The Weight of Being in Control

 

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

“To what can I compare the people of this generation?” Jesus asked. “How can I describe them?  They are like children playing a game in the public square.  They complain to their friends, ‘We played wedding songs, and you didn’t dance, so we played funeral songs, and you didn’t weep.’  For John the Baptist didn’t spend his time eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, ‘He’s possessed by a demon.’  The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’  But wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it.”  Luke 7:31-35

A crowd is impossible to please.  In a football stadium, whenever the referees throw one of those yellow flags in the air, they’ve judged that one or more of the players have done something outside the rules of the game.  And every time they make half of the people in the crowd happy, and the other half fighting mad!  It just depends on which side you want to win.  You cannot please a crowd.

Whether you’re in the crowd or on the field, the weight of being in control of things raises an elevated level of possibilities for good or evil.  Jesus had just gotten done teaching the crowd that John the Baptist’s ministry of proclaiming God’s salvation through repentance was right.  The crowd was pleased, but the Pharisees, lurking in the shadows, had other ideas.  They began sowing seeds for a crop of discontent among the people, and making plans to take Jesus down.

There’s a worn-out phrase that describes what the Pharisees wanted from Jesus:  You go-along to get-along.  They wanted this son of the carpenter to get in line with their brand of thinking and authority; they considered themselves the referees who were in control of what people could do or think.  They knew best!  And every time Jesus wouldn’t dance or cry to the tunes the Pharisees played, they kept score; the game was getting lopsided…so they decided to kill him.

For the Pharisees, being in control was everything.  Without their elaborate robes, sashes, artifacts, and rituals, they wouldn’t be noticeable.  And they wanted that fame, and the attention that went with it all.  This Jesus, a nobody carpenter’s son from a small town, was ruining everything.

The weight of control is tied to the weight of vested interest.  If change will cost you what you want to keep, the tendency (of selfishness) will be to resist.  The larger the personal stake, the more intense will be the level of resistance.  Fame, notoriety, fortune, and self-gratification are intoxicating – to say the least. 

It’s difficult to read this account of the shoving match the Pharisees created, trying to limit Jesus’ effect on the crowds; those people were the Pharisees’ home team, and this upstart country bumpkin was not going to take away what belonged to them.  The battle was joined at this point; and it would get as ugly as it needed to be for the control-mongers to keep it together their way.

For You Today

One benchmark of true Christian discipleship is the absence of control.  It’s known as the surrendered life.  You enter God’s salvation that way, surrendering control of your life by confessing your sins to God, placing your faith in Christ and His blood-sacrifice on your behalf, and God does the forgiving and saving.  Wanting to be in control of any of that negates your confession.

Confessing is admitting that you are not in control…God is!  And that is a weight that’s wonderful to get off your back!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

For another post on this text see The Original Radical

The Original Radical

 [1]

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

See VIDEO here

“To what can I compare the people of this generation?” Jesus asked.  “How can I describe them?  They are like children playing a game in the public square.  They complain to their friends,

‘We played wedding songs, and you didn’t dance,

so we played funeral songs, and you didn’t weep.’

For John the Baptist didn’t spend his time eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, ‘He’s possessed by a demon.’  The Son of Man, on the other hand, feasts and drinks, and you say, ‘He’s a glutton and a drunkard, and a friend of tax collectors and other sinners!’  But wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it.”  Luke 7:31-35 ^(NLT)

People complained about Jesus, the radical.  Jesus returned the sentiment; he said the people of his generation were like children who complained they couldn’t get him to play nice.  And then he pointed to his cousin, John the Baptist.  John lived the esthetic, austere lifestyle of a monk in the wilderness, preaching and baptizing – so the religious leaders suspected he was possessed.  Jesus spent time with people at their houses and parties, and the religious leaders accused him of overindulgence and having bad friends. 

You just can’t please some people.

The real fact of why they complained had nothing at all to do with parties or not partying; the real reason was because Jesus made them nervous.  Holiness makes people uncomfortably aware of their own shortcomings; and they don’t like it at all!

I read a news story[2] years ago about Billy Graham playing golf with a couple of PGA professionals.  After the round a reporter asked one of the pros how it was to pay golf with Dr. Billy Graham, “America’s Pastor”.  His reply was that it was OK, except he didn’t like having religion shoved down his throat.  One of the other pros privately told the reporter that Mr. Graham had not even mentioned God a single time the whole day. 

A guilty conscience will always react the same way when in the presence of somebody who models Godly living – with anger and vengeance.  Jesus, the original “radical” lover of men’s souls caused that kind of reaction. 

John the Baptist wanted nothing to do with the gluttonous, drunken culture.  Jesus wanted to be in the center of that culture to bring healing for their downward spiral of life choices.

Both Jesus and John were motivated by holy love, a radical, God-kind of love that genuinely cares for their fellow humans…and both were killed for it!

To those who would follow Jesus, the idea that you will always be liked and admired, is an idea that you would do well to shed and leave behind.  A holy and radical God-kind of love will more often be rejected just because you’ve always got Adam and Eve in the equation…mankind’s fallen nature runs, hides, and grabs the nearest fig leaf to conceal true motives.

But if you follow Jesus…you love them anyway!

For You Today

What’s your motivation for what you do for others?

You chew on that out on the Rocky Road today…and have a joy-filled and blessed day!

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[1] Title image:  Carl Heinrich Bloch [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

[2] I’m not certain of the source of that story (it’s been too long)