In his last few days on earth, Jesus debated with some of the finest theological minds of the time.
After the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on what we remember as Palm Sunday, he spends time teaching and telling parables, but also sparring with the Pharisees and the Sadduccees, two prominent religious groups of the time.
In Mark's account (11:27-12: 40) it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they are just playing games. They try to trap him with a question about whether it's right to pay taxes to Caesar (12: 13-17) and ask a leading question about marriage at the Resurrection (18-27). A teacher asks Jesus about the greatest commandment of the law, and tries to patronise him when he replies (Jesus slaps him down).
In Jesus's replies he shows he can play the game better than they could. There's a kind of sparkle about the conversations he's having; it looks as if he's enjoying himself.
We shouldn't be surprised at that. He was able to hold vast crowds of people with his teaching. But he also held together a small, intimate group of disciples who went around with him and knew everything about him; there was nowhere to hide from them, so that was even harder. That tells us there was a sort of human attractiveness about him; he was good to be around and he interested people.
But it was still a game – though it was important Jesus showed he could play it.
However, the chapter finishes on a different note entirely. Jesus says, 'Watch out for the teachers of the law' – the people he's been battling with. 'They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the market-places and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets' (38-40). But, he says, they are fakes – they pretend to be people of faith, but they aren't.
He seems to be saying that we can get so engrossed with the surface things of faith – the squabbles over small points of doctrine, the struggle to dominate our neighbour, the extraordinary need to be right – that the vital centre of it all is completely overlooked.
And that's the point of the last few few verses of the chapter, where Mark tells us of the famous 'widow's mite'. While others were showering gold into to the chests for the Temple offerings, she put in two tiny coins. Jesus told his disciples, 'I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on' (43-44).
If we try to make this into a story about money and turn it into a little moral fable about how we should be generous in our giving, we cheapen it. It's really about her complete self-surrender to God, in contrast to the shallow word-games played by the theologians and lawyers.
And we should remember the context of the encounter: just a few days later, Jesus will go to his death on the cross. He too will give all he has, holding nothing back.
