MK 11: 1-11 (or to 17*) 

Marginally Mark…Liturgy of the Palms…Revised 2018

When is a procession not a procession? When it doesn’t go anywhere! Did any of those who took part in, or just watched the Jesus procession wonder, ‘Is Jesus going anywhere?’ We may say, “We did at least go round the church aisles, or the grounds, singing, ‘Ride on, ride on…’” But did we get anywhere? Faith-wise? How can Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem today be a stage on our own faith journey as we mark Holy Week liturgically? Jesus will soon lead another procession; this time to His Cross! In our faith journey, let’s never settle for going round in circles! If we choose to go nowhere, resurrection will remain out of reach, too. 

We’re used to hearing Jesus is fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy [9:9] of a king entering town on a donkey. Brendan Byrne¹, also points out David assures Solomon’s succession as king by having him ride his (David’s) royal beast [I Kings 1:32+]. Now Jesus, too, rides into the city on someone else’s mule to claim His crown as a Son of David; though His crown will be of thorns! This is all very biblically connected, joining all the dots, as well as a clearly political statement regarding what’s going on here. Of course our children are welcome in the Palm Sunday procession, but the occasion is really a very adult one!

Robert Alter ² on Ps 118:25-26 (yet another O.T. connection) translates ‘Hosanna’ as ‘rescue’, which strikes me as a little stronger than the traditional ‘save’. Who, or what, do we need rescuing from today? Do we trust YHWH God to play His part in that? Or are we too busy trying to rescue ourselves, one way or another? 

MK has Jesus leave the Temple as it’s late, return to Bethany for the night, then come back the next day to cleanse it. What’s important is not really when Jesus cleanses the Temple but that He does! Jesus is making a royal visitation, a head-on challenge to the corrupted religio -political power the Temple represents. This, a last straw on top of His raising of Lazarus, precipitates his Passion. When is it God's time for us to do any religious or political challenging, cleansing, etc. we need to do? Waiting for God's time must not become an excuse for doing nothing in the mean-time.

If ‘we are the Body of Christ’ we claim to be eucharist by eucharist, it is through us Jesus will challenge today’s systems sacred or secular when that’s called for. Today’s procession is a challenge to move on & out & keep on moving on & out against people & systems that feed off the poor & the vulnerable - the very ones for whom God has a special place in His heart!

The fig tree speaks to us today of our God-given responsibility to bear fruit, in season & out of season, for God & each other; not least for God’s ‘little ones’. Think, also, of the Palm Cross we never seem to know what to do with, as representing a costly ticket to walk with Jesus on His way to Golgotha, rather than a free ticket to ride on a trip to nowhere.

• If not reading to v.17, at least draw attention to the cleansing of the Temple as sealing Jesus’ death warrant. ¹ A Costly freedom, Liturgical, Collegeville, 2008, p.176   ²  The Book of Psalms, Norton, NY, 2007, ad loc.

MK 8: 31-38 (or to 9:1) 

Marginally Mark…Lent 2…Revised 2018 

(For the Transfiguration see MK 9:2-9)

To extend the reading to take in 9:1 as some versions do may be useful. Is what Jesus says there a threat or a promise in the light of what comes before?

Being ‘Son of Humanity’ may be a sin-cure for us, but it’s no sinecure for Jesus; or us, if we throw in our lot with Him! Eugene Peterson¹ comments: ‘…with the death announcement… Jesus heads straight for Jerusalem… The direction changes, the pace changes, the mood changes.’ Letting God into our lives as far as Jesus does, letting God rule in our lives, has consequences. Does the ‘direction’ of our congregation need to change? Do we need to change our ‘pace’? How’s the ‘mood’ of our flock? Are there implications for our personal ‘direction’, pace, & ‘mood’?

‘Testing’, our Lenten theme, doesn’t stop with Jesus passing His testing out in the wilderness. (‘Testing’ is more positive than ‘being tempted’!) Now it’s our turn. God, & God’s Rule as Jesus exhibits it, is a test to discern if we too need a change of direction, a change of pace, or a change of mood. Do we discern some dimension missing from our lives? A Jesus dimension? As we journey through Lent let’s not wallow in being sinners, but celebrate being forgiven ones! 

Jesus cuts to the chase with Peter: he's not seeing things God's way. Been there? Done that? Still going there, doing that? Seeing things God's way doesn't come through committees, structures, & the like, even sermons! Is there a touch of Peter - at this stage of his discipleship, at least - in our own stories? Who knows best - God, or you & I? When we pray, are we often praying for a relationship with God, or from within a right relationship with God?

