MARK 13:1-11

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 26…Revised 2018

To preach we need to do our theological homework, not least when, as here, we have a complex passage of ‘apocalyptic’. Brendan Byrne¹ says, (it) ‘seems to send mixed messages to the faithful, oscillating in a rather disturbing way between reassurance & warning’? How can we preach both these notes, reassurance, &, warning, in a way that balances them without falling into either extreme? Some questions we might explore are: 

How do we set about living in ‘our time’ & ‘God’s time’ simultaneously? Can there be a better starting point than to encourage what the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ speaks of as: ‘God’s Name being hallowed, God’s Rule coming, & God’s will being done (all of these!)‘on earth as in Heaven’? Surely no-one knows better than Our Lord how ‘reassurance’ & ‘warning’ do oscillate in the realities of down to earth life? How does Jesus approach people & situations as they challenge or confront Him; or, as He challenges or confronts them in the many situations arising in Scriptural accounts? Approach them in our own strength & we will often find them too hard; a warning. Approach them in God’s strength, in the Spirit of Jesus & we will no doubt often still find them hard; but, reassuring. Even when life seems to be beating up on us. There is no way to compel what we discern to be God’s will happen ‘on earth as in heaven’. 

The alternative, putting off, pushing off God’s will into some apocalyptic future leads us only to practise (&, preach?) ‘apocalyptic escapism’. Like others, I wonder if the early churches did that from time to time, despite the witness of so many martyrs to the contrary. How many of them are rescued ‘in extremis’? Any more than Jesus Himself is? As humans, aren’t we always living ‘in extremis’?

The next chapter (14) leads into the events of ‘Holy Week’. Then, even when Jesus Himself pleads, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” We only hear the sounds of creation protesting when Jesus is, dare I say, beyond rescuing by God or any human agency. An echoing warning & reassurance that, like what Jesus teaches us in today’s passage, Resurrection mustn’t become a doctrine of escapism either!

Afterthought: David Lose², writing on today’s passage in 2015 says, ‘Living with uncertainty was hard for 1st C. followers, & it’s just as hard for His 21st C. Disciples as well…..The antidote to uncertainty isn’t certainty, but courage….’  Do I need to add that no-one on earth has ever shown greater courage than Jesus - Man & God?

Brian

¹ A Costly Freedom, Liturgical, Collegeville, Minn., 2008, p. 196  ²  In the Meantime 

PS.: Sunday, Nov. 26th is the Feast of Christ the King, with its Johannine Gospel. For my blog on that see: jottingsonjohn.blogspot.com. Dec. 2nd will be Advent 1, starting the ‘Year of Luke’ & to be found at my laterallyluke.blogspot.com.  

MK 12:38-44

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 25…Revised 2018

The ‘poor widow’ of the 2nd part of our text isn’t named, but let’s name her ‘Lepta’, after the tiny thin coins Jesus watches her deposit into the ATM at the temple. Jesus sees Lepta & others on God’s wavelength as far more important than those of whom He is dismissive in vv.38-40 for claiming the centre stage to which they think they’re entitled. (As James & John try to do awhile back.) Sense of entitlement is on the rise, is it not?

 I feel a strong personal connection with Lepta after an experience I have when I’m a young child in Sunday School. Let me share that now to illustrate how Jesus & those in His stories need to come out from our Bibles & to life in us as we live Jesus-like lives today. It’s not a matter of how Jesus’ stories might go on from where He leaves off back then. It’s about how our own stories go on from His in what we’ve learned from Him. How are we going to present this in our sermon? 

When I was young I went, rather unwillingly, to of all things an afternoon Sunday School. In mostly sunny OZ, who would want to go to an ASS?! This Sunday my mother tells me she’s put sixpence (equal, say, to 2 leptas) in my trouser pocket. Threepence (c.1 lepta) for the collection in SS, & threepence to buy an ice-cream on the way home. My dear mother would never have thought of this as being a bribe; simply a reward for doing ‘the right thing’. Come collection time, & disaster strikes. I put my hand in my pocket for the threepenny piece for God only to find that what my mum has given me is just one sixpence. Two leptas in just 1 coin, not 2! The plate for the collection is coming closer & my dilemma is eating away at me - like I’ve been imagining eating away at that ice-cream! Here I am in the house of God but I’m not sure whether God, or my ice-cream’s going to win out! As the plate is passed to me, the solution also comes. I put the sixpence in the plate, then quickly take a threepence out! A win-win situation. God gets His lepta, & I get my ice-cream! I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but to this day I admire ‘Lepta’ of today’s story for her deep faith & God-given generosity of Spirit that doesn’t look for change in her time of need!

