MPC, 25th March 2001.Mark 12 - Wordgames with Jesus
Phil Campbell MPC, 25th March 2001.
When our kids were much smaller, we used to have a game. We'd play it in the car; sometimes we'd play it round the dinner table. It's called the YES-NO game. Simple rules... you can say anything you like, except the words YES and NO. So when it's your turn, everyone else throws questions at you. And you've got to be very, very careful what you say. Or before you know it, you're out. You've said one of the fatal words. YES or NO.
Now it's interesting, and I know I'm going to offend three of my kids saying this, but most of them are away on camp this weekend. But the truth is, Maddie was always our best player. Even when she was three years old, she was unbeatable. She'd worked out the rules, and she'd stick to them like glue. Here's the way it went. "Maddie, would you like an ice-cream?" "ACTUALLY, I would." "Maddie, do you LIKE playing the YES-No game?" "Actually, I DO." "Maddie, can you say YES OR NO?" "Actually, I can't."
She was very good. In fact, I couldn't beat her. I'd try to trap her, I'd try to trick her. But she'd outclass me every time.
Which is exactly what Jesus does to everyone who wants to play WORDGAMES here with him in Mark chapter 12. You've got the Herodians. Supporters of Herod the ROMAN RULER over Israel. You've got the PHARISEES. Fierce Jewish nationalists. It's like you've got every political and religious faction in Israel at the time - ALL UNITED. In trying to bring Jesus undone. And that's what it says in verse 12. "Later they sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to Jesus TO CATCH HIM IN HIS WORDS." To get him to put a word out of line. So they could charge him with TREASON. Or HERESY. Or anything they could. Because what they want to do is put Jesus to death.
The start of chapter 12 Jesus tells a parable that puts things in perspective. He knows EXACTLY what they're doing. And he spells it out in a story; a story so blatantly obvious that you can't miss the point.
It's a story about a farmer with a vineyard. That he lets out to some tenants. And every now and then you get the same sort of story on Today Tonight. Tenants who TRASH THE PLACE. Have no respect for the landlord. Won't pay the rent. Well in this story, and you can see it in verse 1 to 8, the vineyard is ISRAEL. The landlord is GOD. And the tenants are the high priests and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. The people in charge.
At harvest time, says verse 2, the owner sends a servant to collect the rent. A share farming agreement.
And Jesus says, instead of paying what was due, they seize him, and they beat him, and they send him away empty handed." And so it goes on. More servants. And they beat them or kill them as well. Until the farmer finally sends his Son. THEY'LL RESPECT HIM!
And what do they do? They kill him, they throw his body over the wall. And they laugh.
Which is, says Jesus, exactly how you chief priests and Pharisees and teachers of the law have treated God. He's left you in charge of his garden, he's put you in charge of his people; and that's how you treat him. And now he's sent his SON.
Jesus knows exactly what they've got in mind for him. And they KNOW he knows. But he says to them, be warned; the STONE YOU REJECT, it's going to be the CAPSTONE. God's got BIGGER PLANS that you and your temple.
And so in verse 12 it says they look for a way to arrest him. Because they know the parable is all about them. And they don't like it. So they start playing their own version of the YES-NO game. Questioning Jesus, trying to make him fall into a trap. So they can kill him.
So have a look at the first question. It's in verse 14 and 15, and they try to sneak it up on Jesus with flattery. It's the Pharisees and the Herodians who come to him together; sworn enemies. Remember, Israel's an occupied territory. Roman rule under Herod. The Pharisees HATE THAT. They're NATIONALISTS. And the Herodians LOVE IT. Except now they're united against JESUS. Except they're smooth talkers. Verse 14. "Teacher, we know you're a man of integrity." You're a REALLY GOOD BLOKE. "You're not swayed by what people think. So tell us, they say right at the end of verse 14, is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay, or shouldn't we?"
Now here's the bind. Cause either way, he's in trouble. Because however much YOU might hate tax time, how would it be if your taxes were going to INDONESIA. Or JAPAN? Instead of CANBERRA?
And so if Jesus says, YES, pay your taxes to Caesar, he's a traitor to Israel. And he can't be the Messiah. But if he says NO, then he's stirring up rebellion against Rome. And they can put him to death.
But Jesus is one step ahead. And he puts things into a new perspective. Jesus knows their hypocrisy, it says in verse 15. And so he says, "Why are you trying to trap me? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it."
Now a denarius is a Roman coin. Worth about a day's wages. And just like coins today, there's a picture of the king or the queen on one side. (Otherwise you couldn't play two-up.) So Jesus takes the coin and he turns it over, and he asks them. "Whose picture is this? Whose inscription?
