Jesus' Response
Sermon
Two or three weeks ago we had the gospel story of the rich young man who ran up to Jesus and asked, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus replied, "You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.' "
Jesus ignored the first five commandments, all of which refer to God. Yet in today's story, when a scribe asked Jesus which was the most important commandment, Jesus replied, "The first is, "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.'"
And to reinforce that message, Jesus went on to summarise all the other nine commandments in a new one of his own, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." And he said quite clearly that those two commandments were the most important of all, that there was no commandment greater than these two.
If those two commandments are the greatest of all, why didn't Jesus quote them to the rich young man? Why did he ignore them completely on one occasion, yet on another occasion claim that they were more important than anything else?
Perhaps this is an example of Jesus responding to people exactly where they are. The rich young man was miles away from thinking about or responding to God, even though he thought he was a very good and orthodox Jew because he thought he kept the commandments. He wanted a quick fix. He glimpsed eternal life in Jesus from a distance, and he thought he might quite like it. But he didn't have a burning desire within him, and in the end his wealth took priority.
The scribe in today's story, on the other hand, was already much nearer to God than the rich young man, and Jesus instantly recognized that and responded to it. Concrete instructions are much easier to understand, so Jesus gave the rich young man something practical to do. But he didn't need to do that with the scribe, and so he went past the social commandments, the practical instructions, straight to the spiritual heart of the matter. He went straight to the commandment about God, which is much less concrete, but which the scribe could understand.
And the scribe instantly responded. According to Mark, he hadn't been trying to trick Jesus as so many of the scribes and Pharisees in the gospels are portrayed as doing, he had come with a genuine inquiry and a genuine need. He knew deep inside himself the truth of what Jesus was saying to him, and he acknowledged it publicly. And Jesus told him he wasn't far from God's kingdom.
You might expect that this scribe would be very close to Jesus' heart, and perhaps he was. But the text doesn't explicitly tell us that. This story is reported in varying versions in the three synoptic gospels, Matthew Mark and Luke, but none of those versions describe how Jesus felt about the scribe.
Yet in the story about the rich young man, Mark explicitly tells us that Jesus loved him. Matthew and Luke don't tell us that quite so explicitly, but even they include the detail that the young man went away sadly, leaving us with the impression that Jesus was sad about his departure too.
Interestingly, Matthew and Luke put quite a different spin on today's story. They both identify the scribe as a lawyer, and they both say that he came to test Jesus. Mark goes out his way to refute this, by giving the scribe's response in considerable detail. So which version is giving us the truth? Was the scribe there to test Jesus, or was he there to genuinely learn more about God and eternal life?
At home, we quite often watch "Spin City" late in the evening on television. It's a comedy programme featuring Michael Fox, who is the mayor's assistant and spin-doctor in the mayor's office.
The mayor is delightful but bungling, and gets into all sorts of scrapes from which Michael Fox and the others who work in the office have to extricate him. The comedy centres around the way the spin-doctors totally change the truth of a given situation in order to protect the mayor's reputation, especially from the media. It's very well written and very humourous, but like all good comedy programmes, has an underlying note of seriousness in which it ridicules the bureaucratic machinery.
Putting a spin on the facts just to change the slant and to make them mean what you want them to mean, is nothing new.
All newspaper editors use spin, as do magazine editors and writers of books. That's been shown particularly clearly by the numerous books about Princess Diana which have appeared since her death, all of them taking a different angle and using a different spin to put their own version of the truth.
That's not to say that any of them are untruthful, simply that the truth is approached from different angles by different authors.
Much of the material used by the gospel writers Matthew, Mark and Luke, is common to all three gospels. But each writer has his own agenda and therefore puts his own spin on the stories. One of the fascinating aspects of Bible study is discovering those tiny differences in detail which can change a story so much. And it's those tiny details which so often give a story depth and which bring the characters so very much to life.
I find it very reassuring that Mark took the trouble to record that Jesus loved the rich young man, even though the man could hardly be described as spiritual. And I find it reassuring too that Mark portrays the scribe in today's story as thoughtful and wise and deeply spiritual.
It's good to know that Jesus responds to everyone exactly where they are. He loves us even when we turn away from him, and he loves us as we are now, not as we will be when we're perfect. We don't have to be deeply spiritual people for Jesus to love us. He even loves those who prefer money to God.
And he instantly recognises those who are more spiritual in character, and responds to them exactly as they need. He offers them greater depth and more understanding, and tells them they are not far from the kingdom of God.
So perhaps it doesn't really matter what spin the gospel writers or others since put on the stories, for in the end it's a personal encounter with Jesus that's important. For no-one can put a spin on that.
