Mark 12:13-17

And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marvelled at him.

The Sangha of the Jews and their political collaborators teamed up to send a deputation with a clever question, in the hope that Yeshu’s answer, if he said, ‘No’, would anger the Roman authority as a form of protest; or, if he said , ‘Yes’, it would make him unpopular with the people who resented paying tax to the Romans.

Pointing to the coin taken from their pockets, Yeshu said, ‘See how you yourselves make use of Roman law and good order in our land. Of course we have a duty of worship to God, but, as to the government, it also must be paid.’

Mark 12:1-12

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the wine press and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others:  some they beat, and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this scripture:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes’?”

And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

The Jewish Sangha were angered by this story. We need to understand how they knew that Yeshu spoke against them by examining each part of it.

The vineyard: it was a picture of Israel, God’s own people, the Jewish nation. The tenants: they were the sangha, to whom were given its care. The fruit: it was the offering of their worship that God expected from them. The servants: they were the prophets sent to stir up true faith and obedience. The beloved son: it was Yeshu himself, now about to be killed by the sangha.

As for the sutra, the Jewish leaders knew it well; they held that it spoke of the Messiah. What to say? Yeshu was declaring, ‘I am the Messiah, and you are rejecting me. Further he was prophesying that God would bring the sangha to an end.

 

Mark 11:27-33

And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man. Answer me.” And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven’, he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘from man?'” — they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

As for these Jewish geshes (dge-bshes), who were secure in their own self-appointed authority, see, they were too proud to acknowledge that the authority of Yeshu, the village carpenter, came from God.