MARK 5: 21-43

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 6…Revised 2018 

Anyone come crying to us & appealing, even unspokenly, for help in some way lately? When some life & death issue faces them & / or someone close to them? Anyone touched ‘the hem of our coat’ lately, maybe in some symbolic way, desperately wanting our help to be set free from something? Whom did we see when we looked around to see who’d done such a thing? Looking back just a few verses, has anyone we know who is bound by somebody, or has something evil oppressing them, or making them ‘untouchable’ like Legion, appealed to us in some way or other? Or have we ourselves been doing any of these same things, if we could only admit to it?

If today’s ‘helping’ of Gospel is to come alive for us, as Jesus brings each of its characters alive in one way or another, we need to meet these same characters not in the streets of old, but in & around the streets where we live & worship! Why preach about (Legion), Jairus, his young daughter, or the woman who’s bleeding to death, if not physically, at least in quality of life, if they’re not names & faces around us? Are we honest enough to be able to recognise ourselves as among those needing to lower any barriers we’ve placed between us & our reaching out for help? Crying aloud one way or another to find a new name & face & place in God’s eyes & in people’s eyes?

Finding oneself involves knowing who we are. Coming to terms with whom we are, whom we’re called to be. Today, Jairus is given a name but his daughter isn’t; neither is the woman with her issue of blood. We all deserve a name & a face, so let’s call Jairus’ young daughter ‘Deborah’, & the older woman, 'Judith'. All three face life predicaments for themselves or for another. Can I remind us, too, how immediately before today’s ‘helping’ of Scripture Legion has named himself to indicate the possessed life he leads. How he has to exist as an untouchable out there among the dead. I wonder, now that he’s healed, & ‘in his right mind’ does he resume his real name? What is our real name in God’s eyes? Have we found it yet?

Today’s little glimpses of Jesus' compassion for the troubled & excluded take us to the heart of Gospel. Could ‘Good News’ be another way of putting what it means for us to have a name & a face in God’s eyes & in God’s Kingdom? And know that name here & now? On earth as it is in Heaven? How can we preach to today’s Legions & Jairuses, Deborah’s & Judith’s, & all the other names we go by, or are known to others by, so we can all be open to the possibilities of new life in God? In Christ; by His Spirit?

Brian

MARK 4: 35-41

Marginally Mark…Pentecost+5…Revised 2018 

Has our story grown from a simple experience of a storm on the Lake becoming something bigger over time, as some think?  Lots of anxieties & fears become bigger over time, don’t they? Two themes worth pondering & developing may be the conflict between fear & faith; &, the Big Question, ‘Who is this…?’ 

A useful starting point for the fear-faith option might be to move on from any theories we have about fear to the realities we, or someone else, are experiencing. (It seems fair to me to include ‘anxiety’ with fear in what follows; even if anxiety can’t be pinpointed so readily.) Fear is a great destroyer of lives, whether we’re struggling in its waters, or trying to avoid them in any boats we may be floating in or clinging to

This is the place to reinforce JN’s great words about fear: ‘There is no fear in love… perfect love casts out fear…’ [1 JN 4: 18] Two things occur to me: 1) There’s no love more perfect than God-in-Christ’s love for us. 2) The word JN uses here (usually translated ‘perfect’) comes from the same word Jesus uses on the cross when He says, “I’ve done it!”, or, “I’ve brought this off!” (My preferred translations!) Jesus’ love for His disciples triumphs over anxiety & fear out on that lake. How can we encourage such partnering in love with the One who can still say, “I’ve done it…I’ve brought this off!” in scary situations in which we find ourselves? The ‘I’ve done it!’ kind of love still wins out today!

Is there a more important question for today’s Church than the disciples’ “Who is this….?”

Confusion & division at all levels of life & society, at home & abroad, are proliferating anxieties & fears that threaten to sink our various ‘boats’. Are we promoting such an answer to our Big Question, that whatever else Jesus may be to us, He remains above all Son of God & Saviour? Not in theory, but in practice; from experience?

Preaching ‘sound doctrine’ won’t bring the responses we need, God needs. Not if we don’t experience Jesus today as the disciples out on that lake do. Have they got as far as thinking Jesus may be more than ‘a great Prophet’ till they’re thrown together in this situation out on the lake? We hear the same ‘Who is this?’ question from those watching Jesus enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday; a challenging situation rather than the ‘kids’ day out’ we sometimes appear to turn it into! It’s time for us to face & ‘own’ any under-currents of fear in our own struggling to recognise ‘Who this is’ in challenging situations now! What encouragement can our preaching give to those faced right now with boats seemingly sinking under them?

Where do our personal ‘boat in a storm’ stories go on from here? Where, to Whom, does our personal answer to the “Who is this?’ question lead us?