The ‘religious’ side of me still occasionally makes me wonder, after all these years, whether I should have put my sixpence - my whole 2 leptas - in the plate, & gone without my ice cream! But another not so ‘religious’ side of me still inclines to think God enjoys that ice-cream with me each time I lick it. Even though it is a kind of ‘forbidden fruit’. One resolution of such issues may lie not in our humanising God too much, but in letting God divinise us more & more in His own image; sense of humour & all! 

Afterthought: I heard recently of a parish urging people to give using eftpos: "You won't even know it's gone!" Big pity? What might Lepta feel? What do you feel? 

Brian 

MARK 12: 13-17 & 28-34

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 24…Revised 2018

(for JN 11:32-44 (All Saints) see: jottingsonjohn.blogspot.com)

What a contrast between the characters in the 2 sections here! In the 1st, unholy alliances between normally steadfast enemies who unite only to bring Jesus down. But succeed only in making fools of themselves in front of Him & us all! In the 2nd, a lone Scholar - let’s call him ‘Daniel’ - breaks ranks with his colleagues, & earns high praise from Jesus. What’s the difference between someone who thinks they’re a saint, but aren’t; &, someone who knows they’re not, but is ‘close to God’s rule’? 

In vv.13-17 we see what a lateral & imaginative thinker Jesus is. Do we think so laterally & imaginatively in matters of Faith & Life? As I understand it, no ‘good’ Jewish person of that time should be carrying a Roman coin. If we’re asked to turn out the ‘pockets’ of our lives, will we find things that embarrass us? Show us to be hypocrites, too? How do we as Christians keep that balance between the things of God & the things of Rulers that Jesus demands not just then, but now, today? 

We used to visit a house once lived in by Jewish folk - now long gone to God. High up inside the front door, & only if you have it pointed out to you, is what’s left of a mezuzah. Painted over again & again by re-decorators; unwittingly, I hope. A web-site on the subject puts it: ‘a mezuzah declares ‘the people who live here live Jewish lives’. We’re so impressed by that spirit, that for some time now we’ve had a small ichthus plaque by our front door to remind us ‘the people who live here live Christian lives’! A reminder at each going out & coming in. When ‘Daniel’ of vv.28-34 recites the commandments to Jesus, isn’t he using a kind of verbal mezuzah? A check-list of what it means to live a godly life. He measures up very well indeed! Do we, measure up as well as ‘Daniel’ does, ‘mezuzah’ or no ‘mezuzah’?

Put the two sections of the reading together & we might wonder if we’re trying to live life as a kind of board game where some laws, attitudes, given us by God count more than others. Jesus is warning us here that life & faith are not like board games! Faith is a calling to live Christian lives according to the Way Jesus lives, not as we might pick & choose to suit ourselves!

Afterthought: ‘Daniel’ gets it that God’s Kingdom, God’s Rule, is a relationship we enter into - or don’t! Jesus’ enemies, of vv.13-17, on the other hand, think they own the ‘board’ & have the right to manipulate the rules. Are you & I living in very close Relationship with God’ (like ‘Dan’)? Or are we playing the board & manipulating the rules like those who earlier think they can outsmart Jesus? It’s time to choose!

Brian

MARK 10:46-52

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 23…2018

Forgive if you find this a more personal approach than usual to this passage. My records tell me I preach on our passage on my first Sunday ‘back on deck’, four months after highly successful (Laus Deo!) open heart surgery in 1985. Appropriate is it not to the day Bartimaeus has his physical & spiritual eyes opened by Jesus. My 1985 notes show I’ve not only had my physical heart opened, but my spiritual eyes have begun opening anew in the process! Jesus asks Bart, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bart says, “I want to see again”. I feel very akin to him; back then, my reply to God being, “Let me go on living!”

My notes from ’85 tell me I’m preaching too long! The Scriptures are the Word of God, & Jesus is the flesh & blood Word of God, but I’ve fallen into the trap of being wordy. From that day I turn over a new leaf! Really! I do! Point to ponder? 

I also find I’m sharing with the congregation things more personal than I remember doing before. Like: A few days before my surgery I’m in a department store. As I ride an escalator, our Lord’s words to Paul (2 COR 12:9) take possession of me: ‘My grace is sufficient for you; my grace works its purpose in weakness’ (my translation). God is revealing to me what Paul once heard in his time of need. Now when I need to hear it in my own time of crisis! (I assure you I don’t normally wander in shopping centres quoting Scripture to myself!) How are our spiritual ears to hear, & eyes to see, whatever the state of our physical faculties?

