Whom Shall We Blame?

The following is my response to a FB thread that was reacting to Kevin Sorbo saying that Jews killed Jesus.  The flavor of the thread seemed to imply that "Rome" alone crucified Him.
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I'm confused about this conversation.  I get that Kevin Sorbo is a blithering idiot and his opinions like any other pseudo celebrity are utterly useless.  It's indisputable that Roman Soldiers  brutalized Jesus and nailed him to the cross upon the orders of Pilate BUT in Matthew 27 it is also indisputable that Pilate acted on the behest of the Jewish people.

Here are some excerpts from Matthew 27*:

 1-2: (The Sanhedrin plots to have Jesus killed)

 "Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor"

9-10: (After Judas returns the money and the chief priests use it to buy a burial place for foreigners yet another prophecy is fulfilled)

"Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.”"

20-23 (Pilate gives the people a choice to crucify Barabbas or Jesus and the Jewish crowd expresses their will)

""But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and to have Jesus executed.  “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?” asked the governor.
“Barabbas,” they answered.  “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked.  They all answered, “Crucify him!”  “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.

But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”"

24-26 (Pilate washes his hands and the Jewish people accept the responsibility)

"When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”

All the people answered, “His blood is on us and on our children"'

So while what Kevin said is not technically wrong, if what he is alluding to is that today's Jews are responsible for the "sins of their parents" - he's completely wrong.  Even though they themselves said they and their children would accept the responsibility, that's not how Jesus worked.

John 9:1-3 "Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.”"

*Bible quotes are from NIV. I cross referenced KJV & NKJV and saw no contextual difference.

Papal Quotes and Weed

http://davewainscott.blogspot.com/2013/02/church-small-seemingly-insignificant.html

 
On February 15th, 2013, Dave Wainscott posted this quote from the ex Pope: 


"As he said in his 1996 book, “Salt of the Earth,” a smaller but purer church may be necessary. Maybe we are facing a new and different kind of epoch in the church’s history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, seemingly insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intensive struggle against evil and bring good into the world-that let God in."



Here is my reply:


I don't begrudge wisdom, even when it comes from sinners. Wisdom is still wisdom even if it's as small as a mustard seed in a haystack.

God knocked down the Tower of Babel for good reason, nothing good was to come from it. David' s small body and his pure faith in God knocked down the mighty Goliath. Small and pure is the narrow path. The political power of Mega Churches and strict adherence to a National Religion seek to force the masses on a solitary wide path that is both built and controlled by Man. If smaller and purer is a "new and different kind of epoch" it's only because Man has been fallible the whole time.

The analogy of the mustard seed is a good one because it speaks of the small and pure but the fallibility of Man is that once he has a seed, he seeks to control it. There's no argument that planting, watering, and pruning are all good things but in his zeal to see his seed grow to fruition, he deems everything else a weed.

Weed- "a valueless plant growing wild, especially one that grows on cultivated ground to the exclusion or injury of the desired crop", "any undesirable or troublesome plant, especially one that grows profusely where it is not wanted"

To me this very personal because I am a weed who found it's self grown near cultivated ground. To God, I am not valueless, I am neither undesired nor troublesome and most importantly, I am not insignificant. If we believe a smaller purer Body of Christ has more strength then we need to widen our definition of "good" to include those "things" that God has already let in.

  ~it's self~ was a grammatical typo but I'm sticking with it because "It" calls to mind the way we devoid weeds of having any value or worth.