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

MK 9: 38-50 

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 19…Revised 2018

We’re still in the context of Jesus having His arm round a child while He continues his conversation with the Twelve. Reminding us God intends life to be a continuing conversation with Him & each other - in humility!

I don’t remember singing it for a long time now, but an old hymn including the words ‘There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea’ speaks to me as to what our passage is pretty much all\ about. Add to this that God’s little ones come in all shapes & sizes & ages! If what Jesus says here is a bit scary, He’d rather scare us than have us exclude ourselves from God’s Rule by our ruling others out of ‘it’. What Jesus sums up in His last words here: “Have salt (= fellowship) with one another & be at peace with one another” are startling in their simplicity. And bring the flavour of Jesus Himself to our tables & into our lives!

The hard things Jesus goes on to say here warn us against making false assumptions about our own status in God’s eyes. Before we regard others as ‘outsiders’, beware lest our branding others as ‘outside God’s Rule’ is actually excluding ourselves! Jesus demonstrates, & wants us to understand too, that God is mind-blowingly, & spirit-blowingly, inclusive! 

Putting millstones round people's necks, amputating limbs, gouging eyes, consigning people who are not 'in' to Gehenna seems to appeal to a lot of religious hard-liners on the ‘religious right’ today. How about we encourage, by practising, some Godly ‘salt-sharing’ instead? How tasting-of-God are we?

If it bothers us, one explanation of the contradiction between what JES says here about those not against us, or not for us, & His being reported as saying the opposite in MT 12:30 & LK 11:23, goes like this: the former applies when Christians are on the ‘offensive’ in some way, & the latter when we're ‘under attack’. Perhaps there's no cut & dried explanation until some such situation arises & we have to work out Jesus’ meaning for ourselves? (It’d be stranger still, wouldn’t it, if there were no contra-dictions in the word-of-mouth transmission of what Jesus has said & done over so many years? Try asking our congregation, “What did I preach about last Sunday?” How many versions will we hear after just one week?

It’s important we do our ‘mighty work’, or give our glass of water, humbly, showing we're doing it in Christ’s Name. Not by big-noting ourselves, making ourselves out to be religious, or preaching about it, but by doing it. Not setting up a committee to do it, either! Committees can be, even unconsciously, delaying tactics!

Afterthought: Let’s not confuse living life humbly in God’s eyes with making ourself such a small target we escape others’ notice. Does that sound a bit like cowardice?

Brian

MK 9: 30-37 

Marginally Mark… Pentecost + 18…Revised 2018

There’s an old story about a run-down monastery once filled with enthusiastic monks but now dispirited; its numbers dwindling, & no novices to swell the ranks. In a nearby wood an old & holy Rabbi has built a little hut-retreat. The monks have no contact with him, but they always know when the Rabbi walks in the woods. One day the monastery’s Abbot breaks with tradition & calls on the Rabbi noted for his holiness, & unburdens himself to him. Together, they spend a long time reading the Scriptures & praying. As the Abbot is about to leave, the Rabbi says to him, “I have a message for you to take back to your brothers. Tell them: “The Messiah is among you.” ”. When the Abbot returns & tells his monks what the Rabbi has said to tell them, they are all startled. They begin to look round at each other, wondering what this could mean; who this could mean! They find themselves looking at each other with new respect, new reverence. The quality of community life & prayer & faithfulness begins to change dramatically. The monks read the Scriptures more earnestly, pray more genuinely, sing God’s praises with more heart. Are much more open to each other. The old Rabbi is long gone, but the Messiah is still among these monks & their monastery.

We’re not told where it is Jesus & His followers leave from, but don’t we all have some-where we need to leave; some state of mind or spirit we need to move on from to reach where we ought to be? Christianity is a movement, not a marking time spot. Not some state of mind or spirit into which we’ve locked ourselves.

