Three college boys, ages 19 and 20 go hunting together and as a prank decide to burn down a little old rural Baptist Church. Then they burn another and before the burning is over, nine churches have been burned and it all started as a prank – a “joke that got out of hand.”

You read the story and you shake your head and you wonder what went wrong.  Each is the child of a good family. Each is smart and attending college and each has a bright future ahead. Something just went wrong and you wonder what.

I like to read mystery novels. At their worst, they are fun to read and at their best, they reflect on some of the deeper realities of life.  Let me read you a short paragraph from a book called Booked to Die by John Dunning.  One of the characters is explaining why he writes bad checks.

“O let’s call a spade a bloody f____ shovel,” Ruby said. “We bounced a few checks on him. That’s no big deal, people do it all the time.  We always made it good.  But those bookscouts hate to take a check anyway.  They go all the way down to the bank and the check’s no good.  I know where they’re coming from.  I understand why they get (angry) pissed off.”

            “Then why do you do it?”

            “You mean write a hot check?  You know that, Dr. J, I know you do.  It’s book fever. You’ve got it just like I have.  You see a book you want, you do what you have to do to get it.  My intentions are honorable, it’s my performance that lags a little.”

[John Dunning, Booked to Die. (New York: Simon and Schuster. 1992) p. 49]

Don’t you love the sentence, “My intentions are honorable, it’s my performance that lags a little.”  How many times could you have said that?

On the one hand, we hear about three apparently decent fun-loving kids that burn down churches and on the other hand we hear a confession that “My intentions are honorable, it’s my performance that lags a little,” and a sense that something is wrong begins to emerge.

Then we read about wars and scandals and domestic violence and all kinds of addictions and the sense of “Something Wrong” takes hold and just won’t go away. It is more than a few senseless fires in Alabama. It’s larger than our own moral and spiritual performance failures. There is something cosmically wrong!

In this Lenten Series, we are remembering the last week in Jesus’ life and today we are focusing our attention on Tuesday and Wednesday.  It is here that “the plot thickens.”  It is here that Jesus confronts the “Something that is Wrong,” both personally and cosmically.  In a different time and place, Jesus is facing the very same stuff that is messing us up and messing up our world.

Sunday, Jesus had entered the city as a hero as the crowd shouted “Hosanna” and waved palm branches to celebrate his arrival. Monday, he had gone to the temple, turned over the tables and chased the merchants out and declared “My house shall be a house of prayer for all people.” I called it “Trashing the Temple.”

Now it is Tuesday and Jesus has returned to the temple and the temple people are asking him, What right do you have to do these things?  Actually the Bible phrases it this way, “By what authority are you doing these things…and who gave you this authority?” (Mark 11:28)

In this moment Jesus refuses to answer.  Instead, he asks the question, was John’s baptism from heaven or hell?  And the temple people answer, “We don’t know.”  And Jesus leaves them hanging, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

As we read the story, where does that leave us?  It leaves us with the question, What kind of authority does Jesus really have?  When we think about ordinary college students burning churches and when we think about our own moral and spiritual performance failures and when we think about the reality of war and scandal and the broken places in this world, what kind of authority does Jesus have?  If you are asking the question, Jesus has you exactly where he wants you – looking at Jesus and asking, what kind of authority does he have in this world and in my life?

Through Tuesday and Wednesday Jesus teaches in the temple and as he teaches, he and the temple people argue with one another and through their confrontations, we begin to see both what is wrong in the world and what is right with Jesus and we see that the road to resurrection is leading first to the cross.

He tells a story about a man who owns a vineyard. When he goes on a journey, he leaves his farmers to take care of it. At harvest time he sends first one and then another and still more to collect his earnings but all of the messengers are abused and even killed.
Then he sends his son thinking that they will respect his son. But, instead of giving the owner his due, they kill the son.  They refuse to give the owner his due and they kill the son!

