The vineyard the virtuous and the vicious circles the work of the Israelite the gospel is two messages to two audiences the cross as the act of man the cross and resurrection as the act of God
The Vineyard Mark 12.1-12, Isaiah 5.1-7.
1. God gave them the care of the vineyard to the most mature Israelites, to induct them into the practices of husbandry. He gave some of the children of Israel into the care of each tenant-manager, and gave him the task of growing the business. (Matthew 25.14-15). He went to care for other vineyards.
2. But he did not leave his tenants by themselves. He sent them teachers and encouragers. He expected regular updates, evidences of the work and its progress, to show how they were getting on. But these teachers and encouragers were driven out (Mark 12).
3. Without the king, in the form of his servants, the tenant-managers were poor farmers. The fields become a desert, the people of Israel battered and bruised (Isaiah 1). The blemishes proliferate. The poor call God to come back and depose those he has put in charge (James 5.4) The wealth you failed to pay the workman who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord God almighty.
4. The tenants gradually cease to measure their performance against the standards set out in the Law. They insulate themselves from the people. They are unable to hear any warning noises. They are (Isaiah 6.9) ‘seeing, but never perceiving’ – closed.
5. The king comes back at year end to see how they have fared with the estate. He hears the assessment of their rule from their own staff. Their wealth/well-being is the criterion by which they are judged. The people are covered in blemishes, the majority now with no access to the temple, the means by which they may be healed and re-integrated. The tenant-managers are removed from their post. On the morning of that annual general meeting the bailiffs will knock down the door and carry the bad managers out to the crowd of those that they had dispossessed. There is regime-change and the re-imposition of direct rule by God through his Son, who will later devolve power to his new people.
The purpose of Israel’s legislation. We need to be able to contrast two possibilities:
1. On one hand we need an account of the vicious circle. If an Israelite is not given all the instalments of blessing this will begin to be reflected in his appearance. If he is given no working capital, he will have no means to practice the obligations of friendship, of giving gifts that represent him and keep him visible in the assembly of Israel. Then he will have no access to all the good things available within the assembly. He will begin to look like an outsider, his appearance will be blemished or ambiguous, and he will be shunned and treated as an outsider.
2. The other is the virtuous circle. In this case the Israelite who has no working capital is given working capital. When he has exhausted it (either profitably or unprofitably) he will be given more - seven times seventy - in the expectation that he will learn how to make ever more profitable use of it. He is given gifts in order that he has gifts to give on his own account. From his wealth he will give, so whatever he is given he will spread widely to the benefit of the whole body of Israel. He is a benefactor, and he receives his recognition as such; he can appear in the assembly. He has a place and an office, and he gives the unprotected a place, taking them into his own house and giving them his protection. He binds their wounds, and readies them for readmission to the assembly. He is their kinsman redeemer, he honours them as though they were his own parents. He displays the generosity of God. He does love to be seen in the market, but you can find him on its edges, looking for the least of these to bring back into the centre. Everyone has a reason to thank God for this servant of his.
The work of the Israelite. Not everybody is equal. Some have more advantages and responsibilities than others. These senior Israelites have been given more and from them is expected more. What is this more that they have been given? They have been the Law, which is the knowledge of how to rule-and-serve and participate in the work given to Israel by God. They have been given all the material means of life. And they have been given the care of the younger ones. The younger ones are the trust, job, gift, and treasure given to the older ones. If these younger ones are successfully nurtured, they will also be the reward of their teachers. The big ones are heads of households, and the younger ones are members of the household headed by the bigger ones. But ‘head of household’ is not a permanent position. There is a possibility of promotion or relegation, of having one of your position taken away from you, of being returned to the ranks, your own juniors promoted into your position, so you have to serve him as he served you.
The Law (Old Testament as a whole, the sacrificial legislation in particular) is the means provided for maintaining the integrity and health of the witness of God to the world, in the form of the people of Israel. It is the mechanism for tidying and cleaning up after the people of Israel. It is intended to keep the little ones in good shape, and so to keep them inside the circle and prevent them from being picked off by outside forces. Jesus charges the various (Pharisee, Sadducee) leaderships (regimes) of Israel with failing to make any use of this safety reintegration system. What the law says the poor must bring, it itself provides. The law tells the rich to provide the necessary gift for the poorest to bring. It sets the rich over the poor, insisting that what the poor need the rich will provide them. It does not imagine that the poor will have to provide this for themselves from some source of their own that they clearly do not have. It says that they have only to turn up to get atonement in the form of the ashes of the red heifer (Number 19.9). But the leaders of Israel have not understood that this reintegration-system (the sacrificial legislation) is to be set in motion and kept in motion. But in their hands it has been kept idle, or has even been used as way of raising income from the very poorest. These teachers have not understood the whole law as the ongoing voice of God and the intercom to God to call him in to help Israel and keep all its little ones integrated.
