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