Last week Cindy spoke of the danger of making the Bible say something it doesn’t. Most of the time, the Bible is quite clear and easy to understand. The early reformers were convinced that if they could just get the Bible out of Latin and into the language that people spoke every day (English, French, German, or whatever) then it would set the Word of God free to change people’s lives. That conviction drove the translation of the Bible in the 14th century and it continues to drive the translation of the Bible into thousands of languages around the world today.
However, there are some passages that need
a little more study and understanding of the context in order to get at the
meaning. We saw that a few weeks ago in Mark 11, when it looked like Jesus was
talking about vineyards but actually he was talking about
Then there are a few passages that stump even the best interpreters. One mark of those kinds of passages is that, when you look in the commentaries, the scholars all have very different ideas about them. That usually means that they don’t really know.
The passage at the beginning of today’s reading is one of those. It’s not really clear what Jesus’ point is. He seems to be casting doubt on whether the Messiah (the Christ) is a descendant of David. Yet, when he healed Bartimeus, he didn’t object to being called “Son of David.” It’s more likely that he’s being a good teacher, and challenging something that his listeners would accept without question, in order to move them on to a deeper understanding of who the Messiah is. We’ll see him develop that theme over the next couple of chapters.
But this morning I want to focus on what follows that passage and two types of people that Jesus draws our attention to; the teachers of the law, and the widow. And I want to ask one question. “Who’s watching?”
Over the last few weeks we’ve been
introduced to a whole bunch of different characters who asked Jesus questions
in
So who were these people, and why do they get so much coverage in the gospels?
Those of you who are used to older translations of the Bible will know them as the “scribes.” Their primary activity started off as writing. They were the guys who copied scripture. Today, if you’re a real techie, you can scan a text and run it through an Optical Character Recognition programme on a computer and end up with a word processor document that you can edit. Since the 1960s, if you wanted to copy a text, you could run photocopies. Beginning in 1439 you could take your text to a printer (that’s a person not a machine), who would make up plates and print copies of your book or whatever.
Before that, if you wanted to have a copy of a text, someone had to sit down with the text in front of them and copy it by hand. That’s what these guys did. They copied the Old Testament scriptures. Since they spent so much time with the scriptures people started going to them for opinions on what the scriptures meant, and so they became not just copiers of the law, but teachers of the law.
Most of them were not priests. Two of the most famous were men named Hillel and Shammai. Hillel was a labourer and Shammai was a carpenter, and they would work in their trades when they didn’t make enough money from taking in students. But people would also support them with gifts because they saw the importance of their work in studying and teaching scripture.
If any of this sounds a bit familiar, that
isn’t surprising. Paul’s model of ministry looked much the same, perhaps
because he was originally trained by one of these “teachers of the law” called Gamaliel. As well as
being a Bible teacher and Apostle, Paul was a tradesman. He made tents, and
whenever he didn’t have enough income from other sources he would go back to
making tents. He did that in
More to the point, it’s a lot like Jesus’ ministry. Jesus too was a tradesman. We say he was a carpenter but the Greek word is “tekton,” a person who worked with hard materials. So he probably worked with stone as well as with wood. Yet he knew the scriptures incredibly well, and travelled around with a group of students that we call his disciples.
So, perhaps the reason why the scribes, the “teachers of the law,” appear so much in the gospels is because, from the outside, they looked like the closest thing to Jesus’ ministry. Perhaps Jesus, and the gospel writers, are working hard to show us the differences.
In Mark 12.34 Jesus commends one of these “teachers of the law” for his understanding of scripture. Then in Mark 12.35 Jesus challenges one of the standard interpretations of these “teachers of the law” and it says that “the crowd listened to him with delight.” This was the best show they had seen in ages. But, instead of focussing on the intellectual debate over who the Christ is or isn’t, Jesus brings us back to his main focus. How does what we believe affect the way we live?
38
As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the
teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted
in the marketplaces, 39 and have the most important seats in the
synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.
[In 1973 Carly Simon had a number one hit
with a great song called “You’re So Vain.” The first verse captures what it
looks like to be so full of yourself that everything is done for effect…You walked into the party like you were /
walking onto a yacht / Your hat strategically dipped below one eye / Your scarf
it was apricot / You had one eye on the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte.
And the chorus has a wonderful sense of irony about it…You're so vain / You probably think this song is about you / You're so vain / I'll bet you think this song is about you / Don't you? Don't you?]
Carly Simon never said in public who the subject of the song was, but it’s rumoured to have been about Warren Beatty. It could also apply to these “teachers of the law” that Jesus is talking about. They loved to walk around in flowing robes, and although there wouldn’t have been many mirrors around, I’m sure they had one eye on people’s responses. Clearly Jesus didn’t wear these kinds of robes, even though he knew the Bible better than any of them.
Of course the fact that they wore these special clothes meant that people knew who they were and so they were greeted in the marketplaces. But, in Mark 10.17, when a man greets Jesus in the marketplace as “good teacher,” Jesus tells him off.
They also got the most important seats in the synagogues. These were the seats at the front, facing the congregation. Some of you will remember a time when that happened in churches. All the “important” people, the pastor, the worship leader, the people who were going to pray or read scripture, all trooped onto the platform at the beginning of the service and sat there facing the congregation for most of the service. Thankfully, not many churches do that any more. Just as well, since Jesus didn’t seem to have a very high opinion of it.