The gospel of Mark is two messages to two audiences. It is a message of liberation to the poor. And it is a message warning of expulsion for the rich. But its intention is not that these audiences remain separate. This warning is intended to encourage the top-dogs to give up and go over to side of the under-dogs, so the two audiences become one. The gospel of Mark tells the top dogs that they have got themselves into a bind, and that they are most miserable in it, and that they must also seek their release. They must abandon their leaders, and hand their leaders over to the army of God. The gospel is not a description of a static state of affairs, but a speech-act and warning that intends to frighten us into ending our resistance, and giving ourselves up to the more powerful king.
Cross and resurrection – battle and victory
1. The Son enters Jerusalem. The homecoming of the Son as the act and gift of God to man. The Son comes home peacefully. He enters the temple, the palace of God the great king, there to seat on the seat of judgment, giving judgment, wisdom and generosity first to Israel and then to all nations. To this palace and court of appeal (Mark 11.17, Isaiah 56.7) the nations come for justice. The nations, led by Israel, are given the Son sent by God, the young hopeful of the coming kingdom, to be our leader and protector. The army of the Son will join him after the battle and victory, not before.
2. The cross as the act of God against the merciless leaders. After a long period of nagging by the poor of the earth, the disappointment of God turns to anger. The Son comes in war to throw the irresponsible tenants out. But instead of annihilating them, he plays out their annihilation himself. On the cross the Son sketches out the battle against the unrighteous rulers. He plays their part, so as they laid (violent) hands on him, God lays hands on them. He is given to them (handed over, betrayed, paredoken). This fury is about to crash against all the assembled world-leaders who failed to lead or give justice. In the last instant this wave of fury and distress, is summoned to a single point, and instead of taking out the whole line of the assembled rulers, it crashes down on and takes out precisely one single Israelite – the righteous one. He halts and breaks, bears and absorbs this force. The Son summons all this trouble, distress and fury. He calls it and it comes, a raging force (Rahab), stilled by a word.
3. The cross as the act of man. Man lays hands on this Son and publicly destroys him, intending to dispose of the claim and power of the rule of God who sent him. The wicked tenants do not want any relationship with God or intend that God tries again to establish any relationship.
4 The cross-and-resurrection as the act of God. Man sets out to wage a campaign without considering whether he can win it (Luke 14.31). He attacks and seizes the one sent, but he cannot overcome him, but is himself overcome by him. Man is overcome by the servant sent by God who can suffer, resist and endure the opposition of man (Isaiah 53.10-11). The Son shakes off the grip of his enemies, and is raised (resurrection) from all his rivals. Psalm 2.2-9 He laughed them to scorn. He shook them off. Psalm 118.10-11; Psalms 22 and 110. Jesus fights alone, as David fought Goliath alone: the Israelite army watched him, joined in only when the enemy strong man was beaten, then chased the Philistines away (Judges 17.45-53). But having laid hands on the one God sent, man is himself gripped and held by him. God will not let him go.
5. The people taken in conquest. We are captured by this warrior, and have become his plunder. He has snatched us from all corners of the world, selected and collected us to form his assembly, the ecclesia. He stole us back out of the house of the strong man (Mark 3.27) and now we are his. We are the seized. Whether God uses violence depends on in what (whose) economy of rationality we reason. The peace of God appears violent to those who oppose it, intending to establish their own peace, just as the wisdom of God appears unwise to those who oppose it with their own worldly wisdom. God (‘violently’ and ‘foolishly’) rejects the ‘peace’ and ‘wisdom’ of the world to establish a better peace and wisdom.
After the battlefield the trial of strength continues in the public assembly, by a contest of challenge and repost. The victorious king’s troops and officers are to confront every leader in his own assembly. The new people of the king are told what to say (Mark 13.9-11), and are given the word (wisdom) which will demolish the public reputation of the opposition. They are to read out the accusation against each leader that lays hands on them, and give him this one chance to confess the God of Israel.