“How we do things.”

That’s the status quo. Whoever we is, decides. And whoever we is, defends.

We build rules. We build penalties. We welcome. We shun. We shape whatever we can shape to keep whatever authority we can keep.

And when the outsiders, the newcomers, the challengers begin to threaten our status, we will do almost anything to stop them. And if the threat is great enough, and our livelihoods and lives are at risk, we may even kill the challengers.

It happens on TV shows all the time. It happens in history. It happens with cheerleaders in Texas.

And it happened once in Jerusalem.

“If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

The high council in Jerusalem had a deal with the Roman authorities: As long as the council kept the Jewish people behaving nicely, the council could keep their religious structure intact. But Jesus was threatening the structure. He was suggesting that people might not have to follow the rules the way the Pharisees taught. He was suggesting that you didn’t have to be perfect to be around God. He was suggesting that God didn’t sit passively waiting for people to come to him, or to the people who were his deputies.

Jesus was suggesting, nay, announcing, that God was pursuing aching hearts, clueless about how to proceed, and offering them hope, comfort, healing, reconciliation, resurrection.

And a God that pursues, that moves outside the building, is a threat to the ones whose lives depended on the building. And a God that moves, that treats broken people as people, not debris, challenges empires built on debris.

No wonder the high counsel was ticked. Sometimes, they still are.