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