No Middle Ground

When Jesus turns the question about authority back on the Pharisees, He asks them whether John's baptism came from Heaven or was it merely human.

"They talked it over among themselves. 'If we say it was from heaven, he will ask why we didn't believe him. But if we say it was merely human, we'll be mobbed, because the people think he was a prophet.' So they finally replied, 'We don't know.'"

Lame, lame, lame, lame, lame lame, LAME!

Jesus took the act of John's baptism and put it in a place where all spiritual questions belong, the is/isn't category. I think I may have blogged about this earlier, at the beginning of Genesis. At what point in time in your life do you answer the question of spirituality. Either God "is" or he "isn't." Once that question is firmly answered in your mind, all other aspects of spirituality will flow. If he "isn't" then why in the world ought anyone do anything merciful for another at one's own expense? If he "isn't" then why shouldn't your behavior be all about gluttony and avarice and domination, because then nothing else "is" outside yourself, so go ahead.

But if He "is" then all the rest of the behaviors in your life fall into place, mercy, kindness, faith, love, everything we all depend on every day. It's a question that has no middle ground. It is an "is/isn't" question with absolutely ZERO gray zone. We can ignore the question, and go party, but the question has only two answers, yes, or no.

Jesus obviously understood the downstream ramifications of His question, and how they would envelop human understanding. With a sublimely simple question, He captures the Pharisees. The Pharisees know the risk of being caught in that question. It's the same risk we all face, every day, once we face the long shadow of eternity and as, "Is God?" or "Isn't God?" We all know what we are supposed to do with our lives, once we answer that question, but we can be afraid to do it, so we shy away from it, and ignore it, turn on the TV and say, I'm too busy to think about it, or tell the obnoxious person pestering us for the answer, I don't know.

This is us, every day, seeing that question, and shying away from the yes/no answer and what that answer DEMANDS from us. We see that demand, and we fear we cannot meet it, so we say, I don't know.

So, Jesus asks the question. GOD asks the question to a group of men, and the best they can come up with is, "we don't know."

Isn't that what we all do? And isn't Jesus basically saying, "LOOK, NOW!, God is here, and you are being asked, YES or NO!" And in our fearful, cringing, pathetic attempts to cling to our own identity, or own pitiful "power," we mumble, in the face of God, "Well, God, um, I... I don't really know."

There is no middle ground. There never has been, there never will be. Any attempt to believe in a middle ground is an illusory attempt to dodge a question and cling to an identity that will fade to dust in the attempt. The Pharisees could have said "No! John was a fake!" and that would have shown some guts, because they would have been standing up for a belief, but instead, they chickened out. A belief in NO God is still a belief, but belief in a middle ground is no belief at all, by the "yes/no, is/isn't" argument.

Jesus painted the eternal "yes/no" question as a way of validating his authority. As Deity, He could have made his authority by snapping His fingers, but He chose to use human terms, human language, to gain his authority from humans, giving us the power to believe in Him.

How much more do we believe in something when we come to it in our terms, versus when it is forced down our throats.? By defining the lack of the middle ground, Jesus lets us come to Him on our terms. The mercy and love in that act is why I chose to be Christian.