Reverend Jonathan Waits
Sermon: Humility > Greatness (Mark 12)
Date: March 3, 2024
When I was growing up, one of my family’s favorite places to eat was a pizza place around the corner from our house called Pizza Shoppe. We were there often enough that the owner knew who we were. I loved the place because it was close, it was familiar, and it had two tabletop arcade games that I got to play while we waited for the food and while the adults were visiting after dinner when we went with friends. Oh yeah, and the pizza was really good. I remember one time when the owner came out and was talking with us. I’m not sure what prompted the conversation, but I remember his talking about the process of making pizza and making sure that it looked as good as it tasted. He said that people eat with their eyes first. If he was to make a pizza that looked like a bunch of slop on a plate, even if it was the best-tasting pizza that had ever been created, no one was going to be interested in eating it.
Sometimes the world around us operates on these same terms. As long as things look a certain way, everyone assumes they are the way they look. And yet things are not always as they appear. Sometimes situations that seem to be an unmitigated disaster turn out to be the best possible version of what they could have been because God reveals Himself as good in them. Sometimes people who look the part of righteous aren’t really, while those we’d rather ignore are saints of the first order. Seeing things the way God sees them is what I’d like to talk about with you this morning.
Today we are in the second part of our new teaching series, A Journey to the Cross with Mark. All this month we are walking through the stories of Jesus’ final week on Earth as told by Mark with Peter’s eye-witness testimony. Last week we got started on this journey with Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem in Mark 11. That whole chapter was set up to focus our attention on an important observation about what drove Jesus in these final days before His death on a cross (as well as in the rest of His ministry). Jesus wanted to make a way for people to get into a right relationship with God. What we saw last time is that He has both the authority and the passion to make this happen. Jesus has the authority and the passion to make a way for us to get to God.
As a part of this effort, one of the things He needed to do was to help people see and understand that the way they had been taught to think about such a thing may not have been entirely correct. Another part of this was confronting the leaders who were leading the people so poorly just like the ancient Hebrew prophets had done. We find Jesus doing both of these as we get into the next part of our journey to the cross with Mark. If you have a copy of the Scriptures handy this morning, find your way to Mark 12, and we’ll get started.
With the chief priest and scribes still licking their wounds from the trap Jesus forced them into by asking about the legitimacy of John’s baptism, Jesus took the floor to address the crowds about these corrupt religious leaders. He used parables such that the crowds may not have understood exactly what He meant, but the religious leaders themselves absolutely did.
“He began to speak to them in parables: ‘A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug out a pit for a winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went away. At harvest time he sent a servant to the farmers to collect some of the fruit of the vineyard from them. But they took him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent another servant to them, and they hit him on the head and treated him shamefully. Then he sent another, and they killed that one. He also sent many others; some they beat, and others they killed. He still had one to send, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But those tenant farmers said to one another, “This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill the farmers and give the vineyard to others. Haven’t you read this Scripture: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This came about from the Lord and is wonderful in our eyes?”’”
The chief priests immediately understood that Jesus was talking about them. More than that, He was sending a message to them: You think you are great and that because of this, the covenant and Israel are yours. But they’re not. They belong to God, and if you persist in this delusion, you’re going to lose everything. Well, as you can perhaps imagine, the religious leaders of the Jews weren’t thrilled with all of this. “They were looking for a way to arrest him but feared the crowd because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. So they left him and went away.” But they didn’t stay away for long. They quickly regrouped and came back with some more challenges intended to trip Him up, to embarrass Him publicly, to give them some sort of leverage they could use against Him.
These…attacks…for lack of a better word, came in the form of waves of different religious leaders bringing questions to Jesus from out of their particular area of expertise that, again, were designed to be traps. The first group was a combination of guys representing the Pharisees, Jesus’ old debate buddies, and the Herodians. This political odd couple represented both sides of the political aisle and they hated each other. That they were willing to work together says a lot about just how much they both hated Jesus. Their question for Jesus was unsurprisingly one that mixed religion and politics in a potent cocktail with a poisonous chaser. “When they came, they said to him, ‘Teacher, we know you are truthful and don’t care what anyone thinks, nor do you show partiality but teach the way of God truthfully. [How’s that for a lethal dose of disingenuous flattery?] Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?’”