Jesus still presents Himself as an unusual Son of Humanity. Jesus is so earthed, such an earthed Messiah,  can we understand people not being able to discern the Divine in Him? Can they discern the Messiah in us any more clearly? Of all the glimpses of Messiahship given us in the O.T. Jesus opts to be Isaiah’s ‘Suffering Servant’ [v.35]. God’s Little One for other little ones! [vv.36-7]

The Disciples mostly don’t show up very well in the Gospels, do they? How well are we showing up in the ‘little gospels’ our lives are writing? Is the Messiah obviously among us? Are we writing our own stories just with ‘ink’ from our own veins? Or, with ‘ink’ from Jesus’ ‘veins’ by His Spirit? Showing us serving those whom Jesus serves, whatever that takes?

Look about us. Do we see the Messiah? Is it that person over there? Or this one here? Just as important, are these others seeing Him in us?

Afterthought: If we can’t see the Christ in each other, perhaps we need to go & find a holy old Rabbi out in the woods near where we live?

Brian

MK 8: 27-38 

Marginally Mark… Pentecost + 17…Revised 2018 

Peter's isn't the only acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ. The Samaritans of JN 4, & others, too, are up to the mark. One thought worth developing is that Jesus can cross any border; He’s His own ‘documentation’ to those who come to recognise Him & know Him! Another theme of our preaching today might be, that it isn’t whom Peter or any-one else back then says Jesus is, that matters. What matters is what you & I & others say He is now, & what we do, how we live, as a consequence.

To refer to JN 4 again, those in vv. 39-42 move from believing in Him because Samara (the woman at the well) has told them about Him, to, “We’ve listened to Him for ourselves & realise He’s the Saviour of the world”. Faith has to be a personal experience. Peter here makes a great leap of Faith, but will learn the hard way that we all have to keep ‘leaping that leap’ of Faith day after day. Faith is all about today, not yesterday. Always!

In vv. 31+,  Jesus sets out the kind of Messiah He’s come to be. David Lose¹ a few years back wrote: ‘This is the pivot point of the Gospel’ as Jesus sets His face towards His stead-fast march to the cross. What He says here is completely out of kilter with the expectations of people in general. Few discern, e.g., that the Suffering Servant of Isaiah & the Messiah, Jesus, turn out to be one & the same person. Jesus is no King riding a white charger with legions of angels at His heels to rid the land of those accursed Romans! Peter cops it here for failing to discern this necessary connection. What might some other connections be? How discerning are we of the kind of Messiah Jesus the Christ actually is in daily life, as distinct from the Messiah some of us still seem to expect Him to be? 

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but it’s worth repeating: Kosuke Koyama²  says: 'Jesus doesn’t carry his cross like a business-man carries his lunch box’. Carrying Jesus’ cross is no easy matter. Putting some kind of manageable handle on the cross all too easily brings us undone. Fortunately, Jesus is with us in His Spirit to pick us up by one means or another, dust us off, put His cross back on our shoulder, & lovingly help us carry it. Even if we think He’s turned the next corner, & try to re-affix some handle of our own making!

What is 'being saved' anyway? Are many of our answers to that just too pious? Too ‘precious’? One, though, that makes sense, is to go back to what Jesus warns, & Koyama interprets, is that being saved means sticking at carrying such a rough thing as a cross, splinters, weight, threat of death, & all; trustingly, hopefully, & without any handle! 

Afterthought: Except maybe Jesus Himself? Does Jesus say somewhere - maybe in some lost version of JN - “I AM the Handle!”???

¹ On his website: ‘In the Meantime’. ² No Handle on the Cross, SCM, London, '76, p.1

Brian

Mark 7: 24-37

MarginallyMark…Pentecost + 16…Revised 2018.    

Both incidents today raise the issue of comfort zones. In the first, Mira, (let's call her that) confronts Jesus well out of Jewish territory. Why Jesus is there we don't know. Ever ended up in some odd, inexplicable, place, or situation, only to find we've been led there for a purpose? Maybe to meet some contemporary Mira, her daughter, ‘Thera’- everyone deserves a name & a face - or any other human being, related to anybody or not? There’s no planning such a journey, or encounter. It’s more a matter of co-operating with divine initiative-taking.

