Wickedness in High Places

Wickedness in High Places


Is it that he comes in royal fashion?
Riding on an ass as kings of old?
Dusty traveler of strange compassion,
Confident, this Jesus, and so bold!

Trouble brews! The young, the poor, the downcast
Hail now that Messiah has appeared.
Is the fight to come from him at long last?
Is there power in him to be feared?

Temple tills he spills, disrupting business.
Money-changers flee from his attack.
Paschal profits wasted there, and no less
Trouble herding all the livestock back.

Still, our spies have little to accuse him;
That he might be silenced for some crime.
Nightly, in the settling streets they lose him
To some hidden garden quiet time.

With the morning, in the temple, teaching,
He is found by scores who seek the truth.
Tirelessly, he ridicules our preaching,
Giving tried traditions stern reproof!

How we weary of this Galilean,
Plaguing lordly powers with “cat-and-mouse”.
Blasphemy! The unschooled Nazarene
Calls our halls of prayer his Father’s House!

First to seize him when the crowds are sleeping.
Then to trouble Pilate with some threat.
All the while our grand composure keeping;
We will have this Jesus beaten yet!

Luke 16

10-13Jesus went on to make these comments:

If you’re honest in small things,
you’ll be honest in big things;
If you’re a crook in small things,
you’ll be a crook in big things.
If you’re not honest in small jobs,
who will put you in charge of the store?
No worker can serve two bosses:
He’ll either hate the first and love the second
Or adore the first and despise the second.
You can’t serve both God and the Bank.

14-18When the Pharisees, a money-obsessed bunch, heard him say these things, they rolled their eyes, dismissing him as hopelessly out of touch. So Jesus spoke to them: “You are masters at making yourselves look good in front of others, but God knows what’s behind the appearance. (The Message)