The Two Become One Flesh

"'A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.  Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

A proud father moment!

Divorce: Jesus And Religion

The Roman Catholic Church starts its three week synod on the family today, which is expected to look at, among other things, the way their church treats remarried divorcees.

Possibly coincidentally, today's Gospel reading in CofE churches was the divorce passage from Mark's Gospel:

Then some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?”  They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.”  But Jesus said to them, “He wrote this commandment for you because of your hard hearts.  But from the beginning of creation he made them male and female.  For this reason a man will leave his father and mother, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh.  Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
In the house once again, the disciples asked him about this. So he told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

It looks such a simple passage, yet beneath the surface so much is going on.

The story represents three different viewpoints; the three key concepts have very different meanings today from 2,000 years ago; few people today are familiar enough with the Old Testament to get the underlying issue; and religious institutions persistently reverse the approach taken by Jesus.

I had a stab at this passage a few months ago, Are Wives Like Cars, so I'll try to avoid repeating too much from that, and start with the underlying issue. Jesus tried to point the Pharisees back to this when he asked what Moses had commanded, but they miss the point ... as do we, probably. I'll quote the full passage from Deuteronomy, rather than the Pharisees' gloss on it:

If a man marries a woman and she does not please him because he has found something offensive in her, then he may draw up a divorce document, give it to her, and evict her from his house. When she has left him she may go and become someone else’s wife. If the second husband rejects her and then divorces her, gives her the papers, and evicts her from his house, or if the second husband who married her dies, her first husband who divorced her is not permitted to remarry her after she has become ritually impure, for that is offensive to the Lord.

Turn the first sentence around and the point becomes more obvious: before a man can throw his wife out of his house he must give her a certificate saying she is free to remarry. At that time a lone woman, by and large, had no access to any means of making a living other than begging or prostitution. So a wife thrown out by her husband would be destitute. This law is about compassion in the face of hard-heartedness: the woman needed to have a husband in those days, so if her first husband throws her out she must be allowed to become someone else's wife; even if she ends up a low-status second or third wife that is still better than destitution.

Note also the point that once she has remarried, the first marriage is over: she may not go back to her first husband. So religious people who suggest that even after a second marriage is completed the first marriage is still the 'real' one are simply wrong, at least in God's eyes.

Marriage in those days was pretty much a contract of ownership: a wife belonged to her husband (see the tenth commandment). That's why a man could have multiple wives but a woman belonged to just one husband.

So the Pharisees see this passage as allowing a man to get rid of his wife, at least under certain circumstances. Their 'test' question is really about what those circumstances are, and what we now call 'churchmanship': where does Jesus lie on the liberal/conservative spectrum - the sort of thing that seems to matter so much to religious people. 'Liberals' reckoned that a husband could get rid of his wife for any reason he liked, such as overcooking his dinner, whereas 'conservatives' were more inclined to focus on the production of legitimate children, so the wife could only be put away for adultery or, probably, infertility. Either way treats women as 'things', as possessions, and Jesus is having none of it.

When the Pharisees don't get his point about certificates of divorce and compassion, he takes them back to first principles. Marriage was not designed to be about ownership, with the wife as a disposable possession, but about lifelong partnership: two people working together in the world God made. Divorce was allowed not to encourage hardness of heart, but to give a compassionate response to the fallenness of this world.

Mark appears to gloss what Jesus said later to his disciples - to make it more relevant in Rome - by talking about women divorcing men, which couldn't happen in Judaism (it still can't in Orthodox Judaism). But his basic point is clear: marriage is meant to be lifelong, and both parties have their part to play in making that work. Marriage is a lifelong contract and remarriage therefore breaks that contract: the essential meaning of 'adultery' in this context is 'contract-breaking'. Once the remarriage is complete, though, that first contract is over and a second lifelong contract takes its place. The remarriage is real and must be honoured.

So we come to religious institutions. Jesus is teaching about compassion and justice, religious people respond with judgement and exclusion. Church of England treatment of divorcees who want to remarry is pretty shabby, to be blunt; but the current Roman Catholic approach to remarried divorcees is simply unChristian. I hope over the next few weeks the Church of Rome's approach will become more humane; the CofE is already changing ... although ever so slowly.

Bottom line: to break up a marriage is wrong (but note that this may happen long before the actual divorce) but we live in a fallen world. When someone remarries after a divorce that new relationship is now a valid marriage and should be respected and supported by all ... especially by the couple's local church.

Mark Series In Order

Mark became Peter’s interpreter and wrote accurately all that he remembered, not, indeed, in order, of the things said and done by the Lord.

Papias of Hierapolis (60-130AD)

One problem with blogs is that their archives tend to be in reverse order: most recent first. For many purposes that is helpful, but for posts supporting a sermon series on Mark's Gospel it seems less so.

Actually Mark himself is said to have written his Gospel thematically, rather than in chronological order (which is why it is so daft when people try to create a timeline of Jesus' three-year ministry from the four Gospels). So this list aims simply to reflect the order sections are in that Gospel, trying to highlight themes in the same sequence as Mark.