Well, what could they say? There's the smiling face of Tiberius Caesar and the inscription underneath that says "Tiberias Caesar, Son of the DIVINE AUGUSTUS." Whose picture is it? Who made it? They can't says anything else. "It's Caesars."
So Jesus says to them in verse 17, some of his most famous words, "Then Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
And they're amazed at him, it says there. Because he's so neatly sidestepped their trap. The Kingdom he's talking about isn't about money. Or who you pay your taxes to. It's about GIVING GOD WHAT'S DUE TO GOD. Which is exactly what none of them are doing.
Well, that's the first attempt. The Pharisees and the Herodians have played their ace. And Jesus trumps them.
So round 2. Time for the Sadducees to have a shot. They're another Jewish faction, and Mark tells us there in verse 18 that the distinctive doctrine of the Sadducees is they don't believe in resurrection. No life after death. They reckon they hold to the Old Testament scriptures, and as far as they can see, the scriptures don't say ANYTHING about LIFE AFTER DEATH. So they throw Jesus a hypothetical. So he has to nail his colours to the mast.
A ridiculous situation. Designed to show people HOW SILLY this resurrection thing really is. Just suppose, they say, there are seven brothers. And the first brother dies and leaves a wife and no kids. Now Moses says back in Deuteronomy that his brother's meant to take over, and marry the widow. So the second brother marries her. And then he dies. And the same thing happens with the third brother and the fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh. Kind of like Seven Brides for Seven brothers but in reverse. But here's the crunch. Last of all, say the Sadducees, the woman dies too. Exhausted from being married more times than Elizabeth Taylor. Now, here's the question. "You reckon there's going to be life after death. So whose wife will she be then? Who gets her? Whose wife will she be at the resurrection?"
Well, Jesus throws back an answer, quick as a flash, straight out of Exodus 3. Look what he says to them there in verse 24. First of all, it's OBVIOUS there's life after death. Second, it's NOT JUST A CARBON COPY OF THIS LIFE. Things are different. So FIRST, a bit of a bible lesson. "Aren't you in error," says Jesus, "because you do not know the SCRIPTURES, OR THE POWER OF GOD?"
You guys haven't got a clue. You don't know the scriptures. And you don't know God's power. God's power to raise the dead. And he points them to Exodus 3. One of the most famous passages in the old testament, where God speaks to Moses from the burning bush. And God says to Moses, "I AM the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." Now Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were long gone by the time of Moses. Dead hundreds of years. But you notice what God says? He doesn't say "I WAS the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob." He doesn't say "I USED TO BE." He says I STILL AM. Because the fact is, DEATH isn't the end. And God is still very much their God - because they're with him. He's not the God of the dead. He's the God of the living. And the thit1g Jesus guarantees is, if God's your God in this life, that's the one thing that's not going to be changed when you die. Sure, he says, things like marriage aren't part of heaven. The love you find in a marriage is just a tiny image of what heaven's going to be like.
The Sadducees need a bigger picture of God. And a bigger picture of life after death.
So the question that was meant to trap Jesus traps THEM instead.
THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT
Now at this point, you'll notice there's even one of the teachers of the law who's IMPRESSED. He's saying, THIS GUY'S NOT BAD. Verse 28; he can see Jesus has given the Sadduccees a good answer. So he asks Jesus a serious question, a question the teachers of the law often chewed over between themselves. They've been through the old testament and counted. There are 613 separate laws. So which one's the most important? Fair question. And so Jesus gives his answer in verse 29. Look what he says. "The most important law... says Jesus, "is this: Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one. LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this. Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."
And the teacher agrees one hundred per cent. "WELL SAID, teacher." You're absolutely right. God is one, there's no other. And to love him with all your heart and all your understanding and all your strength and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices you could ever make."
Which is a dangerous thing to be saying in the midst of all the priests there at the temple where all the burnt offerings and sacrifices are going on. That there's SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT than all that. And it's to do with the heart. And it says "When Jesus saw that he'd answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God."
JESUS ON THE ATTACK
Well, it's not over. The pharisees and the saduccees and the Herodians have been playing word games wtih Jesus. Now it's his turn. Verse 35 to the end of the chapter, Jesus gives THEM something to chew on. He picks up a Psalm, where the great King David says HE HIMSELF HAS A KING to bow down to. And if the Messiah is simply a descendant of David, why does DAVID call him Lord.
You can follow it through verse 35. But that's the logic. He's saying, you're expecting a King from the line of David. The Messiah, the anointed one. So why does David call his great great great great Grandson LORD? So, says Jesus, you're meant to be experts in the law. What's going on? You're meant to know all about the Messiah. What's it mean? How can the Messiah be the Son of David. And yet David's LORD?