Jesus deftly avoided their trap with His famous declaration that they should “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” We could spend a whole sermon unpacking all the implications of that statement, but for now, the thing to notice is that for all their presumed self-importance and intellect, they had nothing on Jesus. Their greatness didn’t move Him at all. Instead, they left more impressed with His. As Peter observed to Mark while reflecting on the scene: “And they were utterly amazed at him.”
Next up came the Sadducees. This group represented the political and religious moderates in that day. They valued the Law like the Pharisees, but only a limited portion of it (Genesis-Deuteronomy). At the same time, like the Herodians, they favored more cooperation with Rome than the Pharisees. What made them theologically distinct from the Pharisees and scribes was their rejection of the notion of resurrection. From out of this theological base camp they posed Jesus this ridiculous hypothetical rooted in an obscure cultural custom. The whole thing is just silly and is designed to show that the concept of resurrection is silly. Their hope was to get Jesus embroiled in a theological dispute they knew He wouldn’t be able to win because there was no real solution. It was all a hypothetical smokescreen. Jesus once again nimbly avoids the trap and embarrasses them rather profoundly over their misunderstanding of the Scriptures.
There may have been a third wave, but we don’t know about it because it never happened. Instead, a lonely scribe came up and inserted himself into the conversation. This guy was a fairly neutral observer who heard the whole debate taking place and the kinds of answers Jesus was giving to their questions, and decided he would nab the opportunity to present Jesus with the ultimate question. From v. 28: “One of the scribes approached. When he heard them debating and saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which command is the most important of all?’” In response, Jesus gave His famous two-part answer: “The most important is ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other command greater than these.”
Well, the rest of the group there to trap Jesus had to be absolutely apoplectic with this guy. They had their strategy all planned out to be able to trap Jesus into saying something incriminating they could use to justify His arrest. Then this knucklehead comes flying in from out of nowhere and tosses Jesus a softball which He promptly hits not just out of the park, but out of the whole city. What’s more, he has the audacity to heap praise on Jesus for His wonderful answer. “Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, teacher. You have correctly said that he is one, and there is no one else except him. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, is far more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ And no one dared to question him any longer.” Of course they didn’t. This guy spoiled whatever other plans they had.
But while he may have spoiled their plans, he gave Jesus a perfect setup to make a counterpunch of His own. Since they weren’t going to question Him any longer, He could start to ask His own questions. And so He did in v. 35: “While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he asked, ‘How can the scribes say that the Messiah is the son of David? David himself says by the Holy Spirit: “The Lord declared to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.’” David himself calls him ‘Lord’; how then can he be his son?’” Well, the answer to this question is that David is referring to the Messiah who, in spite of being a descendant of David, most definitely outranks him in the order of creation. But no one there understood this at all. They didn’t have a clue how to answer it. This traveling teacher from Galilee was showing Himself to be smarter than all of the gathered religious and legal and political intelligentsia of Israel. The members of the elite hated Him for it, but the people loved it. “And the large crowd was listening to him with delight.”
Not being one to pass up a chance to proclaim the truth when He had it, Jesus kept right on rolling in v. 38. “He also said in his teaching, ‘Beware of the scribes, who want to go around in long robes and who want greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the place of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and say long prayers just for show. These will receive harsher judgment.’” In other words, if your relationship with God is something you put on as a show to be thought of as great by the people around you, it isn’t going to do for you what you think it will. The reality is that it’s not making you great. In fact, not only is that kind of a righteousness-as-a-show nonsense not making you great, but it could be keeping other people from the kind of greatness that really matters. That’s why Jesus warned the crowds against these kinds of folks.
That brings us right to the end of the chapter. Before we say goodbye, though, we find one more story tucked in at the end. Jesus and the gang have been in the temple complex all day. It’s been a pretty exhausting day too. Here, toward the end of the day, Jesus and His disciples are just sitting off to the side of the temple complex simply watching life unfold in front of them. Across the way from them are the temple treasury boxes. Kind of like our offering plate on the little table at the back of the room where you are so faithful to leave your gifts, this was where worshipers could drop in their monetary offerings to the temple. These boxes had metal, trumpet-like funnels on top so the coins people used to make their gifts could make it safely down into the secure boxes.
