Wednesday: Fifth Week in Lent Year B

Lent for Everyone
Mark Year B
WEEK 5 WEDNESDAY...

...James stared at the machine doubtfully. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Looks quite clever, but I can’t see how it can ever actually work.’

His brother, who had spent all winter building the new machine – they were farmers, and needed a better way of harvesting their crop – turned to him with a smile. ‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ he said. ‘The new fuel they’re producing. It’s much lighter than diesel or petrol. Yes, it would never work with the old stuff. But you just wait. With the new fuel, it’ll do everything we need and more.’

The missing ingredient. Actually, in Jesus’ debate with the Sadducees there were two missing ingredients. In addition to the power – God’s power, which they had conveniently left out of the equation – there were the scriptures.

But didn’t the Sadducees know the scriptures? Weren’t they the official guardians of the whole ancestral tradition, the aristocracy who were supposed to be looking after the very heart of Judaism? How come they were – from Jesus’ point of view – so far off beam?

To answer this will also answer the question that some might ask: why does this odd little story appear at this point in the first place? Mark 11 and 12 are not just a collection of debates that Jesus happened to have in his final days in Jerusalem...

Taken from Lent for Everyone Mark Year B by Tom Wright