Lenten Sermon Series: The Last Week–Tuesday: Conflict and Crisis (Sermon for 2/17/08)

In the spirit of this week’s text, let’s begin this morning with a hypothetical question—an old one but one that reveals a lot about us. Suppose you woke up early one morning to find that your house was on fire and you had time to rescue one thing out of the house before it collapsed to the ground. For argument’s sake, let’s assume that your family and pets are ambulatory and have already made it out the door. What would you grab?

It’s interesting to think about the range of answers on that—some would pick up a photo album, maybe the computer or the file with all the important documents on it. Maybe some precious momento. It’s probably something different for all of us. It’s a question that gets down to the very basics of what’s most important in our lives, what we value when everything is on the line.

Tuesday of the last week is a day for such questions. Jesus has turned over the tables in the Temple on Monday, and now on Tuesday the Temple officials, religious leaders, and even his own disciples begin to question him about his actions. In doing so, they reveal their values and in answering Jesus reveals his own. The fundamental question at stake for Jesus is about what is really important.

Look at the structure of the text and you see that the nearly three chapters that cover Tuesday are built around questions. Returning to the Temple on Tuesday, the day after he had turned over the tables of the moneychangers and pronounced God’s judgment on the Temple, Jesus is questioned first by the Temple officials. By what authority are you doing these things? Jesus responds to their question with a question of his own (a feature of rabbinic discourse), asking a question about John the Baptist and the authority of his baptism. Did that authority come from John himself or from God? It’s a question they can’t answer without embarrassing themselves. If they say it was from God, then they’ve indicted themselves because they didn’t believe in it and if they say it was human in origin then they’d be in trouble with the crowd which regarded John as a prophet. They’re left scratching their heads. For Jesus, divine authority wasn’t about building his own reputation, but about defining his mission. Using a parable about some wicked tenants who take over a vineyard, Jesus defines himself as the one whom God has sent to reclaim what is rightfully God’s. The image of the vineyard was often used as a metaphor for Israel and Jesus understood his mission as announcing that God was coming back to take it over and wrest it away from the wicked ones. The Temple officials knew that he was talking about them!

Up next are the Pharisees and Herodians who corner Jesus with a question about paying taxes to Rome. Should we or shouldn’t we? Say that we should and Jesus looks like a Roman collaborator—the crowd will reject him. Say that we shouldn’t and we can have Jesus charged with rebellion. It’s a loaded question, for sure.

Jesus’ response here again reflects his understanding of what is most important. He asked them for a denarius, a coin equal to about a day’s wages. That seems like an innocuous request until you realize that 1) Jesus is talking to some Pharisees, who claim to follow Jewish law to the letter and 2) Roman coins always had a picture of the emperor on them. The problem? The law of Moses forbade handling or possessing anything that had a “graven image” on it—particularly an image of a human, let alone a human who proclaimed his own divinity! Just by having the coin the Pharisees were displaying their “say one thing, do another” hypocrisy. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” says Jesus. Give him back his coin and his image, pay the tax because in the end the material stuff we have, the stuff we make in our own image, doesn’t matter. Instead, “Give to God what is God’s.” We were made in God’s image, thus we belong to God—heart, mind, body, and soul. Giving yourselves to God is what really matters.

Next in line are the Sadducees, who are really the most conservative group. The Pharisees believed that all the writings in the Hebrew Bible were scripture and all the commentaries on them by the rabbis were valid, too. The Sadducees, on the other hand, only stuck to the five books of the Torah—the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. Since there was no overt mention of resurrection of the dead in those books, they come to Jesus with a hypothetical theological question about a woman who goes through seven husbands—each one dies in turn. Now, you’d think that long about the 3rd or 4th guy they’d get the hint, but the law of Moses stated that if a married man died, his brother was duty bound to marry his brother’s wife and any subsequent children would be considered the heir of the original husband (that confusing enough for you?). The question the Sadducees pose, then, is intentionally ridiculous—whose wife is she when the resurrection happens? It’s the kind of question a smug person asks when they are trying to belittle their opponent in a debate. Jesus again turns the tables on them, though and points to the Torah—remember, he says, that when God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush God said, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”—present tense. It was not that they hadn’t died, but that God referred to them in such a way as to suggest that they would be alive again—alive in the presence of God and alive in a renewed world made possible by resurrection. Jesus is saying that God is the God of the living, not the dead—that a disembodied afterlife is not the goal but God’s renewal of creation through resurrection is where things are headed—a world where even the human experience of marriage and child-rearing pales in comparison to the joy of living in God’s presence in a new world.

Notice that all these questions are concerned about what is important to the people who ask them. The Temple authorities are concerned about authority, the Pharisees are concerned about loyalty and law, and the Sadducees are concerned that their theological worldview is correct over and against the dangerous idea of resurrection. After all, if people believe that God is going to change things in this world, those in power may have some answering of their own to do. Their questions, in that sense, are very human. After all, when we’re confronted with issues or with people who challenge us, our first impulse is usually to ask, “How is this going to affect me?”

Jesus, however, is pointing to a different set of values—values that come from orienting our lives to what is most important. And what is, indeed, most important? That’s the next question Jesus is asked.

