Mark 12 - My Thoughts

I think we should be starting to notice a bit of a difference in how Mark is constructing his Gospel at this point. The first 10 Chapters, as we’ve noticed several times, often comes across as a little bit chaotic, with stories often thrown together with little obvious purpose or at best with a very think thread holding them together. But after Chapter 10 you start to notice that Mark works with definite themes, and the chapter divisions from that point on tend to mirror those themes. That difference probably flows from the fact that Jesus is now in Jerusalem. Clearly this is the story Mark really wanted to tell, and the story up to Jesus’ entry into the city was primarily for background and to establish a few basic facts. But Jesus in Jerusalem is the story that Mark really wants to tell. The theme of last week’s readings was clearly “Angry Jesus,” as Jesus displays his anger toward different groups or situations in various ways. The theme of Mark 12 I would argue is “Jesus’ Opponents.” We aren’t introduced to anything or anyone new in Mark 12. Mark has already identified who Jesus’ opponents are in earlier Chapters. They’ve just never all appeared together. But in Mark 12 – here they are! You have the Pharisees and you have some Herodians; you have Sadducees and scribes. Jesus enters Jerusalem, and he’s confronted by all of them almost right away in Mark’s account. It’s clear that Mark is drawing a picture with words – Jesus’ opponents seem to be on literally every side, everywhere he looks and everywhere he goes; he seems literally surrounded by those who oppose him from the moment he enters Jerusalem. The feeling is ominous and threatening; it’s setting the stage for the story to come over the next 3 chapters.

 

Chapter 12 begins with another of those slightly awkward Chapter divisions we’ve talked about before. “Then he began to speak to them …” If all we had to look at were Chapter 12, we’d wonder who “them” is. But this is clearly a continuation of the last story of Chapter 11 when Jesus is confronted by the chief priests, scribes and elders, so the parable he tells is directed at them. This would be what you might call the “Temple” group of Jewish leaders – they’re specifically religious leaders, as opposed to the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were ultra-religious people but who lived primarily in what we would call the secular world, and unlike the Herodians, who were political figures attached to Herod.

 

Jesus directs this Parable of the Wicked Tenants at this group of “Temple Leaders.” It’s an interesting parable, and like all parables to really understand it you have to identify who is represented by the various characters in the parable. In this parable that’s fairly easy. The man who owned the vineyard is God, the vineyard itself is Israel, the slaves are the various prophets sent by God and the beloved son is obviously Jesus himself. That leaves us to identify the tenants. Who are the tenants? In one sense that’s very clear. The parable itself (in v.12) identifies the tenants. The tenants are the villains in the parable, and v.12 says that “they realized that he had told this parable against them.” So given that we’ve already established who “them” is by linking this story with the last story of Chapter 11, the tenants are the chief priests, scribes and elders. Jesus is accusing the religious leaders of Israel of ignoring the words and teachings of the prophets – and more than that he’s accusing them of having killed many of the prophets, including (this is obviously foreshadowing the events to come) the beloved son. But to show how Scripture can easily be taken out of its context, this parable has at times been used to justify anti-semitic beliefs by promoting the idea that “the tenants” are not just the religious leaders of  Israel, but are actually all of Israel – all Jews, in other words. That’s clearly not supported by the text, but it’s easy to take the story out of context and make it sound like this. That’s why it’s very important for us to be careful in how we interpret and apply Scripture – because it’s actually fairly easy in many cases to make Scripture say things it doesn’t actually say.

 

The religious leaders are very aware of what Jesus is doing with the parable. But, as religious leaders, they seem reluctant to take action against Jesus themselves, so they send Jesus to the people who have the most power over secular society among the people – the Pharisees and the Herodians. The presence of the Herodians is, in one way, a little bit surprising. Herod, of course, had no authority over Jerusalem. Jerusalem was directly controlled by Rome. But, since it is the Passover, it’s not surprising that supporters of Herod (if not Herod himself) would travel to Jerusalem at this time and we already know that Herod sees Jesus as a threat. Jesus’ welcome to the gates of Jerusalem to shouts of him being “son of David” (a legitimate heir to the throne of Israel, in other words, unlike Herod who was a Roman puppet) reinforce that threat.  The role of the Pharisees and Herodians, in the plan of the Temple Leaders, was to trap Jesus. It’s kind of hard not to smile a little bit at that note. Jesus has over and over shown that he’s impossible to trap. You just have to remember the end of Chapter 11 and how he dealt with what the Temple Leaders thought was an ingenious question that would trap him, only to have him turn the tables on them and humiliate them. We know how this is going to turn out. The Pharisees and Herodians start with what I’d call some sickly sweet and completely fake flattery: “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth.” (If all that were true, why would they be so fanatically opposed to him?) After the flattery they spring the trap – “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” It’s truly ingenious – at least it seems so. If Jesus says that they should pay their taxes to the Emperor, then the people will turn against him. Rome is an occupying power; the Romans are hated by the people -m and even at the best of times who really likes being told to pay their taxes? But if Jesus says that they shouldn’t pay their taxes he’s essentially encouraging a rebellion against Roman authority and giving the Roman authorities a reason to swoop in and arrest him. It seems as if there’s no escape for Jesus. It’s a “yes or no question.” Either you should pay your taxes to the Emperor or you shouldn’t. But Jesus is more ingenious than his opponents.