It becomes personal when we discern God knows the ‘thorns in our flesh’, physical & spiritual. In Paul, in Bart, in me, & in all our lives, better than we do ourselves. Recently we’ve heard Jesus telling a rich young chap he needs to give it all away before he can follow Him. Then James & John learn they need to give up seeking places at Jesus’ right & left hand before they’re ready to follow Him as He demands to be followed. Today, without being asked, Bart (symbolically?) - throws off his outer coat, likely the one more or less respectable possession he has, seeing he’s blind & a beggar. Without being asked! Are there ‘outer garments’ we need to discard before Jesus can do for us whatever it is He needs to do for us? By the way, let’s preach Bart as ‘Bart with his sight restored’, rather than as ‘a blind beggar’. Give him his dignity restored, too!

Like Bart & many others, my need at the time, & it being met by God’s grace, opens me up to a new experience of, a new dimension of, spiritual life as well as physical. Our calling is to preach about that, & in the context of today’s Gospel, let’s be open enough to God & each other to follow in Bart’s steps. And, less ‘wordily’!

Afterthought: Soon after my return to parish & pulpit I come across a copy of ‘Lazarus’, by Morris West. A tale of a Pope who also undergoes successful heart surgery & finds new spiritual life opening up in the process. Worth a read, even if we’re not aspiring to a papacy!  

Brian 

MARK 10: 32-45

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 22…Revised 2018

Include 32-34 for the context - always important! The scene is set when we’re told the apostles are puzzled, & other followers frightened. Before Jesus follows up earlier hints by openly declaring His commitment to going to Jerusalem to be His kind of Messiah! In our day, now, is there still something about Jesus & His teaching that puzzles us - or frightens us ? Have we got Him, got ‘it’ all ‘taped’? Honestly?

MT (20:20-23) tells the James & John story quite differently; transferring the blame for their seeking positions of honour onto their mother. But MK’s account has the ring of truth. Though not one of the twelve, Mark may well have been there that day. His version, & MT’s probable fudging of it, raises at least two questions. Firstly, that of seeking ‘places of honour’. Then, that of telling the truth, even if it reflects badly on ourselves, or someone we’re inclined to protect.

 Are questions we might explore from our pulpits issues like: *How does the world keep getting into such a state of power seeking, grabbing, holding onto, at so many levels? Including the spreading use of lies, & fake news? *Can we simply blame over-use & misuse of the expanding availability of ‘IT’? *How do we get out of such a state of affairs? *What’s the point of Jesus being our Messiah if the world’s still getting worse?

If James & John had been granted their request, logically, shouldn’t we expect them to have been hanging up there beside Jesus on Golgotha, rather than the two who were in fact His companions up there? Not the positions of honour J & J had in mind! Is the risk of ‘bringing ourself undone’ a consideration in our own discipleship? 

Has our understanding of Baptism, & our approach to it become a ‘soft option’? If so, Jesus isn’t into soft options! Are we doing anything in our faith community to enable not just our children, but adults, too, to grow into their Baptism?

If Jesus is a Servant Lord, doesn’t it follow that we’re to be a Servant People? Isn’t that Jesus’ expectation of us? ‘God of the gaps’ has long been a put-down for a lack of theological acumen that simply slots God as the solution into ‘gaps’ in scientific & other kinds of knowledge. Here’s the chance, though, to use the term in a positive sense. Let the activity of the Servant God’s Servant People be to identify, & make good, gaps we discern need filling in our society. What gaps are there in our wider community that we as Jesus-followers should be working at filling in the service of others? Where & when do we start? 

Afterthought: Wanting No.1 spot on the Jesus ticket rears its head taking many forms & many manifestations in our churches. Does our congregation & denomination have its own versions? Our reading suggests wanting No.1 spot could be a risky business, take what form it may!

Brian

MARK 10:17-31

Marginally Mark…Pent + 21…Revised 2018

Normally I like to give un-named biblical characters a name. Everyone deserves a name & a face! But in today’s case I reckon Jesus means us all to see ourselves in the ‘someone’ who runs up to Him. One thing this chap gets right, & deserves credit for, is that he discerns eternal life as something we inherit, not earn! The irony is that in turning his back on Jesus, & walking away, he is turning his back on eternal life, too. Perhaps we could begin by asking ourselves, & our congregation if we discern eternal life as something inherited from God, our Parent. Or, if we’re trying to earn it, are we actually turning our backs on it, as well as Jesus?

