Devotional Thoughts: Justified Judgement

Am looking at Matthew 21:33-46 this morning.

Jesus is continuing his running commentary on the state of religious affairs with the religious leaders of the day.

As I was reading, I was thinking, if Jesus showed up at the Temple say at 10AM and engaged in a running dialog with them until 4PM, how many pages would the transcript be?

What we have in the Gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) isn't a exhaustive word-for-word recounting of these conversations. In those days, they couldn't replay an audio tape or review the videotape.

If one were to take a purely "naturalistic" (no divine intervention) view, what we have would be highlights of what stood out in the mind of the writer.

We see this in the newspapers today. Suppose Prime Minister Tony Blair visits President George W. Bush and they hold a joint news conference. The only place you will find the whole thing would probably be CSPAN. But if you read the newspaper, a hard copy or an internet site, what we get are snippets. If you ask someone who was there, they might give a report from memory and notes they jotted down.

Thus, in the times of Jesus, we can't roll the videotape and what we get are the most memorable episodes in what could have been 6 hours of argumentation between Jesus and the religious leaders.

If we take a view that God inspired the writers, the question then becomes, does that mean dictation? Does that mean, God speaks to the writer and tells Matthew, these are the specific stories I want you to write down.

Or might inspiration be more subtle: God helped Mark remember certain specific stories. Did God guide Luke to interview certain people who met Jesus? How did the Spirit direct John to highlight episodes in Jesus life that were not recounted by Matthew, Mark or Luke?

There is no way for us nearly 2000 years later to know which way it happened.

However, we do know that there is remarkable levels of consistency between the various Gospel accounts.

But back to Matthew 21:33-46.

What we have here is a very potent story!

Jesus using story telling to make a point. Landowner with a vineyard leaves and allows the tenant farmers to run the place but he sends people back periodically to check on things and collect a share of the earnings. The farmers kill and beat up his emissaries. Finally, the landowner sends his son and he too is murdered.

Jesus asks, what should the landowner do?

The religious leaders, like anyone else, said, he should punish those people and give the land to someone else to farm.

Jesus then delivers the knock out punch: the Kingdom of God will be taken away from YOU and given to others.

This is justified judgment.

Fair is fair.

Lord, help me to recognize my sin and confess it to you and do what I can to make it right. Help me to stop whining about this or that and see the tremendous gift of the Kingdom you have given to me and to share it with others. Amen.