 

He begins by making what I can only interpret as a thinly veiled suggestion of his origins. “Why are you putting me to the test?” he asks. That is a clear reference to Deuteronomy 6:16, where Moses warns the people of Israel, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” You could also interpret it as Jesus shaking his head at the Pharisees and Herodians and saying something like “Do you really want to do this?” And after saying that, he offers what may be the most brilliant non-answer to a question that’s ever been given: “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” He actually says nothing about paying taxes. He doesn’t actually define what belongs to the emperor and what belongs to God. But he also can’t really be accused of not answering the question – because how can you argue against giving the emperor what is the emperor’s and giving God what is God’s? The Romans can’t accuse him of sedition; the people can’t accuse him of collaborating. It’s an ingenious answer. Jesus would have made a perfect politician! Can you imagine him taking questions in Parliament? And Mark says “they were utterly amazed at him.” Once again, they had sprung what seemed to be the perfect trap to catch Jesus; once again he had turned the trap against them.

 

So the chief priests, scribes and elders have been humiliated by Jesus, the Pharisees and Herodians have been left amazed by Jesus. Now it’s time for the Sadducees.

 

The Sadducees were a Jewish sect that bridged the religious and secular worlds. They had some temple responsibilities (some of them are said to have been among the priests of the temple) but they had an equally important role that they played in the secular world. They were significant people. They were a group that believed only in the written Torah. No prophets, no midrash, no psalms – just the written Torah. One of the most interesting things about them was that they didn’t believe in an afterlife of any kind – not as disembodied spirits going to heaven or as people rising form the dead. They believed in this life, and they believed that when this life was over everything was over. Perhaps they knew that Jesus had been teaching his disciples that he himself would be raised from the dead, and so they determined that they would trip him up on the whole idea. Well … you know how that went. They presented him with a ludicrous scenario of a woman whose seven husbands had all died – and so asked whose wife she was. Jesus’ response is once again a response of contempt toward his opponents: “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?” And he proceeds to explain simply that marriage essentially has no meaning in the resurrection life. People become “like the angels of heaven” – presumably in the sense that, like the angels, our entire focus in the afterlife is God. Unlike what some suggest I’m not sure that Jesus is saying that we won’t know one another in eternity or that we’ll forget the relationships we had in this life – only that God’s presence will be so powerful that our relationship with God completely consumes anything else. Jesus confronts the Sadducees on the subject of the resurrection by using the words of the very Torah they’re supposedly devoted to. In both Genesis 50:24 and Exodus 3:15 God is referred to as “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Jesus argues that since God is the God of the living and not the dead (which the Sadducees would have to agree with since they believe that to be dead is to be non-existent, and God can’t be the god of something that doesn’t exist), God can only be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob if they are still alive.

 

Jesus’ argument is so powerful that the Sadducees aren’t even recorded as offering him an answer. They just disappear from the scene, but in his encounters Jesus apparently impressed one scribe, who demonstrates that he understands that the way of God is the way of love (loving God with heart, soul, mind and strength and loving neighbour as self) rather than simply meaning devotion to the words on a page. In one sense, Jesus wins the day. The last words of the passage are “After that no one dared to ask him any question.” But that can also sound foreboding. His opponents are finished with trying to trap him. Now they’re simply going to plot to kill him.

 

Jesus himself asks the next question: “How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David?” This little addition to the chapter is confusing. Jesus in his brief discussion seems to deny that he’s the son of David. He quotes Psalm 110 to suggest that the Messiah can’t be David’s son (or descendant more appropriately) since David calls him “Lord” – and how could one of David’s descendants also be David’s Lord? I’m wondering here if Jesus is addressing speculation about his own ancestry? Mark never deals with the issue of Jesus’ birth, but assuming that the stories in Matthew and Luke are correct, then Jesus isn’t really Joseph’s son – and it’s through Joseph that Jesus can claim to be a descendant of David. Perhaps his opponents have been saying that since Jesus isn’t really descended from David, and Jesus points out that, like the Sadducees in the passage previous, that betrays an ignorance of Scripture, since Psalm 110 says the Messiah isn’t descended from David. In the background to this discussion might also be the accusation that was likely floating around that Jesus was illegitimate – so some might deny that he is either the son of David of the son of God. Clearly, it’s an issue Jesus felt the need to address for some reason. My guess is that he’s addressing speculation that he can’t be the Messiah because he isn’t really descended from David by pointing out that it’s a misinterpretation of the Scriptures to believe that the Messiah has to be a descendant of David – it’s tradition, but without scriptural support.

 

Chapter 12 then ends with what is essentially a couplet – two passages that work together to highlight a contrast. Jesus denounces the scribes for their arrogance: “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.” Essentially he says that their religion is for show, to impress others, but that it has no substance. And he contrasts the scribes (and rich people in general) with a poor widow who approaches the temple treasury and puts in two small coins, worth about a penny. The scribes puff themselves up with their pious shows and the rich think they can buy their way to God by putting a lot of money (but only a little of what they actually have) into the treasury. But the widow “out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” Which, when all is said and done, might even answer the unanswered question from earlier in the chapter: what belongs to the Emperor, and what belongs to God. Here’s a thought on the subject: everything we have belongs to God. The only choice we get to make is how to use what God has given us.