Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 (click here for passage)

Love is one of the greatest motivations a human being can have. In the past, love has motivated people to do extraordinary acts of self-sacrifice. However, love has also motivated people to do extraordinary acts of self-centredness. Throughout the Bible we see love as the prime motivator for the most important events. It’s not only God’s love that motivates but also human love. Even imperfect human love has a big influence on the event so the Bible. No one knew more than Jesus how central love is in a person’s life. His very presence on earth was an act of love towards humanity.
I believe that in Mark 12, we see Jesus outlining the importance of giving love the central place in our lives. So today we will look at what Jesus had to say to people then and what he has to say to us now.

The love of God has been shown throughout history, culminating in Jesus coming to earth to die for us. Love is one of God’s primary motivating forces. In verses 1-12 Jesus tells the people a parable. The place where these events happened, by the way, was the temple. So, it is likely that Jesus was talking to his fellow Jews at this point. This is important for understanding the rest of the passage. The parable Jesus tells is unique in the gospel. Normally, a parable is an illustration, which uses made-up events which people can identify with. So you have parables like the Prodigal Son, which probably didn’t actually happen but we can all identify with the situation. But the parable Jesus tells here is not like this. It is not meant to be taken literally, but it does have a certain reality to it. Lets look again at what Jesus said. Read Mark 12:1. Jesus’ audience could not miss the link back to the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who spoke for God. In Isaiah 5, the prophet talks about God planting a vineyard. This is an image for Israel. Then Isaiah talks about how the vineyard didn’t yield any fruit. This is an image for how Israel failed God. So in the end God says that he will destroy the vineyard, which is an image for how God destroyed Israel. We said before that they were in the temple when Jesus said this – what better place to use the image of the vineyard?! So, Jesus takes this Old Testament image and builds on it. He says that the landowner sent some servants to get some produce from the land. But when the servants came to the vineyard they were beaten or killed by the people who were given the land. In the end, the landowner sent his son, thinking that they would respect him more than the servants. But this had the opposite effect – the son was killed for his inheritance. This sounds very familiar! The servants in the story represent the prophets sent by God to bring the people back to him. The prophets were invariably opposed and killed. The son represents God sending his most important messenger – Jesus, his only Son. They killed the son – in the same way the Jews would kill Jesus. This is the most important meaning of this passage – Jesus was God’s Son who represented his Father, who would be rejected and killed by the tenants of the vineyard.
However, I think it shows us something else. It shows a God who loves his creation so much that he doesn’t give up. He sent prophets to warn Israel but they killed and rejected all of them. He didn’t leave it there – rather he done the ultimate act and sent his Son Jesus to come down and be the messenger. They rejected his Son and killed him. But this was in the plan of God. He gave his Son to bring humanity back to himself. All of this was due to God’s undying love for creation. God’s love so led his action that he tried everything possible to save his people.

But it is not only God’s actions that are motivated by love – our actions are too. In the next stories, we see how by putting other things first causes our actions to follow a certain pattern.
Firstly, in the story about paying taxes to Caesar, we see some Pharisees and Herodians working together to trap Jesus. They ask him if they should be paying taxes to Caesar. The trap was a clever one – if Jesus answered ‘Yes’ to the question he would in effect be saying that the Romans have a right to take money off the people. This, for most Jews, would not go down very well! But if Jesus answered ‘No’ to the question he would be teaching against Caesar and be punished for doing so. So it would seem this was a no-win situation for Jesus – a very clever trap. However, Jesus knew this was a trap, and responds to them by saying that they should give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God. What Jesus is saying is that they have got their emphasis completely wrong. They are so worried about the tax issue that they have forgotten what is of real importance, the things of God. Service of God is always the first thing in life, everything else come a distant second. The Pharisees and Herodians’ question showed Jesus where their love was placed - in their self-interest. They wanted to trap Jesus and get rid of him from the temple and from their lives. Jesus caused too much trouble and had to be got rid of. But the trap failed Jesus used their failure to highlight their mistakes. They should have been paying more attention to the things of God rather than trying to trap Jesus. They had put love of self at the centre of their lives and Jesus uncovers this for all to see. These people were motivated by love, but the love was for the wrong thing, leading them into doing wrong actions.
Secondly, in the story about the resurrection, we see another group of Jews come to question Jesus in order to trap him. The Sadducees come to him and pose him a hypothetical question. They want to prove to Jesus that the resurrection wasn’t going to happen. To do this they went to Moses and the book of Deuteronomy 25:5. Moses gave the provision that if a man’s wife dies, and he has a brother, the brother may marry the man’s wife. So the Sadducees use this as a basis for their argument. They pose the situation that a woman marries a man with six brothers; each one marries the woman and subsequently dies. The question they as is ‘if the resurrection is going to happen, who will be classed as the woman’s husband?’ It seems like a good enough question to ask. However, their reason for asking it was not good. They wanted to trap Jesus and to prove him a false-teacher. But, just as with the Pharisees and Herodians, Jesus knew what they were up to and uses the situation to show that again their priorities are all wrong. The fact that they used Moses to back up their point showed one thing – they were not totally ignorant of the Scriptures. However, their problem was related to this – they thought they understood the Scriptures. They were confident in their position. They enjoyed being able to teach others and to have the status of ‘intelligent men of God’. So, for this group, their love of their position and authority cause them to act in the way they did. Jesus goes on to prove that they have misunderstood the Scriptures. He argues against their hypothesis using Moses’ record of how God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, he is the God of the living not the dead. He also explains how there will no longer be any marriage in heaven. So the Sadducees had got it very wrong. Why was this the case? I think the answer to this is found where their love is. They love being able to teach and being recognised as wise men of the Scriptures. So, they read and they look to the Scriptures to support their positions. This is not what the Scriptures are for. They are a record of God’s love and faithfulness in the past. They are not meant to be simply historical documents to bring out when we want to prove something. They loved the documents more than the God behind them. And so Jesus points this out to them by saying ‘…you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God…’. Many Christians could easily fall into this trap. There are some who know the Bible inside out. They can quote from it, recite it, speak about it and so on. However, how many of these people actually know the God who authored the Bible? It is not enough to simply read the Bible; rather we must have a relationship with God. Without knowing the God behind the Bible, reading the Bible becomes nothing more than a pass-time. But if we know the God behind the Bible, reading it gives us encouragement and strength because we know that God is the same yesterday, today and forever and loves us just as much as he did the people in the Bible. So, we need to have the right balance; we should not place too much emphasis on the Bible, but we should give it its rightful place in our lives.