Jesus ignored the first five commandments, all of which refer to God. Yet in today's story, when a scribe asked Jesus which was the most important commandment, Jesus replied, "The first is, "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.'"
And to reinforce that message, Jesus went on to summarise all the other nine commandments in a new one of his own, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." And he said quite clearly that those two commandments were the most important of all, that there was no commandment greater than these two.
If those two commandments are the greatest of all, why didn't Jesus quote them to the rich young man? Why did he ignore them completely on one occasion, yet on another occasion claim that they were more important than anything else?
Perhaps this is an example of Jesus responding to people exactly where they are. The rich young man was miles away from thinking about or responding to God, even though he thought he was a very good and orthodox Jew because he thought he kept the commandments. He wanted a quick fix. He glimpsed eternal life in Jesus from a distance, and he thought he might quite like it. But he didn't have a burning desire within him, and in the end his wealth took priority.
The scribe in today's story, on the other hand, was already much nearer to God than the rich young man, and Jesus instantly recognized that and responded to it. Concrete instructions are much easier to understand, so Jesus gave the rich young man something practical to do. But he didn't need to do that with the scribe, and so he went past the social commandments, the practical instructions, straight to the spiritual heart of the matter. He went straight to the commandment about God, which is much less concrete, but which the scribe could understand.
And the scribe instantly responded. According to Mark, he hadn't been trying to trick Jesus as so many of the scribes and Pharisees in the gospels are portrayed as doing, he had come with a genuine inquiry and a genuine need. He knew deep inside himself the truth of what Jesus was saying to him, and he acknowledged it publicly. And Jesus told him he wasn't far from God's kingdom.
You might expect that this scribe would be very close to Jesus' heart, and perhaps he was. But the text doesn't explicitly tell us that. This story is reported in varying versions in the three synoptic gospels, Matthew Mark and Luke, but none of those versions describe how Jesus felt about the scribe.
Yet in the story about the rich young man, Mark explicitly tells us that Jesus loved him. Matthew and Luke don't tell us that quite so explicitly, but even they include the detail that the young man went away sadly, leaving us with the impression that Jesus was sad about his departure too.
Interestingly, Matthew and Luke put quite a different spin on today's story. They both identify the scribe as a lawyer, and they both say that he came to test Jesus. Mark goes out his way to refute this, by giving the scribe's response in considerable detail. So which version is giving us the truth? Was the scribe there to test Jesus, or was he there to genuinely learn more about God and eternal life?
At home, we quite often watch "Spin City" late in the evening on television. It's a comedy programme featuring Michael Fox, who is the mayor's assistant and spin-doctor in the mayor's office.
The mayor is delightful but bungling, and gets into all sorts of scrapes from which Michael Fox and the others who work in the office have to extricate him. The comedy centres around the way the spin-doctors totally change the truth of a given situation in order to protect the mayor's reputation, especially from the media. It's very well written and very humourous, but like all good comedy programmes, has an underlying note of seriousness in which it ridicules the bureaucratic machinery.
Putting a spin on the facts just to change the slant and to make them mean what you want them to mean, is nothing new.
All newspaper editors use spin, as do magazine editors and writers of books. That's been shown particularly clearly by the numerous books about Princess Diana which have appeared since her death, all of them taking a different angle and using a different spin to put their own version of the truth.
That's not to say that any of them are untruthful, simply that the truth is approached from different angles by different authors.
Much of the material used by the gospel writers Matthew, Mark and Luke, is common to all three gospels. But each writer has his own agenda and therefore puts his own spin on the stories. One of the fascinating aspects of Bible study is discovering those tiny differences in detail which can change a story so much. And it's those tiny details which so often give a story depth and which bring the characters so very much to life.
I find it very reassuring that Mark took the trouble to record that Jesus loved the rich young man, even though the man could hardly be described as spiritual. And I find it reassuring too that Mark portrays the scribe in today's story as thoughtful and wise and deeply spiritual.
It's good to know that Jesus responds to everyone exactly where they are. He loves us even when we turn away from him, and he loves us as we are now, not as we will be when we're perfect. We don't have to be deeply spiritual people for Jesus to love us. He even loves those who prefer money to God.
And he instantly recognises those who are more spiritual in character, and responds to them exactly as they need. He offers them greater depth and more understanding, and tells them they are not far from the kingdom of God.
So perhaps it doesn't really matter what spin the gospel writers or others since put on the stories, for in the end it's a personal encounter with Jesus that's important. For no-one can put a spin on that.
