Taking Sides?

A recent seminary graduate, with an advanced degree in sociology, was called on to deliver a speech to a group of seniors in a retirement community. For what seemed like an eternity to some in the audience, the young man lectured the seniors on the subject of “The Art of Living.” When the talk was over, an eighty-eight-year-old man waited until everyone was gone but the twenty-five-year-old speaker. The senior then congratulated the lecturer for delivering a speech with such confidence and conviction. “Your style and presentation were very polished for a young man your age,” he said. “I applaud you for the effort. But I must tell you something that you’ll come to realize as you get older: You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

In today’s Gospel Lesson, Jesus begins to make it clear to His disciples that the time is near when “He must go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes,…