Brian

MARK 4:26-34

Marginally Mark…Pentecost + 4…Revised 2018  

Jesus offers us two ‘mini-parables’ for understanding how God’s Rule operates. In the first case, the grain grows for the benefit of those who will harvest & eat it. (Including those disciples whose picking & eating on a sabbath has recently led to Jesus being rebuked by the powers that be!) In the second case, the mustard seed is for the benefit of ‘the birds of heaven’ to find shade in its grown height. (Jesus exaggerates to make His point!) So, what can we learn about that Rule from these two word-pictures?

One feature of God’s Rule is that whatever ‘Kingdom seed’ God sows applies beyond the benefit of those who ‘farm’ it. God’s Rule exists for the benefit of all; whether we simply stumble across it, benefit from it in any way. Shelter under it, even. God rules in many & various ways. Always for the benefit of His ‘Kingdom’ & us! Jesus, as ever the Great Teacher, teaches from what’s around, what’s familiar, what’s part of His listeners' experience. He’s well-steeped in the writings of the Great Prophets before Him; as it would repay us to be. (The seed for the mustard seed parable comes from Ezek 17.) How well do we discern the connections in Scripture? How well do we make these connections in our preaching to today’s situations in which we find our own new ‘scriptures’? 

When it comes to the Kingdom / Rule of God, Jesus isn’t on about lines on any map other than the maps of our hearts. Nothing less than the Dynamic of God's Rule. A Dynamic that can never be confined within any churches or belief structures - of any faith. In the first case, the seeds of grain grow mysteriously. Sometimes those of us within the confines of our churches spend too much time & effort on how we are going to make the God-seed grow. For all our faith & good intentions, God-seed doesn't grow that way. God moves in a mysterious way, rules in a mysterious way, to grow it on. In our lives. Even outside our structures. Out there in the margins where God rules even when we don't appear to encourage that ‘inside’. 

The mustard seed parable tells us we, too, can grow to be giants when God's Rule takes over & takes root in us. I don’t remember where I came across this, but: When a new shop opens in town a customer comes in & asks, “What do you sell?” “Anything your heart desires” says the person behind the counter. “Then I’ll have some Peace on earth, some goodness, some kindness, lots of happiness…” “Just a minute”, says the sales-person; “I forgot to tell you: we don’t sell fruits, we only sell seeds!”

PS: Meister Eckhart says somewhere: ‘Pear seed grows into pear trees, nut seed grows into nut trees, & God seed grows into God!’  How does that apply to us, now?

Brian

MARK 3: 20-35

Marginally Mark…Pentecost +3…Revised 2018

MK reports Jesus focussing on the issue of division. Jesus doesn’t simply shut His eyes to it & hope it will go away when His accusers go away. Instead, He tackles it & those involved head on in what MK calls ‘parables’. Jesus ‘comes out swinging’!

First, His family come & accuse Him of being ‘beside Himself’; out of His mind! They want to take possession of Him! Possessed by your family?! Can we think of  people being ‘possessed’ by their families today? Ending up in division? Hot on their heels, Jerusalem based scholars (scribes) come & accuse Him of being taken over by ‘Beelzeboul’. The name probably suggesting Jesus is possessed by one of the idol gods on offer among surrounding peoples. At very least, a force inimicable to God! What irony! Nonsense like this needs to be called out, still, today! 

Jesus addresses both complaints & complainants together; though one, the family, is an ‘insider’ attack & the other very much an outsider one. He is angry because divisiveness is the root cause of much evil in a world God created & described as ‘good’. Is there any justification for, excuse for, most of the divisions in our world today? (Never mind about ‘back then’!)

Perhaps hardest for us to follow is Jesus’ reference to a divided Source of Evil, except for the fact that it’s clearly an attack ridiculing the accusations His religious enemies make. Is the relevance of this incident to today’s world that evil, in one form or another, is taking over so widely & causing so many divisions?  How many ways can we name? How many are we ourselves caught up in, or affected by, willing, or not? Jesus refutes the ridiculousness of the accusations against Him by making equally ridiculous fun of them! Are we brave enough to do that?

Jesus’ family doesn’t come to accept Him as Whom He really is, till it’s too late to play any part in frustrating the coming course of events which will bring Him undone humanly speaking. Does our family accept us? Are we accepting of others in our family circle - even one drawn large? His enemies, of course, remain enemies to the end; never accepting He’s the long promised One Who Is To Come. Pharisees aligning themselves with Herodians, their natural enemies, is in itself a sign of how desperate divisiveness can be. Beware when we see politicians we’ve elected, or had foisted upon us, playing dividing games; right, left, & centre. Don’t let’s join in!

Divisiveness, from within or without, brings God’s plans to grief in either the short term, the long term, or both! God is a putting together, a bringing together, God. A ‘pulling together’¹ God. Perhaps a key to today’s preaching needs to be ‘pulling ourselves together’ to become ‘pulling together’ people. Mind you, being divisive as Jesus says He is, may be a necessary temporary step in a process of bringing about pulling together.

                                                      

¹ Richard Leonard, SJ., in a recent on-line article on the Trinity