Not One Stone Left on Another

One small thing had happened a long way back, up in Capernaum, and it was about temple money. Every grown man paid a tax once a year for the temple — not to the Romans; to God’s house, for the lamps and the wood and the bread. It was two days’ wages, collected out in the towns. The collectors came and found Peter. “Does your teacher not pay the temple tax?” “Yes, he does,” said Peter, and went into the house to ask about it. Before he could get a word out, Jesus spoke first. “What do you think, Simon? The kings of the earth — who do they collect their taxes and their duties from? From their own sons, or from everybody else?” “From everybody else,” said Peter. “Then the sons go free. But we do not want to trip anybody up over it. Go down to the sea and throw in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up. Open its mouth and you will find a silver coin in there. Take that and give it to them — for me and for you.” Peter had been a fisherman all his life and had opened a great many fish.

One more thing from that same house, from the day they had been arguing on the road about which of them was greatest. When he had done with that, he said this. “And whoever trips up one of these little ones who trust me — it would be better for him to have a millstone hung round his neck and be thrown into the sea. If your hand makes you fall, cut it off. It is better for you to go into life with one hand than to have two hands and go off into Gehenna, into the fire that is not put out. And if your foot makes you fall, cut it off. It is better for you to go into life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye makes you fall, throw it away. It is better for you to go into the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into Gehenna. Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good — but if the salt goes flat, what will you make it salty with again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” That was said in a house with the door shut. Everything after it he said out loud in the temple, in the last days he ever taught there.

They had come at him all morning with questions, and he had answered every one. And then he told them another story. “The kingdom of the heavens is like a king who made a wedding feast for his son. And he sent his servants out to call in the people who had been invited to the wedding — and they did not want to come. So he sent other servants, and told them: ‘Say to the ones who were invited — look, I have got my dinner ready. My bulls and my fattened calves have been killed, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding.’ But they took no notice. One of them went off to his field. Another went off to his business. And the rest of them took hold of his servants and treated them shamefully and killed them. And the king was angry, and he sent out his soldiers and made an end of those murderers and burned their city. Then he says to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but the ones who were invited did not deserve it. So go out to where the roads run out of the town, and everybody you find standing there, call them in to the wedding.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered together everybody they could find, bad ones and good ones, the whole lot — and the wedding hall was filled up with people sitting down to eat.” And there was a piece on the end. “But when the king came in to look at the tables, he saw a man there who was not dressed for a wedding. And he says to him, ‘Friend — how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ And the man had nothing to say at all. Then the king said to his servants, ‘Tie him hand and foot and put him out into the dark outside, where there is crying and grinding of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Then it was the Sadducees’ turn. They were the priestly families who ran the temple, and the one thing everybody knew about them was that they did not believe anybody rises from the dead. They came with a riddle that had plainly won for them before. It started from a law of Moses: if a man died leaving a wife and no children, his brother married the widow, so the family would not end there. “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife behind and no child, the brother is to take the wife and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a wife, and died, and left no children. And the second married her, and died, and left none. And the third the same, and all seven of them, and not one of them left a child. And last of all the woman died too. So — when people rise from the dead, whose wife will she be? All seven of them had her.” And he said, “You have gone wrong, and here is why. You do not know the Scriptures, and you do not know the power of God. When people rise from the dead they do not marry, and they are not given away in marriage. They are like the messengers in the heavens. They cannot die any more. They are sons of God, because they are sons of the rising. But about the dead being raised — have you never read in the book of Moses, at the bush, what God said to him? ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead. He is the God of the living. To him, all of them are alive.” Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had been in their graves hundreds of years when the bush burned, and God did not say he had been their God. The crowd heard it and were astounded, and the Sadducees went away.

Then he turned to the crowds and to his own followers, and talked about the teachers out loud while they stood listening. “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses. So do what they tell you, and keep it — but do not do what they do. Because they say, and do not do. They tie up heavy loads and lay them on other people’s shoulders, and they will not lift one finger to shift them. And everything they do, they do to be looked at. They make the little leather boxes with the Scripture in them, that they wear on their foreheads, wider; and the tassels on the corners of their coats longer. They love the best place at dinner, and the front seats in the meeting house, and being greeted in the marketplace, and having people call them Rabbi. But you are not to be called Rabbi, because you have one teacher, and all of you are brothers. And do not call anybody on earth your father, because you have one Father, the one in heaven. And do not be called masters, because you have one master, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever lifts himself up will be put down, and whoever puts himself down will be lifted up.”

