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