A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and elders of the people came up to Jesus as he was teaching and said to him, by what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority? Jesus replied, I also will ask you a question. And if you tell me the answer, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, whence was it from heaven or from men?
And then they took to arguing with one another. If we say his baptism was from heaven, he, meaning Christ, will say to us, why then did you not believe him? But if we say from men, we are afraid of the crowd of the multitude for everyone holds that John was a prophet. So then they turned to Jesus and said to him, we do not know. And Jesus said to them, neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Another way of saying, I do not know is to cultivate agnosticism. That comes from the a word meaning ignoro, which means I am ignorant. I do not know.
And we have a lot of that around today. As a matter of fact, men and women who champion that cause of agnosticism, they may not even know the word. But it's this attitude which says, Yes, I see that and it looks pretty sensible and reasonable. But on the other hand, I see this which contradicts it or is contrary and that seems reasonable. Well, I can't make up my mind between the two, but I'll be broad minded.
I'll accept both of them as possibilities and I will straddle the fence in the uncomfortable position of I do not know. I do not know. For some reason, this attitude puts the person in a superior position in their own estimation and in a way in our culture generally. It suggests open mindedness, generosity of spirit, and of course, a willingness to be all things to all men and women. This is a this is a very widespread attitude today.
We must not be judgmental. There are many ways of expressing it. We mustn't have a firm opinion. We must be wobblies. Now here's a wonderful example of this.
Are did they ask Christ and this their notice, their question was a beautiful question. They had every right to ask that question. Who are you? By what authority do you do these things? And if you have the authority, where did you get it?
As far as I can see, those two questions are pretty much the same. But there's nothing wrong with those questions. If anyone comes to me and and speaks or acts as if, as if they had authority whereof to speak, I wanna know where they got it. There's nothing wrong with the question. It was a very sensible question.
Our lord's reply was very sensible because he understood they weren't pursuing truth. They were trying to catch him. They were trying to entrap him. So he evades it. He said, alright.
You ask me a question, I'll ask you one. If you answer mine, I'll answer yours. That's fair enough deal in anybody's ballgame. Now notice then he says, John the Baptist. Recall, we had that excerpt not so long ago where John was baptized in the Jordan down down near Jericho.
Now that's not far from Jerusalem way up on the hill mountain. It's just it's less than an hour's ride. And the text says that the whole countryside was going out to be baptized with John, including the Sadducees and Pharisees, some of them. So the baptism of John must have been a big deal. It must have been a very spectacular event.
That's why our lord appeals to it. And so he asked them a simple question. He said, alright. What about John baptizing down there in the Jordan? By what authority did he do it?
Now that was a fair question to them. These are the men who are supposed to be so jealous of the law. Jealous. They are the custodians of the law. That's the reason they're they're challenging Christ.
So if they're if they're that careful about knowing where our blessed lord got his authority and by whose authority he exercises it, then why weren't they equally interested in John the baptizer? Now notice how they face the question. Do they try to answer it? No. They are absolute pragmatists.
The word wasn't even known in that day. But you see what they're doing? They're saying they're weighing their answer by consequences. They're saying if I answer this way, this will happen to me. If I answer on the opposite way, then this will happen to me.
But I'll get clobbered either way. You see, you're arguing from consequences, which is, of course, a very bad logical fallacy of it's called affirming the consequence. But this this is the this is the essence of pragmatism. You weigh things in terms of consequences. Or as William James put it very simply, what is its cash value?
So that's how these gentlemen solved the problem. Of course, they don't solve it, they just evade it. They said, well, if we say that John the Baptist he the baptizer, if he if he operated by the power of God, then he's gonna come back and say, well, if that's true, why didn't you accept him? On the other hand, they said he he didn't that the authority exercise did not come notice the contradictory, did not come from god, then we'll have the whole crowd on our necks because they all thought John was very special. So you see what how do they argue?
They're saying either answer I give will injure me. It'll hurt me. It'll affect me unfavorably. I'll suffer from it. Therefore, what do I do?
Get out. See, they're not they are not honest pursuers of truth because sometimes to like to know the truth and then to accept it, these things are not the same at all. But to know the truth and accept it does not mean joy, light, happiness, tranquility, and all the rest. It can mean hell on earth. Let's not minimize that at all.
So what do they do? They say, we're not gonna suffer those consequences. So they say, we don't know. You see, we don't know. We are men of intellect.
We have surveyed the pros and the cons. We know the answers on both sides. We know how you can defend it over here and condemn it. We know how you can defend it over here and condemn it. We know all of this.
And in our magnificent intellectual catholicity, with a small c, we simply say, we don't know how nice. And that's the way it is today in this country especially, where people are refusing to take stands on immensely important subjects and they retract in this nice superior position, I really do not know. There's so much to be said on both sides. You can't be a Christian without taking a stand by the cross. Christ said that.
We have no choice. We cannot be ambiguous. Oh, we can be, but you can't be a follower of Christ and be equivalent about it. If you do, if I do, and we're try and we're doing it all the time, you know. We will never fully succeed in perfectly not doing it until the curtain comes down.
But we have to try not to be equivalent. We have to try not to be ambiguous. We have to try to be men and women of taking a stand by the cross of Jesus Christ, in the company of Jesus Christ, acknowledging Jesus Christ, and willing to follow him, come hell or high water. In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.