We have seen that in both accounts of the Jews questioning Jesus both sets of men had something in common; they loved the wrong thing. Jesus knew before they spoke to him where they were coming from. He knew what was in their hearts. But he allowed them to question him and by his responses showed them that their priorities were very wrong.

The next account shows us the opposite picture. A scribe approaches Jesus after hearing his responses to the previous questions. He asks a question: “Which commandment is the first of all?” You might be thinking at this point ‘what’s the catch here?’ But the man seems to be sincere. So Jesus answers him by quoting two Old Testament passages. Firstly, Jesus says ‘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.’ The quote comes from Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Secondly, Jesus says “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” This one is a quote from Leviticus 19:18. This is not very unusual; Jesus is simply answering a question. What is unusual, however, is the scribe’s reaction to Jesus answer. He says “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘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,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbour as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” The man doesn’t try to trap Jesus; he doesn’t try to show Jesus up as a false-teacher. Rather, he affirms what Jesus says and goes one step further. He says that loving God with our whole selves and loving our neighbour as ourselves is more important that sacrifices and offerings. In other words, the man says exactly what Jesus has been trying to say to the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Herodians. One should give priority to God before all things. One should love God with one’s whole being and then one’s neighbour as oneself. This is more important than the religious rituals and the questions about resurrection and taxes and so on. The scribe had hit the nail on the head. The focus of our love must be with God. We are to love him before all other things. Also, we are to love God with our whole selves. This means that we can’t have divided loyalties; I can’t say that I love God, but continue to sin against him. It doesn’t work that way! God demands all or nothing – you can’t just give some of your love to God, he deserves it all. We could go so much deeper into this passage but time will not allow. But the important thing to take from this is that this complete love of God will naturally lead to right action. We saw before that because their priorities were wrong, Jesus’ opposition’s actions were wrong. But the scribe had the right attitude and Jesus recognised this and even said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” The man had got his priorities right.

So we have seen a different way of acting; that is from a position where the love for God drives all our actions. The scribe seemed to be like this and was commended by Jesus. The others were not and we rightly criticised by Jesus.
The last two events bear out all that we have discussed. Jesus criticises the scribes who are self-centred and abuse their position. These people are motivated by their self-centred love. After he has said this, they see a poor widow give the last coins that she had as an offering for God. The woman showed the complete opposite motivation; even though she had no money for food, she gave what she had for God. She saw giving to God as being of more importance than even life itself!

So what about us today? This chapter is of just as much importance to us today as it was when the events happened. I want to challenge you today to think about what is central in your life. What is it that drives you? Where is your love placed? As for me, I can’t yet say that I love God with all my being. I want this to be true but I’m not going to lie and say that it is already true. Yes, I love God but do I really love him more than anything else? I want us to be honest with ourselves and with God. Once we are honest about where we are, we can start to change it. Once we desire to love God more than anything else, it starts to become true. After all, God deserves nothing less than all of our love. He gave his Son over to death for our sake. He has showed his unfathomable love to us from the beginning of time until this very day. So today, I ask you to commit yourselves to loving God with all of your being. For when we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength we will act accordingly, starting with loving our neighbour as ourselves.
 

Amen.

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