If I'd been a disciple when Jesus says what He says in 31-38, would I have continued with Him? I doubt it. Would any of us? So why do I follow Him now? Is it at least partly because no-one’s going to nail me, literally, to a cross these days? Because there’s no such risk any more? (As there is, still, for some disciples in some places!) If being a disciple of Jesus still meant a one-way ticket to death row, why not settle for the + on top of a Hot Cross Bun as many do? 

I may not be ashamed of Jesus, but am I embarrassed by Him & what He stands for? Does the latter play as big a role in our failure to share Him with others as being ashamed would? Jesus can turn any & all such negative possibilities into positives. Starting with His confidence (v.31) in being raised, & in 9:1 where God rules, OK! In us, with Jesus!

¹ Christ Plays in Ten Thousand places, H & S, London, 2005 p. 187

MK 1: 9-15 

Marginally Mark…The First Sunday in Lent…Revised 2018

Jesus has been out in the margins, unknown, for 30 years or thereabouts. Now He comes to the Baptiser - himself marginalised, as genuine prophets usually are. Immediately - a very Mark-like emphasis - Jesus finds himself emerging into the Divine Limelight. Throughout His ministry, not seeking the limelight is always an issue with Jesus, as MK reports it. Jesus doesn't ever strut the stage as would-be Messiahs do. (How many of them can we list? Selective Bible-bashers, Tele- ‘evangelists’, presidents, …?) In Jesus’ day, only a few faithful, discerning, souls recognise Him as the human face of God. Sometimes, some of them, even, waver. Faith in Jesus the Christ has never been a ‘numbers game’.

There’s a Godly vigour bordering on the violent out there. Steering us away from any idea of Jesus as ‘gentle, meek, or mild’; a later travesty which all too easily flows on into being a travesty of YHWH God. Skies open, God’s Spirit descends, a Voice from heaven speaks, followed immediately - very Marcan - by the Spirit literally driving Jesus out further into the wilderness to be tested. Is this testing so much by Satan, however we understand that term,  so much as by Jesus testing Himself as to His fitness for what YHWH God is calling Him to be & to do? I vote for the latter!

In Jesus’ Baptism & His testing that follows (MK doesn’t go into details as others do) Jesus proves His heart is directed completely towards God & the task in hand. In the Theophany, YHWH God, Source of all Being, calls & endorses Jesus in the Role. In His Testing, Jesus takes up that challenge of being the true Messiah. He can, He will, live out that connected-ness with that Source of all Being, not least our own. Providing we, like Jesus make & keep the connection! 

I suggest choosing ‘testing’ for Jesus’ experience in the wilderness, over ‘being tempted’ will help us celebrate a more positive Lent. Giving a positive emphasis, rather than a negative one. 

Come back with me to those heavenly Boom! Boom! Boom! Booms! Jesus experiences, & some others witness, & maybe we will hear God attracting our attention & equipping us for ministry by asking questions like:

(1) Whether or not we were baptised as hapless infants, or adults, have we grown into that baptism? Let it really happen to us? 

(2) Do we hear, do we recognise, God calling you & me ‘His beloved son or daughter’ now? 

(3)Are we facing up to any ‘satan' in ourself, including our own demons & choosing instead God & God’s way in life? 

(4) Is God ruling in me, now? God’s Kingdom coming in power & glory in me, now? As it does in Jesus back then?

A positive answer to all these - our own personal testing, in today’s wildernesses - may give us a more positive Lent than many we’ve experienced before!

MK 9: 2-9 

Marginally Mark…The Transfiguration (Last S after Epiphany)… Revised 2018  

[For Epiphany 6 see MK 1: 40-45]

Ched Myers speaks of what happens on the mountain top as 'a kind of salvation-history summit conference’ ¹.  An interesting way of looking at things. Worth exploring for better spiritual outcomes than many of the conferences we have to attend? Discussing an icon of the Transfiguration, + Rowan Williams talks of the disciples as ‘sprawling in disorder’ ². There’s a God-energy in there for the disciples to struggle with. Perhaps, even, a renewing of energy for those past giants of Faith - Moses & Elijah? As there is in Jesus Himself as He’s transfigured up there. God, the Source of our being, is Energy itself, as well as Being itself.

Why isn’t Andrew up there? Busy at work fishing, or just not invited? How do we handle being left out of, or missing situations? Not seeing Jesus glow with light when others do?  

What does it mean that Moses represents the Law? What does it mean that Elijah represents the Prophets? What does it mean that in LK's account - 9:31- he adds that Moses & Elijah are talking with Jesus about His 'exodus' which is to happen in Jerusalem? Jesus' Exodus will be to resurrected life in a Promised Land embracing, but not limited to, this world. It is God's wisdom that M & E both die in unusual circumstances; but for God's Son to die on a cross surely defies belief!