A scribe was standing there in the Temple courts listening to all this questioning. Scribe is another term for lawyer. They were responsible for interpreting the law. Scribes are usually not sympathetic figures in the Gospels (I wonder if people told “scribe” jokes like we tell “lawyer” jokes), but this one is very astute. I sort of picture this man standing on the edge of the debate and when the Sadducees leave disgusted he comes to Jesus with his own question—not one designed to trap Jesus but one of sincere inquiry. Which commandment is the first of all? Of all the teachings in the Scriptures, what is the most important? After all, there are ten commandments and host of other laws, both biblical and rabbinic. What’s the number one thing, the primary meaning, the overarching value?

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Jesus answered by quoting not some obscure passage, but by affirming what has been in the scriptures all along. He quotes from Deuteronomy 6: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” That passage, called the Shema, was so important that the Israelites were instructed to “bind them as a sign on your hand and fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deut. 6:4-9). It was the first prayer that pious Jews said every morning. It was, and still is, the scripture passage that is written on a small scroll and worn in a box on the forehead of orthodox Jews (see picture) and attached to the doorpost of the home in a little holder called a mezuzah. You could call it the mission statement of Judaism—it was repeated and posted seemingly everywhere. Devotion, worship, love to God in all the aspects of life was job one.

Jesus understood that everything we are and everything we do begins with worship, with the love of God, because if we’re truly made in God’s image then we will find our true meaning and purpose when we learn to love and worship the one we were designed to reflect. Notice that there are no half measures here. We are to worship God with our whole being. Whatever we do, we are to do for God. Worship is not just an event, but a lifestyle.

That’s where the next piece comes in. Jesus adds to that foundational commandment of the Shema another piece from Leviticus 19:18—“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is not about ranking in priority or about loving others instead of ourselves—it is a commandment to show all people the same love and respect and care we want and need for ourselves. If people would live like this—loving God with the whole self and loving others with our whole and loved selves—even for a day, the world would be quite a different place and God’s Kingdom would be realized. This was the point that Jesus was trying to drive home. The Kingdom of God, God’s reign and rule, is not far away, but quite near and quite recognizable—that is, if we focus on what is most important.

Our focus gets fuzzy, however, because we are prone to get this backwards. We either love ourselves so much that we put God and others below our own desires and ambitions, or we love ourselves so little that we treat God and others with contempt, figuring they deserve to be miserable like us. Loving ourselves too much or too little is a prime definition of sin, and sin can only be overcome when we turn our whole selves over to God in a act of worship—allowing the love of God to overwhelm us and work through us. The most important thing, the number one value, the answer to all the questions is bound up in loving God with our lives and sharing that love with others.

The scribe was impacted by Jesus’ answer and, ironically, is probably the only person in the whole last week who agrees with Jesus, and reveals an understanding about what Jesus had done the day before in the Temple. Notice what the scribe says as they stand there together in the Temple—these commandments are “much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” This is key to understanding what Jesus is doing in Jerusalem during the last week. Think of it—if these commandments are the most important, if worshipping, loving, and serving God is the most important thing, then everything that the Temple stands for, the daily, weekly, and annual sacrifices and offerings is no longer needed. This house of God could burn down but you would still escape with the most valuable thing—the love of God.

Indeed, much of the rest of Tuesday is Jesus explaining that the house was, indeed, going to burn down—that the Temple was going to be destroyed and its system of sacrifices and symbolism was going with it. When that happens, said Jesus to his disciples, you must be ready to carry on knowing what is most important.

I was reading a quote from C.S. Lewis in my devotions the other day that gets at the heart of this. Lewis said, “One must keep on pointing out that Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance and, if true, is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.” Loving God and, by extension, following Christ is an all or nothing proposition. Faith, worship, loving God cannot just be a part of life—it is life itself.

This week we celebrated Valentine’s Day, a celebration of love. In the main, though, the kind of love that is portrayed on greeting cards and candy hearts is pretty trivial. Love of that kind can be largely confined to one day a year and even then it’s largely out of obligation. I always get a kick out of the marketing that goes on this time of year, especially targeted at us guys—if we don’t buy jewelry or get those roses we don’t really love our sweethearts and we’ll be in trouble. Somehow, I don’t think God ever intended guilt to be the motivating factor for love.

The kind of love that Jesus is talking about here is way deeper than that—it is sacrificial love, unconditional love, love that costs something. You can’t love God by sending him a card once a year—that requires a full-bodied and full-spirited commitment. You can’t love your neighbor without being willing to put yourself out on his or her behalf. Love means serving instead of being served. And you can’t truly love yourself if you don’t believe you’re valuable—not value as defined in human terms, but the value that comes from knowing that God has created you in his image and for a purpose; that you are valued so much that God himself, in the person of Jesus, came to serve and sacrifice himself on your behalf and on behalf of the whole world.

The temples that people spend their lives building all eventually come tumbling down—temples of power, of wealth, of ambition, of self-interest. Jesus calls us to build something else—a kingdom of love and justice that comes when we fully worship God with our lives, serve our neighbors sacrificially, and love ourselves as God loves us.

Lent calls us to self-examination and there’s probably no better test question we can ask ourselves than this: “What does my life reveal about what is most important to me? How am I doing at loving God, loving my neighbor and even loving myself?”

Those are questions that Jesus wants to help us answer!

Source: Wright, N.T., Mark for Everyone, London:SPCK, 2001.

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