It seems like everyone is on edge, holding their breath. It comes partly from Luke’s storytelling (we just spent 40 days walking to get here, what’s going to happen next?) and partly from the anxiety shared amongst the Jewish leadership, Roman overlords and run-of-the-mill crowd.
We sometimes forget that this is all happening in the middle of a police action (albeit an exceedingly lengthy one). Rome has now occupied Judea and overseen its squabbling factions for well over 100 years. Their failure to get the Jews on board with their way of life is becoming a growing frustration. Titus will vent that frustration in a most savage fashion when he stands upon the Temple Mount.
Jesus has already predicted and wept over this looming tragedy. Right now, His focus is on praying and teaching in the temple in the days that remain before His crucifixion. The Jewish leaders see Jesus’ actions in the marketplace as a great opportunity to embarrass Him in front of the Romans and trap Him in His words.
“Who gave you the authority to do that?” they ask.
The Pharisees have been sulking since He got here. Despite all their scheming with the priests and the Sanhedrin, nothing has changed. The people hang on His every word. But now that Jesus has gone and done something that appears to play right into their hands, they are downright gleeful. If He says “no one,” they can have Him charged with disturbing the peace or inciting a riot. If He says “God,” they can charge Him with blasphemy. Either answer will allow them to ultimately humiliate Him. Jesus chooses a third option and offers a deal: He will answer their question if they will answer His.
“You bet!” says an overconfident Rabbi Feldman. “Ask away!”
“Do you remember John?” He asks as the crowd murmurs in appreciation (“Great man! Godly man! A prophet from God!”). “Do you think his authority came from God or man?”
The Pharisees are livid (“Way to go Feldman!”). Jesus has made fools of them by throwing their own question – and its answers – back in their faces. While they just tried to set Jesus up to face the possibility of a Roman court, Jesus has turned the tables and put the Pharisees in front of the court of public opinion. It’s not a comfortable place to be because they can’t come up with an answer that does not condemn them in some way. In the end, they give up.
“We don’t know,” they say, all long faces and hangdog expressions (and dirty looks for Rabbi Feldman). Except they do know. They just find it too hard to admit they made a mistake with John and they (wrongfully) assume it’s too late to do anything about it. At one point, Jesus will accuse them of preventing others from entering the Kingdom because they themselves don’t have the courage or integrity to admit they are wrong.
A large part of what’s holding the Pharisees back is the combined weight of their reputation and their heritage. They are convinced that they, and they alone, are the rightful purveyors of Torah and the righteous of the nation. They cannot accept that an outsider could ever have a correct interpretation or view of the Law. The problem with that, Jesus often tells them, is that they themselves don’t even believe the Law. If they did, they would believe in Him.
To help make His point, Jesus brings out the karaoke machine and warms it up with their favorite song (and His) about the man and his vineyard – a thinly veiled metaphor for God and the nation of Israel. But just as He gets to the part where Isaiah calls on everyone to sing along ("Hey, ho!"), Jesus starts freestyling – improvising on a theme that kicks their anxiety into a frenzy.
The tenants will kill the man’s only son, so the man will destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others, Jesus sings.
“Others?” wonder the Pharisees. “What others? Surely you don’t mean the ones you just cleared a space in the temple for? Surely not!”
“What then,” says Jesus, “does it mean when it says the stone the builders rejected is now the cornerstone?”
Caught between a rock and a hard place, the Pharisees have now been backed into a corner. They can neither get over nor around the stone that is Jesus. He has humiliated them again, and on their home turf no less. Round one goes to Jesus, but they'll be back. They will make Him pay for this very soon now.
