17.07 | We Don’t Know
‘They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.” So they answered, “We don’t know where it was from.”’
Luke 20:5-7
We don’t know.
In a way, completely true; in a way, riddled with falseness.
True, because they actually didn’t understand John. True, because they saw John as a threat to their worldview, rather than a guide into a new way of being. True, because their response to John was so antagonistic that they had completely missed both his significance and their chronic need for his message. Truly, they didn’t know.
And yet, also so very deeply false.
They begin with this simple question:
Who gave you this authority?
The question itself seems fair. They want to know who gave Jesus the right to supersede the teaching of the rabbis, to proclaim a kind of holiness beyond the Torah.1 They want to know who gave Him the right to come in clearing out the money-changers and salesmen in the previous verses. Who, they are asking, do you think you are?
And yet, Jesus’ question back to them is so exposing.
Because the question He asks them forces a scenario where they can either be real, or be false. They can either be curious and teachable, or hard and decided.
Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man?
They discuss the question, exposing their underlying motives.
Read it. There’s no actual soul-searching. No genuine curiosity. No openness to learning or seeing things differently. No visible desire to actually find the true answer to the question. Rather, it is all about image management, and all about furthering their agenda, and all about clinging onto their semblance of control and power.
We don’t know.
This cuts to the heart of our lives too. So much of my own growth, and so much of the discipling work that I see and partake in, goes right into this exact heart issue. So many conversations where somebody already has their mind made up. So many people looking for a Jesus who agrees with what they already think. So many people looking for a God who will support their agenda. So many people skewing ‘truth’ into whatever form serves their purpose. And so many times I see these corrupting motives start whispering and warping the decision-making processes of my own heart. ‘If you torture the facts long enough,’ as one pithy quote goes, ‘they will confess to anything.’ How many times does our fear and control try and manipulate the Father to fit into the frameworks of thought that we so zealously protect?
The Pharisees are not just the bad guys of the story. They’re a mirror. They keep showing up because we need them to keep showing up, reflecting back to us our own duplicitous motives, and revealing to us again our sneaky tendency to crawl out of the simple integrity of the teachable, and into the guarded control of the religious pretender.
And yet, there isn’t just critique here: there’s opportunity. Because the Pharisees could have answered differently. The mirror also reminds us of the possibility of nurturing soft hearts that are teachable—stepping again into the adventure of new ways of seeing and being with the Father. And it invites us into the bold simplicity of being truth-tellers in a hurting world—defying the warping motives that would hide and distort and distract from the truth, and speaking of a different way.
Teachable hearts, and courageous truth-telling.
Simple, honest, pure, and good.
For through such as these, the Kingdom of God is breaking in.
Reflect:
Teachability, and truth-telling.
Which of these do I need more greatly today?
Pray:
Father,
I see this mirror,
And I am exposed.
I’m exposed for trying to fit you
Into boxes of my comfortable understanding.
I’m exposed for coming with motives
For my own gain—
Looking for a religious framework by which I can justify my cause.
I see my tendency to speak falsely,
Motivated more by reputation management
Than by the purity of honesty.
But, Father, I lay these things down again today.
Soften this heart;
Expand my understanding;
Blow my mind.
And work with me,
In the training of this mouth
To speak the truth—
With simplicity, honesty, and great courage;
That I may describe in this hurting world
The ways of the heavens.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Jeremiah 1-2 | Psalm 88
The Law as written down by Moses in the first five books of the Old Testament