Are we bothered by Jesus giving Mira such a hard time? What He says to her at first is certainly testing, probing, challenging. Maybe some of the responses you & I have received from God have seemed equally & seemingly harsh? So hard we've backed off, run away, rather than joining in a bit of good old cut & thrust with God? We'll never know the possible end result God has in mind for us till we do that latter, will we? Never discern where we're meant to be, with whom, & to what end?

One of the responses God in Christ & by Holy Spirit may be looking for in testing us is our willingness to take the risk of entering into another’s pain as Jesus does here. Today’s ‘Miras’ or ‘Theras', of any age or gender may be suffering physical, mental, spiritual, or a whole mixture of disabilities. For me, exterior demons aren’t an option! Any demons I have arise from within me [cf. MK 7: 6+] ; imprinted by life-choices, or other circumstances that disable. Give ‘demons’ a miss; they subvert us from living responsibly under YHWH God.

‘Heros’, so I'm naming him, lives in Greek-influenced territory, & in his own way is as much an outsider as Mira & Thera have been until Jesus makes them all whole. For all our modern enlightenment, & despite good progress & good things happening, those with disabilities still find it hard to come in from the cold. Who will plead their cause better than a Jesus figure accepting & including them? Out in those margins beyond our pews are a lot of hurting, alienated-one-way-or-another people. 

A main thrust in preaching this passage might be that, to coin a word from those Jesus speaks to Heros, we are all called to become ‘ephphathetic’. People opened by God to our own & everyone else’s disabilities, of whatever kind. Given the gift of opening others up to the fullness of life in Christ. What a difference more openness to God & to each other could make to our congregations & to ‘outsiders’! 

Afterthought: Being 'ephphathetic' is one of many gifts of the Spirit not listed in official Biblical catalogues! ‘Ephphathetic-ism’ opens us up to ourselves & to others. To become a 'little Christ' in the Spirit of the One who still 'does all things well’!

Brian

MARK 7: 1-8, 14-23

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 15…Revised 2018

Reading this passage on Tradition, Tevye’s musing on that subject in ‘Fiddler On The Roof’ comes to the fore. His soliloquy from his little Jewish cottage in his little Jewish village in big Orthodox Tsarist Russia is a musing about Tradition. Tradition, as he expresses it, is what makes it possible to keep one’s balance in life rather than lose it & fall not just from a roof top, but from God. (The Orthodox, there & then, had their own traditions, including beating up Jews!) Tevye’s soliloquy might make an appropriate Gradual for today. Get the Gospel & sermon off to a good start! This passage is really a warning against letting ‘Tradition’ take over! Making us lose our balance & fall. As ‘Satan’ once fell like lightning from heaven! Like Jesus maybe pictures the Pharisees doing!

The Pharisees might have been Jesus’ allies had they not been so hide-bound by Traditions. They weren’t bad people. Just people who’d lost their sense of balance. Fallen into the ‘falling off the roof-top’ trap, & come tumbling down! Letting Traditions they’d built up over the years take over & usurp God’s expectations of them revealed in their Scriptures. Do we need to break free from Traditions holding us back from God; from what God wants & needs of us?

Jesus is warning us not to let our own, or anyone else’s traditions, trap us into performing such an un-balancing act. Bring us falling from Grace in YHWH God’s eyes! Can we identify Traditions we keep? Personal ones? Family ones? Church ones? Seasonal ones? Sporting ones? etc. etc. Do we have just a few? or, does the list go on & on? In last week's JN 6: 56-69 passage, Jesus challenges His disciples, & now, us, to feed on Him as Living Bread & the Wine of Life. Not on Traditions! Once our life becomes a ‘feeding on Traditions’, those same Traditions are already feeding on us! Eating us away from the inside!

The Pharisees’ insistence on cleanliness no doubt starts as a symbolic expression of our need to approach God in a state of inner cleanliness. It becomes, though, an increasingly restrictive binding observance of externals. Let’s not do the same! Or we, too, will become today’s Pharisees in being thrown off balance; and fall from our various ‘roof-tops' from which we do our grandstanding! Like in vv. 14+ ?

