February 23, 2025 Ministry with the Scared Luke 5:27-6:16

             In my professional circles I’ve heard many people say we need to, “Speak truth to power,” in response to many current actions of our federal government.  People who say this cite the Old Testament prophets and also Jesus as doing the same.  It is a rally cry to action.  As I’ve said before, I certainly have my concerns, but for the sake of a sermon and being faithful to the witness of the Bible, saying that Jesus spoke truth to power is a projection of current day dynamics onto Jesus; and turns him into an activist who agrees with you. 

I feel like I’ve said many times recently; if Jesus was really speaking truth to power he would have addressed the Romans, not the Jews.  And if he had done so he probably would have been championed by the Jewish leadership for what he was doing.  They certainly would not have called for his execution.  Interestingly, when Jesus was actually before Pontus Pilate, the Roman governor who did have power, Jesus was pretty silent.  Understanding what Jesus was actually doing is much more helpful for today.  Let’s get at that by reminding ourselves of a very big reality behind the gospel of Luke.

Any time we read from Luke’s gospel we need to keep in mind that we are reading something that was probably written around the year 80 but talking about events that happened in the 30s.  Between the 30s and the 80s, and especially in the 60s, there were a series of major Jewish revolts against the Romans.  They continued until Rome cracked down.  In the year 70 the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem.  That destruction included reducing the Jerusalem temple to rubble.  That temple was the center of Jewish faith. 

The Romans destroyed more than just property.  They also killed plenty of people.  The whole situation seems to have put an end to most sects within Judaism.  In the time of Jesus there appear to have been five major sects.  Four of the five show up in the Bible.  Those four are the: Sadducees, Pharisees, Herodians, and Zealots.  The fifth, the one that doesn’t show up in the Bible, is the Essenes.

I don’t know of any clear historical records as to exactly what happened, but after the destruction of the temple only one of the five still remained.  That sect was the Pharisees.  The Sadducees, Herodians, Zealots, and Essenes all disappeared from history.

The Pharisees probably survived because they were the ones who developed the idea of the synagogue.  Synagogues were centers for worship and learning.  Wherever a significant number of Pharisees lived they built a synagogue.  Most of the Jewish people Jesus interacted with in his public ministry were Pharisees.

If you were a Pharisee living after the year 70 you were weak, scared, and confused.  What had happened?  What went wrong?  Why did God allow all this to happen?  And, would your faith survive?

The crisis of the Pharisees had a precedent.  They looked to it for guidance in the current day.  600 years earlier the Babylonian Empire had also destroyed Jerusalem and its temple.  Thee Pharisees looked to that precedent for answers.  They survived that period of destruction by holding fast to their Jewish identity, which centered on keeping the religious laws of the Torah.  The Torah is what we Christians have as first five books of the Bible.  Jews believed they were given to Moses by God.  The Torah taught a Jewish person how to live in right relationship with God.  It gave directions for personal and religious life.  It taught how to make up for your sins and be forgiven.  It was the central scripture.

In the 80s (when Luke wrote his gospel) the Pharisees were clinging to this, the only hope they knew.  If they broke it they feared God would punish them even more for doing so.  Then, from the Pharisees point of view, in the midst of all of those fears and struggles to survive came a new radical upstart sect of the Nazarenes – or more and more being known as “Christians”.  This fast growing new religious sect appeared to be yet another threat to orthodox Jewish beliefs.  Christians claimed the Torah was not central to faith and was not what God really wanted.  From the point of view of the Pharisees, the Christians were teaching absurd heretical nonsense; that a man called Jesus from Nazareth was actually the Son of God and he was ignominiously executed by crucifixion.

I hope you can appreciate just how ludicrous Christian claims were to the Pharisees at the time Luke was writing.  For the Pharisees, there was no way God could have wanted what Christians claimed!

When we read Luke’s gospel we have to remember that Luke is addressing the reality of Jesus’ followers in the 80s as he’s writing about what happened with Jesus in the 30s.  I suppose you could say Luke is projecting his time onto the stories of Jesus.  So, when we read about Jesus being in conflict with the Pharisees, he is not speaking truth to power.  Jesus is speaking to scared powerless people who are clinging to the only thing they knew – staying faithful to the Torah.  Jesus has to convince them that is a misunderstanding of God’s will.

Be sure to recognize something in all of the gospels as they tell the story of Jesus.  Jesus never ever condemns the Torah as: bad, wrong, ignorant, or heretical.  In Matthew’s gospel Jesus outright praises it and recognizes its authority.  Throughout Luke’s gospel we’re reminded that Jesus himself lived like a faithful Jew, which meant he honored the Torah.

Jesus is not being a rebel.  He is not speaking truth to power.  He is not trying to start an uprising or revolt.  All of those ideas are ideas being imposed upon him by later peoples. 

Now, hear me clearly.  I’m not saying that what Jesus did in his lifetime is the correct formula for how we are to live today.  The times and situations are different.  What I am saying is not to impose our present time onto Jesus and make him into whatever it is we want him to be to accomplish our own agenda.  What we want to do is learn from Jesus in his time and then apply it to our present-day situations; whatever they may be.   Unfortunately for us this Sunday, the core teachings Jesus has for life are what we will read in worship next week.  That’s when we’ll read the “Sermon on the Plain” as it’s called in Luke’s gospel.  So you’ll have to stay tuned.  Even so, there is a very important thing in what we read for our lives today.  I’ll wrap up by looking at that.

When Jesus was eating dinner with Levi the tax collector he said, “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old.  And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.  But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”

That sounds simple enough.  Jesus is saying out with the old and in with the new.  But that’s not where Jesus ends.  He continues, “And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”

What does that mean?  Apparently out with the old and in with the new is not what Jesus meant!

Thus far in Luke’s gospel he has rooted us in Jewish history and shown how important it was – central to God’s designs in fact.  Luke has taught us that Jesus in no way intends to upend living by the Torah.  Luke does not want the Pharisees to think Jesus and the new sect of Christians are a threat at all.  Rather, Luke wants them (and us) to understand that deeply rooted within the old Jewish ways is God’s will and God’s excellence.  The problem with the Pharisees is that they’d gone a bit off track.  They were clinging to the wrong things for salvation.  Any time you think following rules and regulations puts you in right relationship with God you’re risking becoming arrogant.  It happens all the time, not just to the Pharisees.

I talked about this last week, and we’ll see it at work again next week.  It’s all about recognizing our brokenness before God and realizing we need God’s grace.  That’s where the Pharisees had gone wrong.  They were trying to build a relationship with God based upon technical following of the laws.  What they missed is that the laws were based on God’s mercy for fallen and broken people.

That is why Jesus is spending time with tax collectors like Levi.  That is why Jesus is healing these unimportant and powerless people in Judea.  That is why Jesus chooses the twelve disciples that he chooses.  They were not qualified because of their skills or education.  They were qualified because they were willing to accept their need for forgiveness from God.  They wouldn’t do that perfectly.  And Luke even reminds us that Judas Iscariot will be a traitor who brings the whole thing to an end.  What qualifies them, and all of us, for God’s service is the humility of recognizing our need for God’s mercy.

As we engage each other and people on the street and people in social media platforms, regardless of how righteous or horrible you may think another person is, begin your interaction with remembering your own limitations and imperfections.  You may not win any arguments.  You may not convince anyone of anything.  And I’m not saying that you should say nothing or not engage in current events.  To the contrary.  Work and act hard.  But do it with an eye on God’s mercy for you and God’s mercy for others.  That is the thing which unites us.