There Is Someone You Just Can't Question

This Sunday's Gospel selection is Matthew 22:34-46 in which Jesus shows the Pharisees that they just can't win when they put the Lord to the test,

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ‘What do you think of the Messiah?* Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘The son of David.’ He said to them, ‘How is it then that David by the Spirit* calls him Lord, saying, “The Lord said to my Lord,‘Sit at my right hand,   until I put your enemies under your feet’ ”? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. 

When I was young, I could never win a debate with my father. He was always right, and this irritated me to no end, and we children dared not dispute his lengthy sermons on whatever teaching or warning he wanted to share over dinner. This had the effect of silencing us during the family meal because if we brought up any subject, it would result in yet another sermon. As I got older, I found that I could challenge his facts when I was sure he had gotten them wrong and sometimes his assumptions, but once he got going, I still knew that it was best to keep my mouth shut.

Similarly, when we are children we usually accept the presence of God and his teachings, but when we become rebellious teenagers we often question those teachings and we even question His presence. God, however, is not like our earthly fathers. Our earthly fathers are fallible, sinful men. God on the other hand is sinless and has this nasty habit of always being right.

The Pharisees should have learned their lesson in Matthew 22 that there is one person that you just shouldn't question.