Traditions probably have their beginning in giving us a sense of who we are as individuals & where we fit into family or the various communities to which we belong - including Church of course. There’s nothing wrong with that unless we let Traditions take over & let them squeeze God out. In the process losing our balance & tumbling from any roof-top where we’re fiddling away scraping out the tunes of life!

Afterthought: In Australia, today is ‘Fathers’ Day’. Are there Traditions relating to fatherhood, or parenting in general? What about observing God’s parenting of us all?

Brian

MK 6: 30-34 & 53-56 

Marginally Mark…Pentecost +9…Revised 2018 

There are at least three thrusts in today’s passage. All of them Gospel to take on board. Personally, in our Christian community, &, in the wider community in which we’re embedded.

The first thrust I see is that we all need time apart. Not just for personal leisure or respite; for God. We need to let God make ‘God-Space’ in us for God-self & for ourselves. And, we are called to help others let God make God-Space in themselves, too. God-Space is space in which God can centre in us, & we can centre on God & in God. At the opposite end of the scale, workaholism isn’t a saintly quality anymore than it’s a gift of the Spirit! 

Secondly, there will be times, as Jesus & His disciples find in today’s passage, when genuine urgency needs to usurp even our God-Space. Genuine urgency takes priority, at least temporarily, over even our personal need for God-Space; as well as & any other needs we’re experiencing. How are we to discern when urgent really means urgent? Not only for us, but for that other person too?

Thirdly, the ‘hinge’ that opens our God-Space up to human need is that compassion Jesus shows when He ‘switches off’ His own needs, including His personal need for God-Space. Yes, He does have that need! Or He wouldn’t be fully human, would He? If meeting the urgent & pressing needs of others takes precedence even in Jesus’ eyes, here is an object lesson for us. A lesson in avoiding the old accusation of ‘being so heavenly-minded we’re no earthly use’! 

I can’t remember the source of this old story from long ago that seems appropriate here, but it runs like this: ‘One day God decides He wants to know what people all over the world think of Him. So God says to everyone,  “I know you call me by & worship me by many different names, but I want you each to tell me how you think of me in just one word!” One says, ‘Light’, another ‘Warmth’ & so on…’Power, Peace, Law, Joy, Judgment, Wisdom…’ The one who says Light feels a brightness, Peace feels peaceful, Judgment feels judgmental. . Until at last someone says ‘Compassion’, & God begins to weep! 

If people were to use just one word to describe us, what might that word be? It’s a question worth taking our time in discerning. Would it be ‘Compassion’? How much of God’s own 'wholeness' are people receiving at our compassionate, ministering hands? How much are we ourselves ministered to by the hands of others? 'Hands' being those of the Body of the Christ who has no hands but ours. Or, are we so busy responding to demands we have no hands to spare for the real need, wherever it lies? If so, is that God we can still hear weeping? For another reason this time?

Brian

MK 6: 14-29 

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 8…Revised 2018  

The Baptiser’s ministry in life & in death is to point to Jesus. John is the hinge between the older & newer covenants. But from the very beginning (JN 1) every- thing hinges on Jesus who has now indeed, ‘Come’. Wisdom suggests preaching today’s Gospel in the light of fuller references to JB. His “Are you the One who is to come, or should we be looking out for another?” [LK 7: 19] is a good starting point. Jesus’ comment on this: “ Among those born…none is greater than John, yet the lesser in God’s Kingdom is greater than he.” [LK 7: 28] needs exploration, too.

What are our expectations of Jesus’ today when we’re locked up in, or by, some situation or another? When we’re feeling let down, does grasping we’re members of God’s Kingdom, under God’s Rule, not Herod’s or anyone else’s, help stabilise faith?

In what sense has Jesus ‘come;’ for us? Are we experiencing the ‘Kingdom of Now’? 