Jesus is the new & greater M & E in terms of human time, though, in His own Person, God from before time as we know it, begins. Jesus doesn’t simply ‘represent’ God; Jesus is the God of Now come among us in human form! M & E are forever important, but no longer central, figures in our human spiritual journey. What’s really important now is our being transfigured in our service of God. Let God shine through! 

The disciples are, as often, puzzled at what's going on. Is Peter's wanting to build shelters a 'type', a foreshadowing, of the way we construct churchy comfort zones by trying to pin God down? Which is exactly what Jesus eschews (I can't find a better word than that old one) on the mountain top. If there's a case for anyone to stay up there, it's Jesus! But he has an Exodus to accomplish in Jerusalem. So down He comes. To explain to the disciples as best He can what this is all about; &, reading on a little further, to run slap bang into a hoard of people begging to be brought in from their margins.

Coming down the mountain, Jesus tells the disciples (as often in MK) to keep to themselves what they've seen, 'until the Son of Man (etc.) should rise from the dead'. Perhaps we’ve become too secretive about this Jesus business? Time to head up our mountain, then come resolutely down transfigured by God & for God? 

¹  Binding the Strong Man, Orbis, NY, U.S.A.,’97, p. 250  ² The Dwelling of the Light, John Garratt, Mulgrave, Australia, 2003, p. 3

MK 1: 40-45 

Marginally Mark…Epiphany 6… Revised 2018

 (for The Transfiguration see MK 9:2-9)

Reuven - let’s give him a name & a face - is more likely, we believe today, to be suffering from psoriasis or similar. Enough, though, to push him beyond the margins of society. It makes no difference to Reuven whether he has leprosy or psoriasis; under the law he's one of the living dead! In even approaching Jesus, Reuven puts himself still further out, & pulls Jesus out there with him! Jesus is no stranger to our margins! Out there in a sense Himself, now, through being approached by Reuven, He is nevertheless filled with compassion for him & heals him.  Note, though, that Reuven’s ‘If…’ is a statement of faith. Are the big ‘Ifs’ in our lives statements of faith, or hints of doubt about God & what God is capable of? 

How do we feel about ‘outsiders’ whoever they are? Compassionate enough to do what we can for them? On the spot? Or are we among those who want to keep them at bay? Shut them out behind bigger & better walls, turn back their boats, & the like?

That Jesus' response is to snort with anger rather than compassion was probably the earlier - harder - textual reading. Jesus' anger or indignation is His on the spot reaction to the state Reuven’s in. No-one should be consigned to live like that! Not Reuven, not any human being should have exclusion imposed upon affliction! Jesus’ anger then expresses itself in compassion. I don't have any problem with a truly & fully human Jesus losing his cool in compassion. If He can do it, so can I! If we're truly Jesus' friends, maybe we ought to be madder about a lot of things happening to people ‘out there’. If  healing is to take place for some people, that may mean getting our reputations as well as our hands dirtied as happens in Jesus’ case here. 

In telling of Jesus sending Reuven off healed, MK uses the same expression as he does of Jesus being 'thrown out' into the wilderness for His testing ([1:12]. Are we, as today’s disciples driven - in the Biblical sense used here of that word - to either go out into some wilderness, or maybe to come in from one? Jesus knows what a test Reuven’s return into society's going to be for him. As He was tested & then had to return back into society to minister among us.

I’m tempted to hang more loosely today than in a previous existence from a church become too institutionalised; too much organisation, too little organism. Jesus' instruction to Reuven to comply with the Levitical law, though, warns me not to undo the tie that binds me to the behemoth too completely! Perhaps the issue is whether that tie brings freedom as it will do in Reuben's case, or simply binds us still tighter to a law that brings more bondage than the freedom Christ brings?  Ironically, in a sense we end, here, with Reuven & Jesus swapping places in so far s who’s in & who’s out!

MK captures Reuben's sheer excitement at his cleansing. Are we living out, celebrating, telling about the healing freedom of Christ, who resolves all our ‘Big Ifs’? Or is spiritual psoriasis binding us instead of freeing us?

MK 1: 29-39 

Marginally Mark…5th S. after the Epiphany…Revised 2018 

MK’s use of one of his favourite words, ‘immediately’ in vv. 29 & 30 is a timely reminder of the immediacy of Gospel. God’s time is always Now. Now is as important as any other dimension when we study Scripture, &, better still, live it out. 

Other preaching possibilities I see here are those of healing, the need for time apart for quiet & prayer, & today’s ‘demons’. Jesus takes them all in His stride. Can we make ourselves available anywhere near the Jesus scale without ‘time-out’ for spiritual ‘exercises’? Work-aholism isn't one of the gifts of the Spirit! How's the work-load, what are the work practices, of those who minister in our congregation, small or larger scale? Including ourself?

