’t fly past it. This is a big, public confrontation. And the first before the masses going to sacrifice. It evokes the difference between a quiet protest on the side of the road turning into one that blocks traffic.
The fear of such a protest is that people will reject it. That it won’t speak in the language of the people.
But what happens next?
He keeps showing up there day after day. For Mark and Matthew, it’s only two days total at the Temple. But Luke makes it sound like weeks. He keeps coming there and garnering attention. Jesus is spellbinding and incredibly popular. His big protest move is viewed by the masses as deeply authentic; and completely different from the hypocrisy of their leaders.
Meanwhile, the leaders are trying to figure out how to stop this.
So they start confronting him. They question his authority (Luke 20:1-8), which he turns on them. Then he tells a parable of the wicked tenants (Luke 20:9-19) which everyone takes as a condemnation of the leaders.
The Red Herring of Paying Taxes
The leaders, of course, are cheesed.
“So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor.”
Entrapment, lying, deception, exploiting the legal system. It seems they are trying to trick Rome into killing him.
Liars. These are the people asking about paying taxes.
Lying thieves are trying to trick Jesus. I can’t stress this enough. This is not an honest question!
Any junk about the separation of church and state or being a good person of faith means paying your taxes like a good boy is not welcome here.
It’s a trick. They are not asking a legitimate question. There is no way you answer this outside of that context to create some sort of universal statement of relationship between the faithful and the state.
Liars are trying to trick the state into killing Jesus. And they set a trap in what seems like an honest question.
Don’t you fall for it!
What Jesus does is both foil the trap and expose their corruption. He isn’t making a universal behavior statement.
“And they were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said; and being amazed by his answer, they became silent.”
Jesus breaks their trap.
Now it’s the Sadducees turn.
Those of us following the lectionary are now dropped into the middle of a hostile confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish leadership in the middle of everything.
And the the leadership is losing.
They keep setting traps for Jesus and he is foiling them. And worse, he’s making them look foolish.
When the Sadducees take their turn, it’s like subbing in the bench players for their fresh legs. But just like the questions of authority and taxes, the question about marriage and possession is a red herring. It’s asking about how many angels can balance on the head of a pin. It isn’t an honest question.
The danger we have in wrestling with the questions of certainty and the gospel have the same problem for us as any deeply metaphysical question. These things certainly make us curious, and it may seem that they demand an answer. But rarely does the answer help. And worse, it invites a completely false rendering of what Jesus is actually
Because the questions aim to draw us away from the central message. We shouldn’t treat them like they are honest!
Our grinding at these questions, pushing our minds to the limits of our reason so rarely support faith or trust in God.
In fact, the purpose is to trap and discredit, or to win and demolish. The purpose isn’t greater faith in God, but holding onto power and weakening threats to that power.
We are constantly enticed to dwell on these questions as if they themselves are objective—as if the devil’s temptation of Jesus can be divorced from the intrinsic question of the power he offers.
I used to wonder why Jesus doesn’t answer their questions straight. The better question is why we demand of him the same thing the liars do.