Eternal life is a quality of life, not a length. The chap of our story appears to be making a pretty good job of living a godly life - as he sees it & tells it - but Jesus wants us all to go further. To discern that everything we inherit is for sharing. Not least with those who are least in our earthly kingdoms, but not least in God’s eyes. 

It springs to mind, no, to heart, that eternal life, this God-given quality of life, is not something we will inherit one day if we’re ‘good’, but have already inherited. In our birth, our baptism, & our spiritual growth into the image of God. It’s already begun. There’s no ‘pie to be had in the sky in the sweet bye & bye’. 

At the heart of the dynamics in today’s story is that Jesus loves this chap. Even if he’s failing something vital in God’s eyes. Doesn’t it follow that God loves us, too, what-ever our failings? Jesus’ love for us, God’s love for us, is unconditional. And it’s that love, & our acceptance, our welcoming of it, that’s at the heart of what we inherit from God & are lovingly bound to pass on. Not least to those who are littler, even than us, in the world’s eyes.   

We can interpret our story as Jesus not wanting us to be like the chap in the story. But let’s be more positive, & recognise Jesus is telling us, “Be like Me!” Life in Jesus, being like Jesus, is our eternal life. Right Now!

 To move to the end of our passage, how does ‘the last being first, & the last first’ sit with today’s ‘win, win, win, gold, gold, gold at all costs’, mentality? Is this approach to life something we’re inheriting, too, but from sources other than God? Where will that inevitably lead us? The question is not, ‘Where does our friend’s story go from here?’, but,‘Where is our story going from here?’ 

Afterthought: If we miss the humour in Jesus’‘camel & needle’ imagery, are we also perhaps missing the real-life, eternal life, possibilities of needles of faith passing  through the eyes of camels of impossibilities? 

Brian 

Mark 10:1-16

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 20…Revised 2018

They say politics & religion don’t mix. But they inevitably do. As do morality, immorality, religion, & politics. The questions are: Which is driving which? & Who is driving what? Whatever the legal ‘outcomes’, the ‘Kavanaugh case’ isn’t going to go away. It’ll smoulder on keeping questions of sexual morality & our responses, legally, politically, & religiously, before us. Just as in today’s Gospel issues of marriage & divorce & remarriage & all the complexities that flow from them have been smouldering among the Hebrew people for centuries. Today the Pharisees try to make political capital out of them at Jesus’ expense. 

I wonder, though, if a good starting place for preaching today might be to look back to the imagery of the Garden of Eden myth? Imagery that still applies among the ranks of the separated & divorced, re-married, moral, or immoral, & raises these questions in our pews (& pulpits!) & in the wider community. Eden takes us to the heart of human relationships: which are intended to be modelled on the relationship between God & us. In the beginning God means us to relate lovingly & faithfully with each other, & to Godself.

Adding to the complexities from the text, countries like Australia have redefined marriage as a relationship entered into by ‘two persons’! The whole idea of gender is ‘up for grabs’’ with an increasing number of choices to be made by those who feel they don’t fit into the age-old ‘male’ & ‘female’ stereo-types. All this would have shocked Jesus & His 1st C. Hebrew contemporaries to their core. You & I, though, are not from, or of, the 1st C! How we approach the issues raised between the Pharisees & Jesus, & today’s ‘Kavanaugh case’, has to be from where we are, rather than from where we’d like to be. Or anyone else would like us to be! There’s no retreat to Eden. Where to from here, & how to get there? 

At its simplest, the theology of Creation teaches us human relationships are God-given creative exercises. At their heart is God’s plan for us to continue in fellowship with Him & each other. Including when divorce, re-marriage, moral or immoral issues are involved. 

Jesus is, as to His humanity, a man of His day. Who, as the New & Greater-than- Moses, must uphold the Mosaic Law. Can we explore these issues - as I think He is doing here - in a way that respects God & God’s Law, & also each other & the human dilemmas we face? Often personally, or close to personally? However we preach these issues, & whatever the choices we make, can we really believe God revealed in Jesus will ‘divorce’ us in the process? 

Afterthought: Adam & Eve in a sense divorce themselves from the rest of creation, from each other, & most tellingly, from YHWH God. But is it God who banishes / punishes them? Or are they punishing themselves as we do to ourselves & each other? Yet God goes on loving them, loving us all, for ever & ever. Amen! 

Brian