Not the Savior We're Looking For

This is the message given Sunday morning, March 14, 2021, in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Mark 12:35-44.

            Have you ever talked to someone on the phone, or maybe heard them on the radio or something, but never actually seen them?  You get kind of a mental picture of what you think they look like, right?  And then you actually see them, and--you get confused.  Because they don’t look anything like what you thought they’d look like.  Your mental picture of them turns out to be completely wrong.

            I bring this up because one of the things that confused the religious leaders of Jesus’ day is that they all had a mental picture of what the Messiah would be like.  Not just his looks, but his actions, his beliefs, everything.  The Messiah would be the Son of David.  The Messiah would come as a conqueror.  The Messiah would raise an army, defeat the Romans, and re-establish the Kingdom of Israel.  And, of course, the Messiah would make sure the Pharisees and the teachers of the law and all the other religious leaders had a prominent place in the kingdom once it was established.

            And then, here comes Jesus, and he’s nothing like what the Messiah was “supposed” to be like.  He had no interest in establishing an earthly kingdom.  He did not want to fight the enemies of Israel--in fact, he said people should love their enemies.  He did not try to raise an army--he preached a gospel of peace.  And he had no particular use for the Pharisees or the teachers of the law or any other religious leaders of his time.

            It was not only that, though.  Jesus simply did not see things the way the Messiah was “supposed” to see them.  Jesus turned all the established rules on their head.  And we have three examples of that today.

            We start out with the idea that the Messiah would be the Son of David.  Now, the genealogies of Jesus, as set forth in Matthew and in Luke, establish that Jesus was, in earthly terms, descended from King David.  But Jesus says, worrying about that misses the point.  David himself said so.  Jesus said, David calls the Messiah “Lord”.  David would not call his son “Lord”.  So, the Messiah must not be his son.

            We’re told that the crowd around Jesus listened with delight.  We’re not told how the Pharisees or other religious leaders reacted.  But it’s not hard to guess that they were not very pleased.  “Everybody knew” that the Messiah would be descended from David.  For Jesus to say that did not matter--well, that was outrageous.  It certainly was not something the Messiah would say.

            Then, Jesus says something even more outrageous.  He tells people to watch out for the teachers of the law, and not in a good way.  Jesus said the teachers of the law were arrogant.  They made a big show of how great they thought they were, and they expected everyone else to think they were great, too.  Jesus says, “These men will be punished most severely.”

            Again, we’re not told how the teachers of the law reacted, but I’m pretty sure they were not happy about it.  These were the people the Messiah was supposed to love and bring to prominence.  These were the people who were supposed to get the top spots in the new kingdom of Israel.  To say they would be severely punished--well, again, that’s just not something the Messiah would say.

            Then Jesus goes to the temple.  He watches people put their money into the treasury.  He sees some people put in big amounts.  Then, a poor widow comes by and puts in a few cents.  And Jesus says her contribution was more valuable than all the others, because she has put in everything she has to live on.

            And again, the religious authorities were outraged.  Does Jesus not know how much money it takes to run the temple?  Does Jesus not know how many salaries have to be paid, how much the supplies cost?  How can Jesus say this little bit that the poor widow put in is more valuable than the big donations?  I mean, yeah, we get that she put in as much as she could, but if everybody put that little in, we’d never make it.  We need the heavy hitters, the big contributors.

            Now, it’s not that Jesus did not understand economics.  And note, he does not criticize the wealthy people for the amounts they put in.  He does not say their contributions are unimportant or are not valued.  His point is that most of us, no matter our financial status, put in what we can afford.  This woman put in everything she had.  She did not worry about whether she could afford it.  She was completely sold out for God.  And that’s what the religious authorities could not understand.  It just did not sound like something the Messiah would say.

            Now, we look at this, from our perspective, and we wonder how the religious authorities could be so dense.  How could they not understand what Jesus was saying?  How could they not see how wrong they were?  What was wrong with those people?

            And yet, are those religious leaders really all that different from you and me?  How many times do we just kind of ignore what Jesus said, because it does not fit our mental image of what the Savior should be and what the Savior should say?  I mean, we might pay lip service to it.  We might say, yeah, that’s what we ought to do.  That’s how we should live.  But then, so many times, we don’t live it out.  We just keep living like we have been, because what Jesus told us to do does not fit what we want the Savior to say.

            And again, I do this, too.  I know I say that a lot, but I never want anyone to think that I’m standing here thinking I’m better than you.  I don’t want this to sound like I think I get this and you don’t.  There are many, many times, as a pastor, that you preach to yourself as much as you preach to anyone else, and this is definitely one of those times.  I struggle with this at least as much as anyone else.

            But think of some of the things Jesus said, and think of how little we tend to live those things out.  “Love your enemies”.  How many of us do that?  How many of us even try?  I mean, maybe we do it in theory, but what actions do we take to show that we love our enemies?

            “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also.”  How many of us have ever done that?  I mean, even once, much less as a regular practice?  It just does not fit the way we think a person should live their life.

            “Do to others as you would like others to do to you.”  Again, it sounds good in theory, but do we actually live it out?  Too often, we treat others as they actually treat us, not as we’d like them to treat us.  If people are nice to us, we’re nice to them.  If they don’t treat us well, we don’t treat them well, either.  Again, it just does not fit with how we think people should live.

            “Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.”  That one does not even make sense to us, does it?  Did Jesus not understand human nature?  If we give to everyone who asks, we won’t have anything left.  Why would Jesus even say such a thing?

            “Whoever believes in the Son is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already.”  But God loves everyone, right?  Why would God condemn people for not believing in Jesus?  I mean, sure, maybe murderers and people like that, but why would God condemn good people, people who love others and do things for others, just because they don’t believe in Jesus?  That cannot be right.

            We could go on and on.  The point is that we tend to try to make Jesus fit our image of what the Savior should be, just like the Pharisees and the other religious authorities tried to make Jesus fit their image of what the Savior should be.  And when Jesus’ words do not fit our image, we tend to ignore them, or try to explain them away, or try to come up with some reason why Jesus did not actually mean what he said.  We don’t want to adjust our image to the reality of Jesus.  Instead, we want to adjust the reality of Jesus to fit our image.

            We are in the season of Lent.  One of the purposes of Lent is for us to take an honest look at ourselves.  We try to see who we are, and we see how far short we fall from who God wants us to be.  And we don’t just acknowledge that.  We then ask for God’s forgiveness, and we try to change.  We ask for God to help us be the people God wants us to be, rather than the people we actually are or even the people we want to be.

            As we do that, let’s take an honest look at the words of Jesus.  Let’s not ignore what he said.  Let’s not explain it away.  Let’s not come up with reasons why Jesus was not serious about it.  Let’s really look at Jesus’ words.  Let’s take them to heart.  And then, let’s ask for God’s help in living them out.  Let’s not worship the Savior who fits our image.  Let’s worship the real Savior, Jesus Christ.