'How does healing work?' Some explanations leave me craving a holiness I know I don't have. Others make me tear out the little hair I have left! At this stage of my journey, the closest I can get to how it 'works' is to believe that healing takes place when God's Love, God’s Healing Energy, is brought to bear by any means to make us more whole. Whole as God is Whole. It might be the touch of a hand (as here), well targeted medicine or surgery, or a host of other ways. I’m one of those who believe the time Jesus was physically present among us on earth is a dimension unique in itself - see para 1 above. I believe, too, God's energy brought to bear with love & integrity still heals. There is no set formula; it’s always an act of grace. No-one need feel bad or guilty when someone we pray for isn’t healed, or even dies. We haven't failed if we've done what we could do. Nor has God failed them or us! Healing takes love, integrity, effort, grace, & a lot of persistence! We mortals may even have to die, physically, to be healed or have our healing, our wholeness, completed . 

Some of the too-easy answers can ‘stitch people up’ whereas God raises us up - one way or another, provided we hone our spiritual insight & co-operate. Healing, wholeness isn't a commodity, any more than Jesus allows himself to become a commodity when He opts out of what people are chasing Him for in vv. 36-38. A person on whose behalf God gives us the grace to apply the healing energy of love in any form may still die; but they will die in a state of grace because real healing has taken place, & have become whole in a new & living way.

The many kinds of 'demons' people ‘house’ today are every bit as destructive as the kind 1st C. people believed in & fell victim to. Remember, God’s time is always Now. How can we preach & minister, how can our congregation operate in healing ways? Ways that will encourage those 'bound' today to face their ‘demons’, name them, & accept the Good News that by grace Jesus can 'cast them out' like the ones of old? 

God isn’t an Observer of our lives. God is a participant, through the Spirit of Jesus, unless we shut the ‘Holy Three’ out. Doing which leaves us out in the cold, too! ‘Hell’ can perhaps as often be experienced as cold rather than hot! 

MK 1: 21-28 

Marginally Mark…Epiphany 4…Revised 2018 

Though often at odds with the 'official' church of His day - maybe to be true to God we will all need to be in that situation from time to time - Jesus is remarkably faithful in His grass roots worship. Part & parcel of His being of the earth, earthy, in church, & out in the margins of life. 

Here Jesus is teaching within the framework of His church when confronted by a person in the 'too hard' basket. Let’s not consign him there; instead, let’s call him ‘Ben’ (everyone deserves a name no matter which basket anyone puts them in!). The irony in this incident is that Ben - evil spirit, or not - discerns the God-ness of Jesus. Better than officialdom does!

For some reason I visualise a ‘selfie’ of Ben taken with Jesus. Not the usual ‘look at me’, often narcissistic, selfie! This time, one where Ben is pleading with Jesus, “I need help!” 

Perhaps some of the selfies we take of ourselves with another person are also pleas for help in their own way? 

We don’t have to understand Ben as possessed by an unclean spirit. We don’t need to think in 1st C. terms about sicknesses any more than we need to belong to the Flat Earth Society! Over-simplistic ‘brands’ of Christianity can promote not only misunderstandings, but distortions of faith, too, by clinging to the un-clingable. As Ben confronts Jesus here, in turn, Jesus, a 1st C. person with regard to His humanity,  confronts the darkness, the evil He sees in Ben. Cares enough about Ben to break out of religious straight-jackets others want to put on Him even when compassionate action is what’s really needed. Jesus is way out of line in the eyes of those who think they’re His religious superiors! (Joke!) Does it ever become time for us to step out of line as Jesus does to meet someone’s need? 

Are we prepared to confront evil any way we’re able to, in whatever shape it takes, on behalf of today’s Bens; those in its grip today? Or are we too afraid of someone or some-thing to step out of line? Jesus frees Ben from that dark side of himself - whatever it’s name, & whatever causes it -  that’s been holding him captive. Frees him to be that child of God we’re all born to be. Is something, anyone, holding us back? 

One lesson from Ben’s story is that becoming that child of God we’re born to be depends on recognising Jesus as the One who best expresses what it means to be like God, the Source of our Being. Ben’s calling Jesus ‘God’s Holy One’ acknowledges His God-Full-ness. Maybe he’s not so sure about those who run the church of his day! 

What kind of word is out in the wider world today about us & our Christian community? Can those out in the margins, as well as those closer in, recognise us as being like Jesus? And move on to recognise Jesus as being more ‘full of God’ than anyone before Him or since has ever been? If they can, knowledge of God & practising God-like-ness will spread as it does after our Ben incident.