Where We Can Agree (Mark 12:28-34)

            One political group identifies with the man in power.  No matter how foolish he acts, these supporters will stand by his side.  They ignore his boorish behavior as they prop him up claiming he’s best hope for the nation.  They don’t really believe that.  In truth, they plan on sponging off his riches and privilege.  They want to advance themselves by walking in his shadow.  We’ll call them the brownnosers. 

            The brownnosers’ rivals are a group that’s committed to the letter of the law.  They are fully convinced that their interpretation is the only valid one.  They exert power over common people as they wield the law like a sword.  At their word, one is vindicated or condemned.   And everyone listens to them because they seem to know so much. We’ll call them the legalists. 

            The legalists and brownnosers definitely do not like each other.  They constantly clash in public verbal sparring matches.  However, the legalists are at odds with another group, a second rival.  This group holds the seats of power in the ruling body. They actually possess legislative authority.   We can refer to them as congress.  Some of those in congress have loose association with some of the brownnosers.  The actually despise the brownnosers, but are willing to use them, if it maintains their privileged position.

            I’ve tried to be coy, but you are too smart for that.  You can see right through my veiled references.  I’ve mentioned three groups that in different ways hold the people of the nation under heel with their misuse and abuse of power.  Three governing bodies vying with one another, sometimes entering dubious alliances, other times openly attacking each other; we all know exactly who I am talking about.  It is the first century in Jerusalem and I have just described the Pharisees as legalists, the Herodians, sycophantic members of the puppet King Herod’s court, as brownnosers, and the Sadducees who controlled the temple as the congress.

            These power groups had to wrangle under the oppressive eye of Rome the way today’s politicians have to deal with the inevitability of Election Day.  Powerless powerbrokers, they elevated themselves at the expensive of the common person.  And then Jesus broke onto scene with something neither they nor the Romans had anticipated.  He told the truth!  He was real.  He revealed what was real about them.  And this one truth-telling man exposed and disoriented those who had previously thought of themselves as untouchable.

            Follow Mark, the master story teller.  Imagining the scene, I picture this section being read in the home of some Christian in Ephesus 88AD.  A group of Christ-followers is gathered, 30 people.  It is a rich Christian’s home, big enough to host the church in that sector.  Among those 30 there to glorify God in the name of Jesus are the poor, the travelers, the weary and beaten.  They have been harassed by local politicians and constables. They’ve been intimidated by Roman legionnaires.  They’ve been kicked out of the synagogue for insisting that Messianic expectations have been realized in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  They know that to follow him is to be a people abused by society’s powerholders. 

            They come to an Ephesian church maybe hosted by an aged Timothy.  He’s invited an old friend to share a good word: John Mark.  He’s well known having apprenticed under Barnabas and Peter, and near the end having reconciled with and then worked alongside Paul.  We recognize names like Timothy and Mark as being among the younger set of disciples we meet in Acts and Paul’s letters.  But this particular Sabbath Day, it is 50 years past the resurrection.  These men we remember being young are now the last vestiges of the original generation of Jesus-followers.  Where has Mark been?

            With a gleam in his eye he begins reading what he’s been working on – his version of the good news; this is Mark’s Gospel.  By chapter 12, those 30 believers in the Ephesian house church are with him.  He pits the Pharisees in public confrontations with Jesus and the crowd cheers Jesus as he demonstrates wisdom, defeating their tyranny with a Gospel of freedom, overcoming their abusive theology with his Gospel of love and grace.

            Mark has Jesus deflecting all the rhetorical and legal assaults the Pharisees can muster. Defeated, they do something they would never do.  They conspire with the Herodians!  “They sent to [Jesus] some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him” (12:13).  Jesus meets their absurd scenario and in Mark’s abrupt prose we read, “They were utterly amazed” (12:17).  That’s Mark 12:13-17 if you want to read it later yourself.

            The Sadducees, perceiving themselves to possess a vastly superior intellect to the parochial Pharisees and pompous Herodians, take their turn at Jesus.  They tell an improbable parable about a woman who marries 7 brothers.  They want to disprove resurrection.  All they accomplish is the proof that Jesus is much more adroit than them.  You can read this encounter in Mark 12:18-27.

             The rhythm is easy to pick up. All the corrupt parties of Jerusalem politics have been thrown into an unwelcome alliance in a joint effort to put the village rabbi from Galilee back in his place.  A shot comes at Jesus from one corner, he swats it back byspeaking the bold truth of God.  Another shot comes from over here and Jesus is ready.  Their deceptions won’t slow him down in his determination to reveal God’s salvation to all who come to him genuinely seeking God.