Finally they get the places of honor at banquets. They’re always seated at the top table. But in Luke 14.8 Jesus says, “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, …10… take the lowest place,”
So why do people do all these things? It’s
all about image and appearance. The question they’re asking is “Who’s
watching?” They’re concerned for what other people think, and they want to be
thought of as holy, as religious. In a religious community, whether it’s a
religious nation like
[We had a friend visiting last week from
We might not have that problem, but there are other markers that we can set up as important, as marking those who are “real Christians.” It might be something that you don’t do. In some churches you can’t smoke or drink alcohol, because those are thought of as external markers of a righteous person. In others it might be something you are expected to do, like take a huge great Bible with you everywhere, as the external marker of faith. Either way, the question is the same, “Who’s watching?” And if the answer is anyone other than “God,” we have a problem.
God really doesn’t care about external
signs of religion. He doesn’t need them. He can see your heart. In Matt 6.5
Jesus has some pretty strong words for external religiosity. 5 “And when you pray,
do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues
and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have
received their reward in full.
But Jesus doesn’t stop with just
criticising what the teachers of the law do for show. That’s peanuts compared
with what he says next. 40 They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy
prayers. Such people will be punished most severely.”
Because these men were experts in the law they would have been brought in to decide legal questions. In Luke 12.13 someone tries to do just that with Jesus. 13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Jesus’ criticism of the teachers is that they were acting as judges and, in the process, profiting off poor widows who had no legal resources to fight their claim. They were robbing the poor and salving their consciences by saying long, elaborate prayers.
Isaiah says, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue
oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice
from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the
fatherless,”( Is 10:1-2)
Jesus would agree. His words are, Such people will be punished most severely.
And the very next person we meet in the text is one of these widows. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
We’ve talked about this before but it’s worth repeating, if only because it comes up so often in the Bible. Widows, orphans and foreigners are the most vulnerable people in the Bible, because they had no voice, and no access to land to support themselves. The law was supposed to protect people like that. In fact it was mandated to provide a fund for the support of vulnerable people.
Dt 14:28-29 says, 28
At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce
and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no
allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the
widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that
the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
That was the government’s responsibility, the equivalent of funding social programmes out of your taxes. But there was also an expectation that people would be generous as individuals.
19 When you are harvesting in your field and you
overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the
fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the
work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, do
not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the
fatherless and the widow. 21 When you harvest the grapes in your
vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the
fatherless and the widow. 22 Remember that you were slaves in
So the temple system, and the community, were supposed to work together to support the poor and marginalised. But what do we find? A widow putting her last few coins in the offering to support a system that should have been supporting her.
There are a few things we can learn from this picture, and again it comes down to the question, “Who’s watching?”
It says, “Many rich people threw in large amounts.” I’m sure the crowd were suitably impressed. In fact I’m pretty sure that they were so impressed that they didn’t notice a poor widow put in a couple of pennies. But Jesus’ assessment of the situation is very different. He says that the wealthy people, “… all gave out of their wealth…” After they had given, they had plenty left over.
Jesus wasn’t opposed to people being wealthy. The Bible isn’t opposed to people being wealthy, as long as we realise that everything we have, however much, or however little, is held in trust from the Lord. It’s not ours. It’s his.
Jesus wasn’t opposed to people being wealthy, but neither did he have any illusions about the power of money to shape our behaviour. And one of the realities of money is that, the more we have, the less likely we are to share it with others. We may give more because we have more, but the truth is that, generally speaking, the wealthier people get, the less they give as a percentage of their income. That’s what Jesus is saying.
Let me show you something from another area that is close to my heart, international aid. [slides]
People are just the same as countries. (Countries are just lots of people put together.) The more we have, the less likely we are to share it with others.
By the same token, it’s often the poorest people who share what little they do have. When this widow came up to put her two cents in the offering she was giving more than money. She was giving herself. That’s what Jesus says. but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on. That’s how God assesses our giving. Not by how much we give, but by how much we keep. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.” When she gave, she wasn’t skimming a little off the top to give to God. When this widow gave she was expressing a level of trust in God that the wealthy simply couldn’t comprehend, even if they had noticed.
But Jesus noticed. By noticing the widow and pointing her out to his disciples (and us) he manages to do two things at the same time. He puts a human face on the kind of injustice that he was just talking about, where religious leaders use their position to enrich themselves at the expense of the weak. And, he commends this woman for such faith in God that she is willing to put everything on the line for him.
It often seems that our faith shrinks as our bank balance grows. And I know I have to be careful here because, small as we are, this congregation reflects a wide range of financial situations. Some of you are in the same boat as the widow. You’re living off a fixed income; Ontario Works, or ODSP, or a pension. For you the message of this passage is an encouragement to learn to trust God with your whole life, just like this widow did, and to allow that trust to result in generosity.
Others of you have relatively secure incomes. You’re not worrying about where your next meal is coming from, or whether you can pay the hydro this month. No matter how you feel, or what the culture tells you, you are, in the Bible’s terms, wealthy. For you this passage is a challenge to live outside your comfort level and be willing to live in a way that challenges our culture of self indulgence.
Jesus is the one watching us. He knows our hearts. He knows if we’re like the teachers of the law, just performing our religion so others can see it, or like the widow, whom no-one but Jesus noticed. May we be found faithful today.