(Part Two of the series, When Faith Does Societal Harm)
The teachers of the law in our reading this week advised the Judean rulers of the Temple State and enjoyed political and economic favor as a result. They were those whose interpretations of the Torah provided religious justification for the unjust status quo of the Roman-appointed high priestly rulers.
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(Read this series from its beginning here.)
Jesus offers two critiques of these teachers in our reading: they desired status and privilege rather than the life-giving pedagogy of the Torah and they were “devouring widows’ houses,” which indicates their complicity in the economic exploitation through over-taxation taking place in the Temple-state.
The first critique, desiring the most important seats and places of honor, should be read with the backdrop of the lessons Mark’s gospel just taught in Mark 10. James and John also desired the most important seats and places of honor, and asked to sit at Jesus’ left and right hands in the kingdom. Mark 10 contrasts this request with the request of Bartimaeus, who rightly perceives Jesus’ movement and joins it. (For more, we discussed this at length in Bartimaeus and Christians of Privilege.)
Next, Jesus zeros in on the intrinsic harm the teachings of these teachers was actually doing. Their teaching made the rich powerbrokers in the Temple state richer at the expense of the most vulnerable in Jesus’ society.
Mark’s gospel critiqued this group’s teachings on the basis of the economic injustice they were causing in Mark 7:
And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)—then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” (Mark 7:9-13)
“Devoted to God” meant devoted to the Temple-State, and it didn’t trickle down to the poor, but rather into the pockets of those in positions of power who already possessed so much. It gave them even more at the expense and harm of those from whom these resources were being taken, all while they piously said lengthy prayers in public to add religious influence to their economic exploitation. Standing in the Hebrew prophetic tradition, Jesus like the prophets of old who spoke truth to power, declared that these teachers of the law would be “punished most severely.”
Our reading gives a clear example of this exploitation in one of the most misunderstood economic teachings in the gospel Mark: the story of the widow’s mites. We’ll consider the implications of that story, next.
(Read Part 3)
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