The answer is, the MESSIAH when he comes is going to be WAY BIGGER than just a son of David. He's SON OF GOD. And it says in verse 27, the Crowd listens with DELIGHT. They love it. They love seeing the puffed up scribes and Pharisees getting what they deserved. Great stuff.
And Jesus goes on to warn them. "Watch out," says Jesus. Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the market places, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at the banquets. They devour widows houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.
Here are these LEADERS OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD; and all they want to do is puff themselves up. The POMP and CIRCUMSTANCE. Full of hot air. For them leading the people of God means wearing the robes, sitting in the good seats; having people BOW TO THEM in the marketplace. At the same time, squeezing the last cent out of poor widows. Devouring their houses.
And here comes a poor widow now. Let's watch. Verses 41 to 44, there's a prime example of what he's talking about. Jesus says SIT HERE AND WATCH THIS.
Now here's a story we've probably all heard before. And the funny thing is, it's so rarely seen in its context. Here you've got the TEMPLE AUTHORITIES, who Jesus says just like the fancy robes and the best seats, and to feather their own nests they MILK EVERYTHING THEY CAN OUT OF THE POOR, they devour widows houses. And here's a widow NOW...
And maybe you've thought of this poor widow as the EXAMPLE of CHRISTIAN GIVING. The model fo the fact that it's not how much you give, but it's your ATTITUDE that counts. That's the sort of thing people usually say about the widow with the two copper coins.
But can I suggest if you look at it in context, it seems to be saying something else altogether. Because here's a living, breathing example of what he's just been talking about. I mean, it's one thing for the temple authorities to be taking offerings from RICH PEOPLE who can afford it. But Israel's meant to be a place where widows and orphans are CARED FOR. Instead of squeezed for their last two pennies.
And so as Jesus and the disciples are looking on, maybe he's not so much praising the widow, as pointing the finger at the High Priests and the teachers of the law and the Pharisees and the scribes. Who parade around in their robes, and sit in the most important seats, while they let poor widows give EVERYTHING THEY'VE GOT TO LIVE ON.
And so you can see why he says what he says in verse 40. "They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. SUCH MEN will be PUNISHED... MOST SEVERELY.
Friends, wouldn't it be tragic if we CHRISTIANS made all the same mistakes as the Pharisees and teachers of the law did.
Would you HELP ME first of all, and Maurie, to AVOID MAKING THE MISTAKES OF THOSE LEADERS... who are in it for the status. Make sure you keep us DOWN TO EARTH. Lovingly. Because it's easy, isn't it, to fall into traps. To want the titles of honour; the places of honour. Look, I don't know how ANY minister can read these words of Jesus and come to a communion service and SIT IN THE BIG CHAIR. Like the one up behind me. Same in most churches.
Or that COLLEAGUE of mine who wanted to explain to me that the reason he liked wearing a CLERICAL COLLAR around town was because he said, it's good because people will KNOW WHO I AM WHEN I'M SHOPPING. Which is exactly what the teachers of the LAW said. Who liked to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces. To be THE REVEREND or the VERY REVEREND or the MOST REVEREND. To be RABBI. Or FATHER.
Folks, when you catch me doing that stuff, give me a nudge. And tell me to stop it. Or else I'll be judged most severely.
But there are warnings here for all of us, too, aren't there. About maybe our ambitions as a church. Especially a church that's in the process of thinking about BUILDING something.
The temple Jesus and the disciples are in; it's one of the wonders of the ancient world. Sitting on a half acre slab of marble. And yet ROTTEN ON THE INSIDE. And we'll see next week, Jesus says, it's all going to come CRASHING DOWN.
We need to be careful, don't we. And if what I've suggested about the widow and her offering is right, we need to be VERY careful when it comes to CHURCH BUDGETS and CHURCH BUILDINGS. That we don't put a sense of obligation on the ones who can least afford it. While those of us who are better off SIT BACK.
Trouble is, it's so often the ones who have got least who are most generous. And yet I think Jesus is saying, if you LET THAT HAPPEN, you've LOST THE PLOT. In the end you can be doing all the things that label you as RELIGIOUS... and yet when Jesus comes, it's those who are MOST RELIGIOUS who want nothing to do with him.
Which is like that TEACHER OF THE LAW said, who wasn't far from the Kingdom. To love God with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices in the world.
That's what the Son of the Vineyard owner comes looking for. And in Jerusalem and the temple he doesn't find it. And so he says, the vineyard's going to be HANDED OVER TO OTHERS. To people like us. Who see the REJECTED STONE AS THE CAPSTONE. Live with Jesus as our King. People who need to be all the more careful... that we don't make the same mistakes again.