And the questions are who is the owner and who is the son?  Jesus is speaking to the question of authority. If he is the son and if God is the owner, then who are the temple people? And who are we?  Have we given the owner his due?  How have we treated the son?  And what does this have to do with our conviction that there is something very wrong in our world?

The gospel writer says that it was here that they began to look for a way to arrest him.

They send Pharisees and Herodians around to ask him about taxes. Herodians, those who are in the camp of King Herod and the Pharisees, those who think that Herod is the essence of evil, what a strange team! 

Is it right to pay taxes, they ask.  Show me a coin, he says. Whose face do you see? Caesars, they answer. Then give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God!

But they know they have been caught. How?  The face, the face of Caesar is the key.  Caesar has declared himself to be the Son of God!  Throughout the Roman Empire, monuments have been lifted in every city and town of substance declaring that
Caesar is god and the son of god. The Pharisees and the Herodians bring these testimonies to the idolatry of the Roman Empire into the temple of God!  It looks for all of the world like those who are challenging Jesus have already sold out to the enemy.

And the question still is, who gets to determine what really belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar?  If God is really God then tell me, what does not belong to God? 

They ask him about marriage in heaven and he tells them that if they knew their bibles they would know that it doesn’t work that way in heaven and besides, God is the God of the living and not the dead. What matters now is the way you are living under God this side of heaven rather than what might happen on the other side.

Somebody asks him about the greatest commandment and he answers that the greatest commandment is to love God with the totality of our being and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.  And the man asking the question answers, “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.  To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

It happens so quickly that it almost slips past. The man who asks the question says that it is more important to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves than to give burnt offerings and sacrifices. Where are they standing?  They are in the temple where the most important thing appears to be burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Then Jesus attacks the religious leaders themselves.

 “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, ³⁹ and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. ⁴⁰ They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”

He attacks the distortion of religion itself. Instead of being the agency through which women and men love God completely and love one another whole-heartedly, it becomes the agency for self-service. 

And to make his point, he points to a poor widow who puts two copper coins in the offering and he declares that she has demonstrated love for God more than all the rest.

She loves God with all of her being while the rest simply give from their leftovers. 

But the most threatening thing of all is a prediction. He says that the day will come, nobody knows when, when the Son of Man will come on a cloud and he will gather his people to him.  The day will come, he promises, when the way of God will be the way of all people and those who choose another way will be lost.

What is wrong? We started with the feeling that there is something terribly wrong. What is it?  Every confrontation is about the failure to love God and the failure to love our neighbors. The Romans tried to make a god of Caesar and the people in the temple abused those who were under their care. The problem is with the Great Commandments and our failure to perform. We simply refuse to love God and neighbor and we refuse to submit to the authority of Jesus.

Now the question of authority returns. Who is Jesus?  What right does he have to say the things that he says? 

Let me ask you this single question, does it seem to you that he is telling the truth?  Is it true that the greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength?  Is it true that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves?  Did Jesus get it right?

Then his authority is in the truthfulness of his teaching. 

And if he spoke the truth, does his life conform to the truth that he spoke?  If it does, then it is fair to ask, is he indeed the Son of God!  Do you see the light of God in the life of Jesus? If you do, then that is his authority. 

Now this is the problem.  I would not mislead you. The third question may be the hardest. Are you willing to make him the authority in your life?  Are you willing to live your life in a way that is consistent with his life, consistent with the two great commandments – to love God with all of your being and to love your neighbor as you love yourself? 

Perhaps we can ask two questions. One, can you see the legitimacy of his authority?  Does it make sense?  And question number two, will you submit your life to the authority of his? 

Well, it was on Wednesday when Judas made a terrible decision. He went to the chief priests and he offered to betray Jesus into their hands.  They accepted his offer.

Something is indeed terribly wrong. That is the bad news. And the good news is this; someone is terribly right. The answer to the problem is in sight. Jesus is the answer.