(Image: The Widow’s Mite, 1973, The Jesus MAFA project, Cameroon. More information and image source attribution here)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY
From before recorded time, the First Peoples of the Dharawal community cared for this land. We thank God for the beauty of this land and honour those who have offered themselves in tending it. We acknowledge the Elders and community who have told the sacred stories and nurtured faithfulness to the Creator. We ask God’s blessing on those who continue to work for healing and restoration. May we walk gently on this land
LIGHTING THE CANDLE
The candle is lit to remind us of your presence with us as we worship together today. Thank you Lord for being our partner.
OPENING PRAYER: brought to us today by a video creation by Susan here
HYMN: the version we used today can be viewed here.
1 Let us sing to the God of salvation,
let us sing to the Lord our rock;
let us come to his house with thanksgiving,
let us come before the Lord and sing!
Praise our maker, praise our saviour,
praise the Lord our everlasting king:
every throne must bow before him
God is Lord of everything!
2 In his hand are the earth’s deepest places,
and the strength of the hills is his;
all the sea is the Lord’s, for he made it
by his hand the solid rock was formed.
Praise our maker, praise our saviour,
praise the Lord our everlasting king:
every throne must bow before him
God is Lord of everything!
3 Let us worship the Lord our maker,
let us kneel to the Lord our God; for we all are the sheep of his pasture
he will guide us by his powerful hand.
Praise our maker, praise our saviour,
praise the Lord our everlasting king:
every throne must bow before him
God is Lord of everything!
4 Let today be the time when you hear him!
May our hearts not be hard or cold,
lest we stray from the Lord in rebellion
as his people did in time of old.
Praise our maker, praise our saviour,
praise the Lord our everlasting king:
every throne must bow before him
God is Lord of everything!
CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE
“Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and 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.”
Let each of us confess our failure to love, without restraint, this one, compassionate God.
Let us pray.
If we have tried to serve many masters, only to be torn in different directions, becoming frustrated and fractured. Lord have mercy
If we have tried to serve a shallow god that is made in our own likeness, and have ended up bored and fruitless. Christ have mercy.
If we have tried to serve the god’s that others foist on us, and have found they leave us restless and discontented. Lord have mercy
All wise and all loving God, we confess we have not been whole hearted and single minded in our devotion to you. Through the saving grace of Christ Jesus, overrule our folly and forgive our wanderings and rebellion. Restore us to that spiritual sanity for which we were created. With all our being may we love and honour you, and know that peace and joy which nothing else can ever equal. For your name’s sake Amen
FORGIVENESS
Hear the good news: By grace you are saved, through faith, and faith is not the result of your own effort but is a gift from God. Jesus says: “Son, daughter, your sins are forgiven go in peace.”
SONG Love the Lord Your God (video here)
BIBLE READINGS: Today we are looking at a collection of six familiar stories with Jesus at the centre, in order to place today’s lectionary reading in its appropriate context.
Mark 11:27-33
Mark 12:1-12
Mark 12:13-17
Mark 12:18-27
Mark 12:28-34
Mark 12:38-44
Song: The Great Love of God
The great love of God is revealed in the Son, Who came to this earth to redeem everyone
That love, like a stream flowing clear to the sea, Makes clean every heart that from sin would be free.
It binds the who world, every barrier it breaks, The hills it lays low and the mountains it shakes
Its yours it is ours O how lavishly giv’n, The pearl of great price and the treasure of heav’n
MESSAGE: John M (The video of the sermon can be viewed here, 20mins)
(Pre-reading intro)
Today’s lectionary contains Mark 12:28-34. However, if we just read that section, we might be left with a misleading picture of the scribe who questions Jesus and of the whole relationship between the Jewish leaders and Jesus. So I have asked our readers to read from Mark 11:27 so we see the whole picture. These stories will be quite familiar and contain 2 of the most mis-used passages in the Bible. Seeing them in context will help us understand them too.
So, as the readers read these 6 stories from Mark, think about what Jesus is saying about the Jewish leaders. Look out for those famous stories and see if you can put them in the larger context. Today will be a bit of an exercise in how to read the Bible as well as gleaning what lessons for today we can take from it.
