Grandeur
Luke 20
Jesus participates in a bit of repartee with the religious leaders in Jerusalem. He wouldn't have gotten much respect from them as a famous preacher and healer from northern Galilee. That area was known as the backwater of the country, so they would have thought themselves as superior to Jesus in just about every way. When Jesus is teaching in the Temple they demand that Jesus prove his credentials to speak so boldly about God. He asks them a riddle and, because they refuse to answer it, he refuses to answer their question.
Next, Jesus tells the story of farmhands who beat up the owners servants when they come to collect the profits. Finally, the owner sends his own son to collect, assuming they will respect his authority. Instead, the farmhands kill the son thinking this is their chance to take ownership of the vineyard. Jesus points out the obvious, though. The owner won't hand over his vineyard. Instead, he will prosecute them and find new people to work his vineyard. The religious leaders knew he was talking about them, and how God would replace them if they refused to honor God as they ought to. The religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus for talking about them in this way, but they were afraid of the people, with whom he was very popular.
A third story is a question from the religious leaders about paying taxes, and Jesus answers smartly, "give Caesar [the king] what is his and give God what is his." And a fourth story is about various women marrying a man and which one will be the man's wife in heaven. Jesus reveals something extraordinary about heaven in his answer. He says, "Those who are included in the resurrection of the dead will no longer be concerned with marriage, nor, of course, with the dead. They will have better things to think about, if you can believe it. All ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God." Jesus proposes such a radical view of the afterlife that even marriage is meaningless in light of our connection and relationship with God.