            In the midst of this, Mark throws a curveball we need to see.  Within corrupt political structures whether the systems of 1^st century Jerusalem or 21^st century American politics, there are people who honestly want to serve.  Of the Republicans and Democrats hoping to win this Tuesday, some are truly good men and women.  Maybe you don’t vote for them because you disagree with their views on a certain issue, but you don’t have demonize them.  It’s OK to disagree with civility. 

            Mark writes in verse 28 that a scribe approached Jesus.  Most of the scribes in the temple were probably Sadducees.  This Sadducee watched Jesus go at it with Herodians, Pharisees and other Sadducees to the delight of the crowd.  But this one was annoyed.  He could see that the cheering crowd had no more interest in truth than the corrupt politicians bickering with Jesus.  These people cheering Jesus today would be jeering him as he hung from the cross just a few days later. 

But this man had a real question.  From one thinker to another, “Teacher, which commandment is first?”  If we want to live in right relationship with God and with our fellow human beings, if we want to honor God in our lives, where do we start?  Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:4, “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.”  People think Jesus invented that statement.  He was quoting law they all knew. 

He doesn’t stop though.  He then quotes Leviticus 19:18.  This comes right from the middle of the holiness code, a law they all knew. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Mark’s audience in that Ephesian church pastored by Timothy has been laughing along with Mark and Timothy as they all hear Mark tell of Jesus’ flourishes in overcoming the assaults hurled at him by Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians.  But they notice the change in Mark’s tone when he gets to this part.  Jesus never won arguments for the sake of winning arguments.  He didn’t want to defeat people. He wanted to enlighten people with truth so they could see their own sins and thus see their need for God.  Seeing their need for God they would then discover the path to God was the way paved by Jesus.

A hush falls over Mark’s audience as they hear him tell of this scribe, a Sadducee who is beginning to open his heart to Jesus.  We might describe the man as a Washington insider.  Mark holds before us the story of this insider stepping onto the path of discipleship through a thinker’s conversation about theology and faith. 

“You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and beside him there is no other;’ and ‘to love him with all the heart, and all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ – this is more important than all whole burnt offering and sacrifices” (12:33).  Astounding!  A scribe who worked in Jerusalem just said that relationships of love mattered more than temple ceremony.  Where did scribes work?  At the temple.  Who did scribes work with?  Priests!  He’s beginning to see that salvation doesn’t come in what happens in the temple.  Salvation comes when someone meets God in Jesus and responds in faith.  It can be a beggar or the most powerful of lawyers; a wealthy merchant, or a blue collar worker struggling to pay his bills.  Mark shows that in Christ we each come with the same need for grace, love, and forgiveness. 

Jesus did not bat this inquiring scribe away as he had the Herodians and Sadducees in the previous episodes.  Instead, in this instance, Jesus wins.  His victories are marked by the conversion of our hearts to God’s way of life.  God’s way of life is love.  “You are not far from the kingdom of God,” Jesus told that scribe.   He absolutely had to turn away from the temple and turn to Jesus.  And he did that. 

Then Mark writes, “After that, no one dared ask any [more] questions.”  Mark glanced around at the faces of the house-church members huddled in Ephesus.  He had made his point.  Those late first century Christ-followers needed to love the Legionnaires who intimidated them and the local constables who harassed them, and the synagogue leader who rejected and expelled them.  When they looked to Jesus and loved God, they could all agree on that.

We can too.  So many issues cause us to argue with each other, even our brothers and sisters in church; we argue, then we demonize the other side; then we divide the world into “us” and “them.”  This hateful bipolar way of seeing is one philosophy trying to win the day – this Election Day and in this moment in history.  Some arguments are fun: Pepsi or Coke?  Cats or dogs?  Apple or PC?  Tar Heels or Blue Devils?  Some arguments are more deeply divisive.  Do we welcome refugees or secure our borders with the military?  Can gay people get married in the church?  Can we own guns and defend ourselves or are we supposed to turn the other cheek? 

The demonic monster of political corruption wants us to turn on each other by forcing us to divide into camps based on these and other issues.  Mark promises we don’t have to fall for that.  We can be united in Christ.  Our starting point, and this is absolute, is loving God and loving each other.  This is something we can all agree on.  My neighbor is the person God puts in my path and I am called to love him as much as God showed love for me in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Mark’s audience understood that the love of God revealed in Jesus is the remedy for the ills that divide people in society.  They would take that Gospel he wrote and left with them.  Centuries before the printing press, they would preserve it, by hand copy it, translate it, and live by it.  Why?  They knew this writing was Spirit-inspired.  This was word of God.  This was life. 

I think we know it too.  We reproduce Mark’s Gospel when we respond to the corruption and fearmongering around us with a commitment to love and Godly hospitality.  As Election Day approaches, may we do that this week.  May we go out in love, determined to love people in such a way that they see their own deep need for Jesus.

AMEN