(Sermon)
So the lectionary reading is the section about the greatest commandment. If we had just read that, we might be left with the view that the scribe who asked the question actually respects Jesus and that Jesus commends him. He is on the right track. After all, when he agrees with Jesus, Jesus says, “you are not far from the Kingdom of God”. However, as I said before, the context really makes a difference here.
At the start of our readings, we see Jesus approached by the “chief priests, scribes and elders”. These groups made up the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews, which ruled Judea together with the Roman procurator, Pilate. They were both religious leaders and civil leaders. In that day and society there was no separation of church and state. Religion and society were one. They were the ruling class in every way, including being God’s authority on earth.
Immediately they challenge Jesus’ right to do and say the things he has been doing and saying. So we see from the start, they are antagonistic to Jesus. It is not a sincere inquiry, it is an attempt to stop him.
Then Jesus tells the parable, the one we call the parable of the tenants. It is clear that the wicked tenants in the story are those very same Jewish leaders. By telling the parable against them, Jesus is calling them murderers and thieves. No wonder they wanted to arrest him.
Now we come to one of those very mis-used stories. To continue the battle, the Jewish leaders find Pharisees and Herodians, essentially other groups who had argued with Jesus. They were getting others to do their dirty work. It is exactly how many politicians work today. These people ask Jesus about paying tax to Caesar. Jesus does 2 things: by getting them to produce a coin with the image of the Roman emperor and an inscription describing the emperor as the son of god, Jesus demonstrates that they are in possession of an idol and breaking the Jewish law. Furthermore, it shows them up as collaborators with Rome. Then Jesus says, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God. Now for any Jew, the whole world belonged to God and Caesar came a very distant second. So Jesus is not endorsing paying the Roman tax or, as we hear so much today, suggesting his followers should obey the government and only serve God in spiritual things. That would be the 2 Kingdoms doctrine we discussed last week. Rather, Jesus is highlighting that everything belongs to God and that these Jewish leaders are hopelessly compromised by their collaboration with Rome. So this story is a continuation of the parable in which Jesus is denouncing the Jewish leaders.
Next we come to this odd question about marriage after the resurrection. This time it is introduced by the Sadducees. The Sadducees, essentially the priestly class, didn’t believe in the resurrection. However, this story is not about whether the resurrection will happen or not. It is about the Jewish rulers wanting to assert the dominant social order and Jesus showing that the Kingdom of God actually subverts it. The practice of marrying one’s brother’s widow was a way of perpetuating patriarchal dominance. If we go back to Deuteronomy we see that the widow’s welfare is not the issue, the issue is the continuation of the family’s property via an heir. Jesus says their premise is wrong. For Jesus, the resurrection is not a static doctrine to be debated, but a living hope for the transformation of the world. A transformation that does away with patriarchy and an ownership model of marriage. So again, Jesus is denouncing the injustice of the ruling class and pointing to a new future where both power and assets are justly distributed, particularly among women.
So now we have the lectionary story. One of these scribes asks Jesus which is the most important commandment. Jesus answers as any Jew would. He quotes what is calls the shema: “The lord our God is one… you shall love the Lord your God” etc. It is a quote from Deut 6. However, the second part of Jesus answer is something of a novelty. He quotes from Leviticus 19 , adding that you shall love your neighbour as yourself. Now, while the Jewish teachers would not disagree with the Leviticus quote, it is Jesus bringing it together with the shema that is new here. What Mark and Jesus are saying is that heaven must come to earth – there is no love of God except in love of neighbour.
The scribe agrees with Jesus and Jesus responds with “you are not far from the kingdom of heaven”. However, not far is not close enough. Jesus does not ask this man to “come and follow him”. There is no invitation to join the band of disciples. It is as if mark and Jesus are ruling out the possibility that the scribes can become disciples. Why? no matter how much they know their bible, they are by definition committed to a system that oppresses and exploits. They might claim to love God, but all these stories show they do not love their neighbours – the last story is a classic example of that.
In the Leviticus passage that Jesus quotes, love of neighbour includes a number of explicit commands that involve not oppressing or exploiting the poor. The last story in our collection shows them doing exactly that – the ruling class exploiting and oppressing the poor. First though, Jesus denounces them explicitly and accuses them of devouring widows’ houses. How do they do that? Well the story of the widow at the temple shows us exactly how. When paying the temple tax, the widow puts in all her money – everything she has. Jesus is not pointing out what a generous women she is, rather, he is pointing out how exploitative the temple tax is. By this exploitative tax, the ruling elite have devoured her house.
