By What Authority?

Mark says Jesus and his disciples had come back to Jerusalem once more, and Jesus was walking in the temple when scribes came with the chief priests and the elders. Luke says that on one of those days, as he was teaching the people in the temple and telling the Good News, the priests and the scribes came to him with the elders.

“Tell us,” they said. “By what authority do you do these things? Who gave you this authority?”

Jesus answered them, “I will ask you one question too. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John: was it from heaven, or from people? Answer me.”

They thought it through together. “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask us, ‘So why didn’t you believe him?’ And if we say, ‘From people,’ we’re afraid of the crowd, because to all of them, John was a prophet.”

In Luke they say, “If we say, ‘From people,’ all the people will stone us, because they’re sure that John was a prophet.”

So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know where it came from.”

Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

“The first,” they said.

Jesus said to them, “I tell you for certain, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God’s Kingdom before you, because John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you didn’t believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. When you saw it, you still didn’t repent afterward and believe him.”

“When harvest time came near, he sent his servants to the farmers to receive his fruit. But the farmers took hold of his servants, beat one, killed another, and threw stones at another. So he sent other servants again, more than before, and they were treated the same way.

“After that he sent his son to them, and said, ‘They will respect my son.’ But the farmers saw the son and said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and seize everything that would be his.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, then killed him.”

Mark tells it one servant at a time. When the time came, the man sent a servant to the farmers to get his share of the fruit, and they took him, beat him, and sent him away with nothing. He sent another, and they threw stones at him, wounded him in the head, treated him shamefully, and sent him away. He sent another, and they killed him. He sent many others too, and they beat some and killed some. He still had one, his dearly loved son. He sent him to them last, saying they would respect his son. But the farmers said to each other that this was the heir, and that if they killed him, everything he would inherit would be theirs. They took him and killed him, and then they threw him out of the vineyard.

Luke says that Jesus told this parable to the people. In Luke, the man planted a vineyard, rented it out to farmers, and went away to another country for a long time. At harvest, he sent one servant to collect his share of the fruit, but the farmers beat him and sent him away with nothing. He sent another servant, and they also beat him, treated him shamefully, and sent him away with nothing. He sent yet a third, and they also wounded him and threw him out. The owner of the vineyard then asked what he should do. He said he would send his dearly loved son; maybe when they saw him, they would respect him. But when the farmers saw the son, they talked it over: this was the heir, and if they killed him, everything he would inherit would be theirs. Then they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

They told him, “He will destroy those terrible men in a terrible way, and he will rent the vineyard out to other farmers, who will give him the fruit at harvest time.”

In Mark and Luke, Jesus asked the question and answered it himself: “So what will the vineyard’s owner do? He will come and destroy the farmers, and he will give the vineyard to others.”

In Luke, those listening said, “May that never happen!”

“So I tell you, God’s Kingdom will be taken from you and given to a nation that bears its fruit. This stone will break to pieces anyone who falls on it, and anyone it falls on, it will crush to dust.”

In Luke, Jesus looked at them and asked, “Then what does it mean, where it is written, ‘The stone which the builders rejected was made the chief cornerstone’?” and he went on to speak of the stone that breaks and crushes.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they saw that he was talking about them. They wanted to seize him, but they feared the crowds, who believed he was a prophet.

Luke says the chief priests and the scribes tried to seize him that very hour, but they were afraid of the people. They knew he had spoken this parable against them. Mark says that they left him and went away.

“Again he sent out other servants, and told them, ‘Tell the invited guests, “Look, I have made my dinner ready. My cattle and my fattened animals are killed, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast!”’

“But they shrugged it off. One went away to his own farm, another to his business. The rest grabbed his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. When the king heard about it, he was angry. He sent his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but the people who were invited weren’t worthy of it. So go to the places where the roads meet, and invite as many as you can find to the wedding feast.’ The servants went out along the roads and gathered as many as they found, both bad and good, and the wedding was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw that one man there had no wedding clothes on. ‘Friend,’ he said to him, ‘how did you come in here without wedding clothes?’ The man had nothing to say. Then the king said to the servants, ‘Tie up his hands and feet, take him away, and throw him out into the darkness. That is where people will weep and grind their teeth.’

“For many are called, but few chosen.”

Mark says some of the Pharisees and the Herodians were sent to him to trap him with words. In Luke, those who had tried to seize him kept watch on him. They sent out spies who pretended to be righteous. They hoped to trap him in something he said, so that they could turn him over to the governor’s power and authority.

“Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are honest, and that you say and teach what is right. You don’t give in to anyone, because you treat everyone the same, and you truly teach the way of God, whoever is listening. So tell us what you think. Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Do we pay, or don’t we?”

But Jesus saw the wickedness in them; Mark calls it their hypocrisy, and Luke their cunning. “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?” he said. “Show me the tax money.”

They brought him a denarius, a coin worth about a day’s pay for a laborer.

“Whose image and inscription are on it?” he asked them.

“Caesar’s,” they said.

Jesus answered them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

They were amazed when they heard it, and they left him and went away. Luke says they couldn’t trap him in his words in front of the people; they were amazed at his answer, and they fell silent.

“Teacher,” they said, “Moses said that when a man dies with no children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for the man who died. There were seven brothers here with us. The first got married and died without children, leaving his wife to his brother. Then the second did the same, and the third, and so on to the seventh. Last of all, the woman died too. So in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be? All seven were married to her.”

Jesus answered them, “You are mistaken. You don’t know the Scriptures. You don’t know the power of God. In the resurrection, they don’t marry and they aren’t given in marriage. They are like God’s angels in heaven. But about the dead rising again: haven’t you read God’s words to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

In Mark, Jesus asked whether they hadn’t read it “in the book of Moses, about the Bush,” how God spoke to Moses there. And he ended, “So you are badly mistaken.”

Luke gives Jesus’ answer in other words: “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to reach that age and the resurrection from the dead don’t marry and aren’t given in marriage. They can’t die anymore, because they are like the angels, and they are children of God, being children of the resurrection. But even Moses showed that the dead are raised. At the bush, he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Now he isn’t the God of the dead but of the living, since all are alive to him.”

The crowds who heard it were astonished at his teaching.

In Luke, some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you speak well.” They didn’t dare to ask him any more questions.

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. There is a second one like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Mark tells of one of the scribes who came and heard them arguing. He could tell that Jesus had answered them well, and he asked him, “Which commandment is the greatest of all?”

Jesus answered, “The greatest is: ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. The second is like this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

“Teacher, that is true,” the scribe said to him. “You have said it well: he is one, and there is no other but him. Loving him with your whole heart, your whole understanding, your whole soul and your whole strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself: that is worth more than every whole burnt offering and sacrifice.”

Jesus saw how wisely the man had answered, and he said to him, “You are not far from God’s Kingdom.”

Mark says no one dared ask him any question after that.

“David’s,” they said.

In Mark, Jesus spoke up as he taught in the temple: “How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?” In Luke he asked, “Why do they say that the Christ is David’s son?”

In Mark, Jesus said that David himself spoke these words “in the Holy Spirit.” In Luke, he said that David himself says them “in the book of Psalms.”

“So if David calls him Lord,” Jesus asked, “how can he be his son?”

No one could answer him a single word. From that day on, nobody dared to ask him anything more.

Mark says the common people listened to him gladly.