What does Jesus mean when He says JB is the greatest of human beings, yet that one lesser in the Kingdom is greater than John? ’Tis a puzzlement! One explanation that may hold up is that Jesus means John, fulfilling his role as Fore-runner, represents time past; the era before Jesus has inaugurated time present, the Kingdom of Now in His own Person. So, those who accept Jesus among them as God in Now Time are greater than JB. John remains Prophetic of the New Era Jesus ushers in, but hasn’t in himself seemingly become part of it. (Being of Celtic background, though, I find it hard to draw such a line between the Kingdom in heaven & on earth as this would mean attributing to Jesus.)

John, great Prophet that he is, can help us focus on our own calling to be ‘small p’ prophets. Let’s not leave John, questioning, & seemingly, disillusioned, without exploring the fact that faith questionings & struggles come with the territory for both ‘p’ & ‘P’ prophets. Do we discern the questionings, in people’s hearts, if not out loud? Might they, too, be ‘small p’prophetic in some way to advance God’s Rule?

Journeying in faith, living in the Kingdom of Now means accepting that in Jesus, God is always doing, & always will be doing things God’s own way; not John’s, not even yours, or mine. Hopefully, John discerns this before being put to death. Though we can’t know the rest of his spiritual journey, we are responsible for monitoring our own. Not least our call to have faith in the One Who has come. We have no need to look for ‘someone else’ when we discern God doing things in God’s loving way. 

Both John & Jesus begin ministering with a message of, “Repent...", but only LK [3: 10+] goes on to tell us John's message has a strong social concern, as of course does Jesus’. Many ‘out there’ are looking to see if God-in-Jesus has come in us today. May they recognise Jesus as ‘that One who has come’, by His Spirit in us! 

Brian

Mark 6 : 1-13

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 7…Revised 2018 

When Jesus stills that storm ‘a couple of weeks ago’, the disciples ask that Question, “Who is this?” Today, questions from the synagogue where He’s teaching, in His home territory, come thick & fast: “Where’s he getting all this..? What’s this wisdom that’s been given to him? What about these powerful deeds happening? Isn’t this (just) the carpenter? Isn’t he (just) Mary’s son? James’ & Joses’ & Judas’ & Simon’s brother? Aren’t his sisters (we aren’t bothering to name - they’re only women) - still living among us?” 

Such is their lack of faith in Him that little happens in His home community today, when it could have been so much! How much are our own communities missing out on, when so little is happening when it could be so much?

Is this recognisable as the story of our denomination, congregation, Home Group, etc.? Are we allowing YHWH God, in Jesus, & by His Spirit, the vote of confidence God needs if we’re to see what the power of healing love can do when God is ‘let loose’ in our midst; questions or no questions?

One question we need to ask ourselves is whether we’re so busy giving answers to questions no-one’s asking that we’re not dealing with real questions lying long un-answered. Another we might explore is whether many people are asking questions about God / Jesus ‘ Holy Spirit at all today? If they’re not, why is that?

God in Christ is a vulnerable God, most obviously so in the person of Jesus. The Son of God so vulnerable in Himself & to others vulnerable one way or another. Making Himself vulnerable, too, in those God sends out in His Name. Do we need to develop some ‘strategy’ to face up to this lack of confidence not only in God, & in Jesus, but in us? Does that need to start, maybe paradoxically, with building self-confidence through an ‘intake’ from God-self of that humility we see & experience in Jesus the Christ. He Who is everyone’s brother & ‘sister’ & wants us all to become brothers & sisters to Himself, & through Him, to each other. 

MK often seems to give us no more than the bare bones of situations he reports on, cf. for instance LK’s elongated account of today’s incident. How about we imagine the questions the Twelve who are sent out may be asking as they go? Or, what are the questions asked of them when they knock at this door or that? What stories do they share on the way back to Jesus, & when they report to Him? What questions are they likely to come back asking themselves, each other, or Him? Now, better still, what questions do we need to be asking, what stories do we need to be sharing, to find the answers, the God, we need today? 

Brian