So we can be quite clear. The scribal class are oppressors and exploit the poor. They did not obey the Jewish law. They did not stand for justice or the Kingdom of God. Therefore, they were opposed to everything Jesus stood for. Once we read all of these stories together (and I have been very cursory in my explanation I know) we see that Jesus is not commending the scribe who knows the right answers but condemning him for remaining part of an oppressive and exploitative system that is opposed to God’s program of justice in the world, particularly as he knows intellectually, at least, what is right.
So what can we take from this? I have a few suggestions. Most obviously, there is the connection between love of God and love of neighbour. There is no love of God without love of neighbour. If someone claims to love God we can look at their love of neighbour to see how true that is. It goes for us too. If we claim to love God but don’t love our neighbour, then we are kidding ourselves too. We, like Jesus, must be careful of taking professions of faith at face value – do they love their neighbours?
Secondly, we see that Jesus is openly political. He does not shy away from criticising politicians and showing their professions of faith and apparent piety up for the hypocrisy that they really are. While I think this church has moved on, I’m sure we can all remember the time when religion and politics didn’t mix, when it wasn’t polite to use our understanding of our faith to critique our political leaders. Jesus had no such qualms and neither should we. We should not shy away from highlighting injustices perpetrated by our government. Whether it be cruelty to asylum seekers, the robodebt scandal, the obscenely low unemployment benefits, indifference to climate change etc. If we are to follow Jesus, we will name and call out injustice when we see it.
Thirdly, we should be cautious when those in power seem to repent and want our favour. The scribe agreed with Jesus as to the 2 greatest commands. He seemed close to the kingdom. How would we respond in Jesus’ situation? I would be very tempted to shout hallelujah and welcome him with open arms into my church. How wonderful, one of our rulers has been saved, he is now one of us! However Jesus is wiser than that. He knows that this man has not left the oppressive system that devours widows’ houses. We too must be wary of expressions of faith by our leaders that are not accompanied by real actions.
Grace Tame is the current Australian of the Year. While a teenager at school in Tasmania, she was sexually abused by a teacher. While the teacher was convicted and jailed, Grace Tame was not allowed to speak about her abuse. Strangely, it was against the law for her to speak publicly even though her abuser could and has spoken publicly, even accusing her of provocative behaviour. Through her advocacy, that law was changed. She has continued to be a powerful advocate for victims, particularly this year as Australian of the Year. As a result, she has copped terrible abuse from conservative commentators and been ignored by government. She is an acute embarrassment to those in charge because she calls out injustice so clearly and points out what love of neighbour means in situations like hers.
Like Jesus, Grace Tame knows to be wary of those who seem to be on her side. Last week she tweeted, “Just because someone is nice to you when its convenient, doesn’t mean you owe them anything. This applies to both survivors and bystanders. We must all be wary of those who weaponise our collective willingness to forgive”. Sometimes we just want people to be good, we want to the world to make sense, we want to believe our leaders act in our interests, we want to believe they are sincere. Grace Tame warns that our “niceness” can be used against us. Jesus was wary of that, so should we be.
One example of this is the current climate change situation. We must be very wary of applauding the government’s commitment to net zero by 2050. Maybe it looks like a victory. 3 cheers, they are finally doing something. However, apart from the fact that it is a meaningless commitment, and action in the next decade is what really counts, they are still approving new coal mines, thus in practice making the problem worse. Just like Jesus seemed to take the scribe’s biblical knowledge as just that, and not a sign of true repentance, we must look at actions and not words, or plans, or pamphlets.
Mark presents a Jesus who opposed the oppressive and exploitative status quo. A Jesus who acted with wisdom, who was not naïve. A Jesus who was not afraid to call out injustice and risk making enemies. Can we be like Jesus? What role can we play in transforming our world.”
Song, Prayers of the People
THANKSGIVING PRAYER
Awesome God, you are the peace of those who trust you and the happiness of those who love you, please increase our faith and love.
With a single-minded passion, may we glorify you by the way we respect and cherish love one another.
In the name of Christ Jesus, who with you in unity with the Holy Spirit, are One God to be worshipped and enjoyed forever.
SONG: Power of your Love (video here)
BENEDICTION PRAYER: brought to us today via a video creation by Susan
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