TGBC Monday, 1 Feb 2021 Mark 12:1-17. Two parables
Mark 12
The Parable of the Wicked Tenants
(Matthew 21:33-46; Luke 20:9-18)
1And He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard, and placed around it a fence, and dug a wine vat, and built a tower, and rented it out to farmers, and traveled abroad.
2And he sent a servant to the farmers at the due time, that he might receive from the farmers from the fruit of the vineyard. 3But having taken him, they beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.
4 And again he sent to them another servant, and him they struck on the head, and treated shamefully. 5And He sent another, and him they killed; also many others, indeed some beating, and some killing.
6 Yet having one beloved son, he sent him to them last, saying, ‘They will have respect for my son.’
7But those farmers said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 And having taken him, they killed him, and cast him forth outside the vineyard.
9What therefore will the master of the vineyard do? He will come and will destroy the farmers, and will give the vineyard to others. 10 Have you not even read this Scripture:
‘The stone which those building rejected, this has become the chief corner; 11this was from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
12 And they were seeking to lay hold of Him, and yet they feared the crowd; for they knew that He had spoken the parable against them. And having left Him, they went away.
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This parable is in all three synoptics and many NT scholars say it's been allegorized, especially as Matthew intensifies it, and as understood by the early Christian church. As the evangelists present it, Jesus was indeed speaking against the temple authorities: God is the Landlord, the vineyard is the kingdom of God, the fence is the separation of the kingdom from the world, the faithless tenants are the Judeans or Jews, the servants are the prophets, the beloved son is Jesus who is murdered, and God the owner will now turn his kingdom the vineyard over to the successor Christian church.
It's a powerful story that Mark, our evangelist for our current reading project, knows that you his reader will "get it", and that, as Jesus tells the story just before his crucifixion, you will again see Jesus' foreknowledge of what is destined to happen to him.
Bear in mind what we saw earlier on as Jesus and the disciples were on their journey to Jerusalem, Jesus several times prophesying his own persecution, death and resurrection, as Mark builds predestined providential intent to overcome the otherwise inglorious experience of a suffering and dying Son of God.
Which is to say that Heroes don't ignominiously suffer and die, they are victorious, so what happened with Jesus has to be rationalized if people are to believe, and Mark does that: Jesus totally upends all messianic expectations by not being a political and military victor after all, but a completely different sort of hero bringing an entirely different kind of kingdom.
Paying Taxes to Caesar
13 And they send some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Him, that they might catch Him in discourse. 14And having come, they say to Him, “Teacher, we know that You are true, and to You there is no care about any one; for You do not look on the appearance of men, but teach the way of God on the basis of the truth. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not? Should we pay or not pay?”
15And knowing their hypocrisy, He said to them, “Why do you test Me? Bring Me a denarius, that I might see it.” 16And they brought it, and He says to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.”
17And Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar the things of Caesar, and to God the things of God.”
And they were amazed at Him.
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Okay, a good old familiar Sunday School bible story that we all love, including so do I. Jesus cannot be outdone intellectually. Every time the tricksters try to trap him, Jesus jerks the rug out from under them. And do you notice that he never answers a question? He responds with a question so tailored that their answer makes fools of them.
Today I used the Berean Study Bible so I could immediately access the links to the parallels in Matthew and Luke. It's good, although the lack of a "return" makes it a bit awkward. Also, I've not yet sorted out how to make the link work in blogger.
RSF&PTL
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