Psalm Sunday
Temple Monday
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1. Tuesday morning begins with the realization that the fig tree had withered. But the bulk of the day is spent around the temple. Jesus teaches at the temple. He could still have escaped at this point. But the day is solidifying the sentiment of the leadership against him. Meanwhile, an undertone of destruction is getting stronger. This temple will be destroyed because of Israel's faithlessness.
We can divide the material for Tuesday in Mark into two parts. The bulk consists of debates that various groups have with Jesus. He is teaching, and they contest his authority and wisdom by trying to catch him with their questions. However, he bests them at every turn. He wins every argument and then finally in the end silences them with a question of his own.
This somewhat rabbinic sparring was part of the culture. Rabbis debated over the proper meaning and application of Scripture. It is a debate about authority. And these are ultimate questions. That section ends with Jesus' observations of a widow who proportionally gives far more than the wealthy people around her.
The second part of Tuesday's material directly has to do with the temple. In Mark 13 Jesus speaks of the context of the temple's destruction, which would take place 40 years later. We will look at that chapter tomorrow.
2. The first match is with chief priests, scribes, and elders -- the leaders of Israel (11:27-33). By what authority is he teaching? He is on their territory. He is causing a disturbance in the temple. Passover is coming.
They find out he is a Baptist -- one of those who is continuing the teaching of John the Baptist. Didn't Herod get rid of him?
Jesus makes the connection explicit. By what authority did John the Baptist preach? Now they are in a bind. If they say John was from God, they will disqualify themselves from spiritual leadership for not following him. If they say he wasn't from God, they will face the displeasure of the people.
"We don't know." They dodge the question. They lose round one. Jesus outmaneuvers them.
But Jesus is not finished. He goes on to tell the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (12:1-12), which is clearly about the leadership of Israel. God planted the vineyard of Israel. But it's leaders have rejected God as the owner. They have rejected the servants he has sent to them, prophets.
Finally, the owner sends his son, and they kill him. The end result is that judgment is coming for those wicked tenants. They will be destroyed. Meanwhile, the stone they rejected will become the cornerstone. This passage also comes from Psalm 118, which Jesus echoed several times on Palm Sunday (118:22-23).
3. Some Pharisees and Herodians spar next (12:13-17). Should Israelites pay taxes? They think they can get Jesus into a double bind on this one. If he says yes, the people will reject him as caving in to the enemy Romans. If he says no, he is a revolutionary and so vulnerable before the Romans.
"Whose image is on the coin?"
"Caesar's."
"Then give him his coin back." Jesus implies that the Roman economy has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. Here is all the profundity of his view of the Romans. They have nothing to do with the kingdom. Their money has nothing to do with the kingdom.
This in part is "Christ against culture" in Richard Niebuhr's terms. There is no need to participate in earthly politics. Yes, at the second coming Jesus will rule over all the earth. But it is not the time for revolution yet. Let the Romans do what the Romans will do. They are on borrowed time.
4. The Sadducees take him on next (12:18-27). We have now seen all the major groups except the Essenes. The Sadducees do not believe in resurrection. They think they have a winning argument. A woman is married to a man. He dies. According to the rules of Levirite marriage, six other brothers marry her in order, but she has no children.
Now they get to what they think is the clincher. In their mind, resurrection makes no sense because it would be impossible to know who her husband would be in heaven. It's really a pretty bad argument, the kind that only works well when you're around people who agree with you in an echo chamber.
Jesus pulls the rug out from under their assumptions. Women are not subordinated to men in the kingdom. They are not "given" in marriage. Rather, they have full autonomous authority. They will be like the angels. They will be equal to all the men who were their husbands in this life.
5. The final question seems sincere (12:28-34). It comes from a scribe who has been listening rather than sparring. This is a seeker, not a debater. "What is the greatest commandment?"
Here Jesus gives the core of all ethics: love God and love neighbor, citing Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18. The first is the Shema, the conerstone of Israelite faith. Matthew 22 will go on to say that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matt. 22:40).
When Jesus sees the genuineness of the man, he declares that the man is not far from the kingdom of God.
6. After all these questions, Jesus has one of his own (12:35-37). Psalm 110:1 seems to have God telling someone other than David to sit on his throne. David, the psalmist, calls the Messiah "Lord" when Yahweh sits the Messiah at his right hand. This was no doubt a known interpretation of the passage at the time even though it has as its unexamined assumption that David is the one speaking in the psalm.
So is the Messiah David's son or not, because David calls him Lord? This question stumps them, and Jesus does not give the answer. What is clear is that he has won the debates of the day. He has won without trying. He has not been the aggressor or the one seeking the debate. Rather, they have brought it to him.
7. But he does respond. He responds in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. And the chapter ends with a critique of the religious scribes.
The scribes, he says, they like to put on a show. They like to be greeted with honor. They like the seats of honor at banquets. They give long prayers to show how spiritul they are.
Meanwhile, they use their lawyer-like skills to devour the houses of widows. After all, they're just women. Their husband's property shouldn't belong to them after he dies. They're just women.
A widow comes by and gives two small copper coins. She goes by unnoticed by all but Jesus. But proportionately, she has given more than all the wealthy. She has given more than all the scribes. She has given from what little she perhaps had left after the greedy had done their job on her.
She is the one who will reign in the kingdom, and the others won't be there at all.
2 comments:
2. Much of my education has come from reading commentaries. I've never forgotten reading Barclay (I inherited a nice hardcover set from a cousin) who said of the Jewish leaders, "They would not face the truth about themselves." Some look down on Barclay because his is a more devotional commentary. But I think (based partly on feedback) that I preached one of my best ever sermons as a result of his thoughts, that were a revelation to me then. I still think of it occasionally. As I did today when reading you.
I suppose his influence has far outreached that of his critics.
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