Inconvenient Story

Stories are elusive.

Words are mysterious.

Meaning hard to pin down.

We hear today one of many stories of the Jewish leaders questioning Jesus’ authority. We’ve been trained to think of this as inappropriate questioning, as disrespectful and dismissive.

But what is the story of the Temple leaders, actually? I am going to follow Richard Swanson’s provocation of the story here. (Drawing on his commentary. he says more here). Could it be that they are, in a Jerusalem oppressed by Rome, thrust into an impossible position akin to the Judenrat under Nazi oppression last century? Forced to become the oppressor’s organ of liaison with the oppressed, the Judenrat, the Jewish leaders, are damned if they do the oppressor’s bidding – by their own as traitors – and damned if they do not – along with their own people under the swords or guns or gas chambers of a far mightier power?

Rome will hear their answer to Jesus’ question in reply to their challenge, and they will lose, either way. They will be punished for support of one rabble-rouser, the Baptiser, John, or for provoking the people who will surely riot if they publicly deny the Baptiser’s God-given authority. ‘We do not know’ perhaps saves not only their own hides, but the lives of the people.

Ooh, hearing the other side of the story can be uncomfortable, can’t it?

Inconvenient.

Jesus’s silence, then, on the question of his authority, may not be judgement as we have come to hear it. What if it is also protection for himself and for these leaders and the people? What if Jesus recognises the situation more clearly than the leaders, who surely must ask on what authority this new teacher among them is acting – it’s the responsible thing to do, for is it not what we would do?

And yet. Jesus tells a story that still offers a challenge. He tells a story that asks the hearer, does God’s pleasure come from a promised given but not kept, or from a rejection revoked? The gift of story is not in the answers it provides, but the questions it raises. Sure, it’s an uncomfortable and inconvenient gift at times. But it is a gift. An empowering, invitation of a gift.

What to do now, with such provocation, with such Story? Let’s seriously consider, to what stories we listen, and how we hear them?

Learn more about Christ Church Uniting, Wayville.