Why did no one dare ask him any more questions?

Mark 12.28-34 “No one dared ask him any more questions”.

Imagine you live in a politically unstable country where an election is due and uncertainty is in the air. You attend a meeting at which a charismatic but controversial politician is speaking. You have many burning questions for him, but you wonder if it is safe to ask your questions. After all, this politician is well-known for his stinging replies!

Then someone near you asks a tricky question and you wait to see what will happen. To your surprise and relief the politician answers gently and politely. The questioner agrees with the answer and they compliment each other. Now you feel more confident to ask your questions.

Compare what happens in our gospel story. The conversation between Jesus and the Teacher of the Law also seems to go very well. They agree on which is the most important commandment and even make some additional progress by agreeing the second commandment. They compliment each other “Well said Teacher”, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God” – and it all seems very benign and friendly. Then at the end of the reading the gospel writer comments “And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.”

Isn’t that the opposite of what you’d expect? You could understand this comment if it came after the clearing of the Temple or after one of the hostile encounters between Jesus and the religious leaders – but here it is surprising, after probably the mildest conversation between Jesus and the religious leaders in Bible. “No one dared” is very strong and requires an explanation.

What have we missed? What is going on?

Clues

·         Notice what the Teacher of the Law (I’ll use the abbreviation TotL) leaves out when he repeats the Shema (Deut 6.4-5) back to Jesus:

Jesus: “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.”

TotL: “He is one, and besides him there is no other and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength…”

I suggest there is something significant in his leaving out the word Lord on all the occasions it comes up in the Shema. Bearing in mind he knew this prayer off by heart and would have said it several times a day (Lords included).

·         Also notice what Jesus leaves out when he quotes the ‘second commandment’ (Lev 19.18)

Jesus: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Leviticus: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD”

I suggest that when Jesus quotes only part of this verse, the whole verse is implied – just like if I say “A bird in the hand …”. Not all the crowd would pick this up, but the scribe and other religious people who were present certainly would.

Context

·         If we briefly survey the whole of chapters 11 and 12, we can see how prominent is the issue of the source of Jesus’ authority, his relationship to God and God’s Lordship, and to the current religious leaders and the whole Temple system.

·         In 11.3, sending the disciples to fetch a donkey, Jesus claims the title Lord for himself.

·         In 11.9, Jesus accepts the crowd’s assertion that he is ‘the one who comes in the name of the Lord’.

·         Then (11.12-25) we have the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the Temple, followed by the dispute about his authority (11.27-33) in which Jesus implicitly claims his authority comes from heaven.

·         From 11.18 onwards, the chief priests and TotLs begin plotting to have Jesus killed.

·         In 12.1-12 Jesus, still in the Temple precinct, tells the parable of the murderous tenants, in which he casts himself as the vineyard owner’s (i.e. God’s) son, predicts that the tenants will kill him, and that their murderous act will be overturned by God.

·         The chief priests and teachers of the law recognise that the parable has been aimed against them.

·         In 11.13-27 Jesus deals with two trap questions, the first from the Pharisees about paying taxes to Caesar and the second from the Sadducees about marriage and resurrection. Jesus gives sharp replies and his questioners are silenced.

Explanation

·         Although the TotL’s question to Jesus is, on the surface, benign, we readers know about the plot by the TotLs and others to have Jesus arrested and killed.

·         With this in mind, and the background of Jesus’ claims in words and actions to be Lord (a title only God was worthy of), I think we begin to see how loaded Jesus’ saying  the Shema (Deut 6.4-5) is.

·         I think the TotL realises that Jesus is including himself in the Shema, as its object, as Lord (which, incidentally, Paul also does in 1 Corinthians 8.6). He also realises that Jesus knows about the plot. You can’t love the Lord if you are plotting to kill him!

·         The TotL either has his Lord and God (or a very convincing imposter) standing in front of him. That could be why he can’t bring himself to say ‘Lord’. There is only one Lord, which is God. Therefore Jesus cannot be Lord unless …

·         Perhaps we could insert John 5.39-43 here, as Jesus’ unspoken thoughts:

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me.

·         The implications are perhaps dawning on the TotL as he adds that love of God and neighbour is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.  If God is present amongst his people in a new way, in the flesh, the whole Temple system is obsolete. The challenge to the Temple becomes expicit in Ch.13.

·         So the reason people did not dare ask any more questions would be because, just maybe, God was here standing in front of them. The silence was one of holy fear.

·         Interestingly, in the following section (12.35-40), Jesus comes back to the matter of his Lordship (The Messiah is David’s Lord, not his son), and denounces the TotLs on the grounds that their love for God and neighbour is only a sham.

Lessons

·         I think we all tend to reduce our faith/religion to a matter of observing a set of rules. This gives us control and certainty, all the better if we can reduce everything to just two rules.

·         But look where rule-based religion can lead us – to a point where, in spite of all our studying, we can not see God standing right in front of us and may even find ourselves opposing him, observing the letter of the law while we violate its spirit.

·         It is also worth reminding ourselves that Jesus was a rule-breaker, that is, he never let religious rules get in the way of loving God and neighbour. I wonder if Jesus wants us to be rule-breakers, in this sense, rather than rule followers or enforcers.

·         Perhaps he wants us to commit ‘crimes of passion’ – not in the sense of harming people because we have lost our temper -  but in the sense of being driven by our passion for God and other people to transcend the limitations of rules.

·         In the end Jesus will prove to be the perfect example of love of God and neighbour, all the way to the cross and beyond (Greater love has no man than this…).

·         Finally, lest we fall into the classic religious trap of dividing people up into the good and the bad, we need to remember that Jesus’ definition of neighbour includes enemies too. The Teachers of the Law are indeed not far from the Kingdom of God.