And then he said the same words over and over, straight at them. “How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you pretenders! You shut the kingdom of the heavens in people’s faces. You will not go in yourselves, and you will not let the ones who are going in get through the door. How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you pretenders! You count out a tenth of your mint and your dill and your cumin, and you have left the heavy things of the law lying where they fell — being fair, and being merciful, and keeping faith. Those were the ones you had to do, without leaving the others undone. Blind guides! You strain a gnat out of your cup, and swallow a camel. How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you pretenders! You wash the outside of the cup and the dish, and the inside is full of what you have taken from people and what you cannot say no to. Blind Pharisee — clean the inside of the cup first, and then the outside will be clean as well.” The graves on the roads round Jerusalem were painted white before the feast, so nobody would tread on one by accident. Everybody listening had walked past them. “How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you pretenders! You are like graves painted white, which look beautiful from the outside, and inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. That is you. Outside, to people, you look right; inside you are full of pretending, and of breaking the law. How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you pretenders! You build the tombs of the prophets and put fine stonework on the graves of good men, and you say, ‘If we had been alive in our fathers’ day, we would never have joined in with them, killing the prophets.’ So you say it yourselves: you are the sons of the men who murdered the prophets. Snakes. Children of snakes. How are you going to get away from the judgment of Gehenna?”

And then he stopped talking to them, and talked to the city. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem — you who kill the prophets and throw stones at the ones who are sent to you. How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks in under her wings — and you would not. Look: your house is left to you, and it is empty. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Then he walked out of the temple, and they went with him. Herod had been rebuilding that temple for forty-six years and it was still not finished. The stones in the wall were bigger than anything any of them had seen a man set in place, and the front was plated with gold you could not look straight at in the morning sun. One of them said what all of them were thinking. “Teacher — look at that. What stones! What buildings!” “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here on another. Every one of them will be thrown down.”

Out of the gate, down into the valley and up the far side, where the olive trees grow; from up there the temple stands in front of you, the whole of it at once. He sat down. Four of them came to him alone — Peter, James, John and Andrew — with the question they had carried up the hill. “Tell us — when will these things happen? And what is the sign, when all of it is about to be finished?” “Watch out that nobody leads you astray,” he said. “Plenty of people will come using my name and saying, ‘I am he,’ and they will lead plenty of others astray. And when you hear of wars, and rumors of wars, do not be frightened. It has to happen. But that is not the end yet. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in one place after another, and there will be famines. That is the beginning of the birth pangs. But watch out for yourselves. They will hand you over to councils, and you will be beaten in the meeting houses, and you will be stood up in front of governors and kings because of me — and that will be your chance to tell them. And the good news has to be announced to all the nations first. And when they take you away and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are going to say. Say whatever is given you at the time. It will not be you speaking; it will be the Holy Spirit. Brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child; and children will stand up against their parents and have them put to death. And everybody will hate you because of my name. But the one who holds out to the end — that is the one who will be saved.”

Then he told them what to do on one particular day, and he was practical about it. “When you see the detestable thing standing where it must not stand, then whoever is in Judea must get out into the hills. If you are up on the roof, do not go down and into the house for anything. If you are out in the field, do not turn back for your coat. It will be hard in those days for the women who are carrying a baby, and for the ones with a baby at the breast. Pray that it does not come in the winter. Because those days will be trouble such as there has not been since the beginning of the world God made, and there will not be again. And if the Lord had not cut those days short, nobody at all would come through it. But he has cut them short, for the sake of the ones he chose. And if anybody says to you then, ‘Look, here is the Christ,’ or ‘Look, there he is’ — do not believe it. False christs and false prophets will get up and do signs and wonders, to lead astray, if they can, even the ones God chose. But you watch out. I have told you all of it beforehand. But in those days, after that trouble, the sun will go dark, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars will be falling out of the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds, with great power and glory. And he will send out the messengers, and gather in the ones he chose from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of heaven. When these things begin to happen, stand up straight and lift up your heads, because the day you are set free is coming near.”

And then he pointed at a tree. “Learn from the fig tree. When its branch has gone soft and put out its leaves, you know without being told that the summer is near. So when you see these things happening, you know it is near — right at the doors. I tell you the truth: this generation will not pass away until all of it has happened. Heaven and earth will pass away. My words will not pass away. But about that day, and that hour, nobody knows anything — not the messengers in heaven, not the Son. Only the Father. Watch out. Stay awake. You do not know when the time is. It is like a man going abroad, who left his house, and gave his servants their work, each one his own job, and told the doorkeeper to stay awake. So stay awake — because you do not know when the master of the house is coming. In the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning. He might come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to everybody. Stay awake.”