A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (32)

 

“Then they sent to [Jesus] some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said… Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.” (Mark 12.13-15)

     Following Jesus’ thinly-veiled attack, the chief priests and the scribes withdraw (12.12) and send in some “auxiliary troops” in order “to trap Jesus in what he said” (12.13; cf. 3.6).  As we have seen, the determining factor in these scenes is the constant presence of the crowd of pilgrims, milling about the Temple courts and hanging on Jesus’ every word (cf. 11.18; 12.12).  At this point, the only hope his enemies have of gaining a victory over Jesus is to discredit him publicly and thus deprive him of the crowd’s protection.  Jesus had already stymied their first challenge regarding the source of his authority (cf. 11.27-33).  Now, they send the Pharisees and their “strange bedfellows”, the Herodians, to try again.  Their opening gambit is to flatter Jesus, calling him a sincere, just, impartial teacher of God’s truth (12.14).  Then they spring their trap – “is it ‘lawful’ (i.e., God’s will) to pay taxes to the Roman emperor, or not?”

     Jesus’ response is intriguing – “Why are you putting me to the test?” (12.14-15).  This is the third time in the narrative that the Pharisees have “tested” Jesus (cf. 8.11; 10.2; cf. also 1.13).  A “test” in this sense refers to an ordeal which will reveal whether someone is faithful to God or not (cf. Gn. 22.1-2).  Throughout the history of the people of God, Yahweh and Israel had often “tested” each other.  Indeed, Jesus’ question to the Pharisees may be seen as an oblique identification of himself with Yahweh: “Do not harden your hearts… as… in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work” (Ps. 95.8-9).

     The Pharisees’ question is indeed a test – they believe they have Jesus on the horns of a dilemma, similar to the one that Jesus had earlier put to the scribes and the chief priests (cf. 11.27-33).  If Jesus denies that it is “lawful” to pay the tax, then he will incriminate himself with the Romans as an agitator.  On the other hand, if Jesus affirms that paying taxes is “lawful”, then he will discredit himself with the pilgrims who have come to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, the festival during which Jews celebrate the moment when Yahweh delivered them from pagan oppression (i.e., the Egyptians).  “Heads I win, tails you lose.”  Jesus then asks for a denarius, a Roman coin used for paying taxes (12.15).  Whose head is on the coin, Jesus asks.  “The emperor’s”, they reply.  “Then give to the emperor the things that belong to the emperor, and to God the things that belong to God” (12.16-17).  It seems like the import of Jesus’ reply is that in the name of just social dealings, since everyone is accustomed at any rate to contributing towards defraying the costs of public services/institutions – by all means, give to Caesar what he is entitled to, and give to God what he is entitled to.  In both cases, money is involved; sacrificial animals cost money, and it was expected that pilgrims donate to the Temple treasury to cover the costs of maintaining the national shrine (cf. 11.15-16; 12.41-44).  “And they were utterly amazed at him” (12.17).

     The next group to “examine” Jesus is the Sadducees, members of the Jerusalem aristocracy who had cut a deal with the Romans – they would collaborate and do their utmost to prevent civil unrest in return for control of Jerusalem’s religious apparatus (the high priesthood and the Sanhedrin [Jewish Supreme Court]).  Mark is quick to point out that the Sadducees don’t believe in resurrection (12.18), since they limited themselves to the “books of Moses” (Genesis—Deuteronomy), and didn’t find any reference to bodily resurrection in those books.  As they approach Jesus, they refer to the law of “levirate marriage” (cf. Dt. 25), which stipulated that the brother of a deceased man who had fathered no children should marry the widow in order to “raise up children for his brother”, i.e., carry his name and inherit his estate.  They put an absurd (and presumably, hypothetical) case to Jesus, in which 7 brothers all marry the same woman, without any of them siring any children.  Then, they ask (what they think will be) an impossible question: In the resurrection, when the righteous are raised to new bodily life, whose wife will she be (12.19-23)?  Jesus accuses his interlocutors of knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God (12.24).  Jesus points out that there is no question of marriage in the resurrected state (12.25) and, arguing for the reality of resurrection, he refers to the story of Moses at the burning bush (cf. Ex. 3), when God had identified himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”.  Jesus concludes with a one-liner of his own: “He is God not of the dead, but of the living” (12.26-27).  Jesus is intimating that the patriarchs are not “dead” as far as God is concerned, as he will raise them up to new life in order to participate in the Age to Come (cf. Jn. 5.25-29; Mk. 10.29-31).

     Throughout Mark’s narrative, Jesus has rebutted spurious interpretations of both the Scriptures as well as scribal traditions on how to live as a member of the people of God (cf. 2.23-28; 3.1-6; 7.1-23; 10.1-12; also 1.21-22).  Jesus’ indictment of the members of “his generation” is that they are both deaf and blind to both the word of God as spoken by his servants the prophets (including John and himself) as well as the word written in the Scriptures.  Jesus manifestly finds Israel’s leaders to be guilty of a failure to guide the people of Yahweh in the “way of God” (happily, there are a few exceptions: 12.28-34; 15.42-47).  Jesus continues to teach in the Temple during “Holy Week” and “the large crowd was listening to him with delight” (12.37).