Well, the result of these metal coins being dropped into metal boxes was a lot of noise. This was a good thing as far as the temple leaders were concerned. When everybody could hear just how much everyone else was giving, people were inclined to give more so they didn’t look stingy with God. Worshipers would come up and empty the contents of great and bulging coin purses to the praise and adulation of everyone in the courtyard. As Jesus watched, though, He saw something that caught His eye. A bent old woman shuffled up to the box and dropped in a tiny offering. It was two mites—the smallest, most insignificant coins they had back then. No one would have even heard the coins drop into the offering box as she put them in. Hers seemed to be a worthless offering.
Like everyone else there, the disciples would have completely overlooked this but for one thing: Jesus drew their attention to it. This is in v. 43: “Summoning his disciples, he said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. For they all gave out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had—all she had to live on.’”
Now, contrast this with where we were at the beginning because this is where Mark has been taking us. There you had all of these guys who thought highly of themselves and esteemed one another and their own personal greatness greatly being outsmarted and humiliated by Jesus. About halfway through the chapter you had the one guy who wasn’t trying to show himself as great, but was just getting Jesus’ thoughts which he recognized as great. Jesus then warned the crowds against the kind of greatness demonstrated by the religious elite. Here at the end, you had a poor widow that everyone overlooked and knew wasn’t great receiving His praise.
Can you see how things have progressed here? When Jesus was facing off against folks who thought they were great, He wasn’t impressed. What impressed Him the most in this whole story was the sacrificial generosity of this humble woman. It was her humility to recognize who God is, who she was, and her willingness to live faithfully in light of those two truths that made Him sit up and take notice. What is incredibly clear here is a very simple, but important principle: Jesus values godly humility over worldly greatness. Humility acknowledges and accepts God for who He is. Any greatness we might have is either a reflection of His own greatness and thus only properly acknowledged from a posture of humility, or a fabricated greatness that is utterly meaningless in an eternal context. As long as we think we are great in and of ourselves, we won’t recognize God’s greatness. And if we won’t recognize God’s greatness, we are living out of sync with reality. The right relationship with God Jesus was aiming to make available to us by the end of this week was only going to be possible for those folks who were willing to live in the world as it actually is rather than merely as we wish it would be. That is, it is only available to the humble. Jesus values godly humility over worldly greatness.
Think for a second about how this builds on where we were last week. Jesus has the authority and the passion to make a way for us to get to God. But we can only walk this path if we are willing to take God on His own terms. When we are willing to take Him as He is—that is, when we are willing to be humble—rather than insisting that He play by our rules—that is, when we lean into some delusional notion of greatness—that right relationship with God can be ours; that right relationship with God can be yours. This next part of our journey to the cross with Mark, then, invites all of us to engage in an experiment with honesty. It invites us to see ourselves as God sees us. Sometimes that’s going to be hard because His assessment probably isn’t so rosy as ours is inclined to be. But it will also be incredibly encouraging because in spite of how broken we are, He loves us anyway. He loves us so much, in fact, that He was willing for His Son to die in our place so that He can have a relationship with us. Godly humility will leave us in a place of being able to receive that love. Worldly greatness won’t. Jesus values godly humility over worldly greatness.
So then, where are you with this? Be honest. Be really honest. After all, that’s what humility is all about. How willing are you really to let God be God without your offering input on how He could do His job better if He would just put you in charge? How quickly are you able to see the people around you through the lens of how He thinks about them rather than the lens of whatever frustration they may have caused you? How readily do you acknowledge that you don’t and can’t contribute anything meaningful to your standing before God? Humility isn’t easy. It isn’t natural. Pride is sneaky stuff. It can even disguise itself as humility. But you can learn how to get it better. It takes practice, but you can count on God’s help as you do. This is because Jesus values godly humility over worldly greatness. Don’t worry about being great in anybody’s eyes but God’s. Just like this poor widow, that will attract Jesus’ attention more than anything else. Jesus values godly humility over worldly greatness. Let us commit to being great in the ways that matter most.