I've included a post or three written before the sermon series started, where they covered relevant ground.

1. Mark After Trinity
The introduction to the sermon series.


2. Gospel Beginning
The opening: a title and a one-line summary.


3. Son Of God
Who says religion and politics don't mix? Certainly not Mark.


4. Good News Afresh
What does Jesus say the good news ('Gospel') is? More to the point what do his actions show about that good news?


5. Provoking A Reaction
Mark tells a story which is pacey, emotive, and where Jesus deliberately says and does things which demand a response. Some people were amazed, others horrified, but Jesus couldn't be ignored.


6. Awe & Wonder
Jesus the rabbi, the teacher, the good man ... but "Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"


7. Faith Power Action
The lack of punctuation in the title is deliberate. A healing sandwich, but who is actually doing the healing?


8. Reactions To Jesus
A follow-on to post 5 really. This series challenges us to read and hear Mark's Gospel with fresh eyes and ears, and to respond anew to the Jesus we meet.


9. Turning Toward Golgotha
The half-way point. The penny drops for Peter then is lost again. A change of direction and a mountain-top experience.


10. Turn & Step
What does it look like to turn to God through Jesus and step out in faith?


11. Are Wives Like Cars?
Divorce: Jesus tries to change the mindset; sadly the church hasn't listened.


12. Poverty, Service, Struggle
An upside-down Kingdom and a Church called to be Jesus' hands and feet and heart and voice in its local communities.


13. Bread, Wine & All-Age Worship
Friendship, enmity and reconciliation.


14. The Trap Closes
The trap closes and the 'victim' is caught. Jesus is close to defeat and death ... in God's upside-down kingdom he knows that is the road that leads to life.


15. Triumph Over Death
That's the way Jesus' death and resurrection is told today. Mark, though, seems more ambiguous. Maybe in mid-to-late 60's Rome it didn't really feel that way.


16. Not The End
Mark's Gospel doesn't really finish ... more precisely, the finish in our Bibles was clearly added much later. Mark leaves us a cliff-hanger: will they or won't they? It's an ongoing story and the final open-ended question still hangs there today.


17. Why?
Why did Mark write this Gospel account; why had Mark's companions in Rome (and beyond) suffered so much; and why do Jesus' followers still suffer today?

PS: I know that I have left the previous two posts half completed, waiting for a part two (actually there should be a part three to the 'Trinity' posts also - about mission and the Trinity - although I need to do more thinking about that). Hopefully I will do those soon, but I wanted to get this Mark resequence done quickly, while it might still be relevant.

Mark: Why?

I've been working quite intensively with Mark's Gospel over several months now, in detail and - especially - as a whole, and I'm left with the feeling that I never really knew it before. It is so much less a simple history or biography and so much more an open-ended account filled with pace and emotion, confusion, uncertainty and pain. So I wonder, why did Mark write it?

Something we may not realise about those days is that written records of people and events were seen as much less reliable than an oral history. A document is written by just one person, often with an axe to grind, whereas an oral record is owned and protected by the community. An oral record will typically be formed and shaped by eye-witnesses, then told and retold amongst people who have heard it before and will complain about changes and inaccuracies. So why would Mark write down what Jesus did?

In many ways I am still in mid-ponder on this, but my initial thoughts are that Mark had two reasons for doing so: because the communities which had safeguarded the oral record that far were being disrupted, and because the communities were being disrupted.

As I said above, an oral record is trusted because it is owned and protected by its community. During the early-to-mid sixties AD the community in Rome was heavily persecuted, its leaders executed, and its members scattered. Then the communities in Galilee and Judea got caught up in the Jewish rebellion from 66 AD. And in 68 and 69 AD, following Nero's suicide, the empire as a whole faced an ensuing civil war, including Antioch and Alexandria, two more centres of Christian community.

So the oral record was being damaged, at just the time that key eye witnesses were being killed (or just dying). Mark had been very close to Peter and Paul in Rome and knew their stories about Jesus well ... but there was no guarantee he would survive himself. So a written record is the lesser of two evils: at least there would still have been enough eye witnesses, and those who had heard the eye witness stories, to attest to the truthfulness of Mark's retelling.

But Mark's Gospel is about more than that.

From Paul's early letters it is clear that many in the early churches expected Jesus to return within their lifetimes - thirty-odd years had gone by since Jesus' resurrection, what was going on?

More important though would have been the terrible suffering the Christian community in Rome had gone through, that the communities in Galilee and Judea were going through, and that communities in Syria and Egypt would have been afraid would come to them soon. These were people living good lives as they followed Jesus together and awaited his return; why were they suffering?

I think that is the key question behind Mark's telling of the events of Jesus' ministry. One person's written record may be less reliable than a community's telling, but it is more useful for making a point.

Mark's Gospel account says it is the beginning of good news, not the end. It says it is about Jesus who is the Messiah, the Son of God, affirmed by God and by man. But this Jesus suffered and died, and tells his followers that they too will suffer and die. Following Jesus doesn't protect you from suffering and persecution, it makes it more likely!

Mark's account shows the disciples permanently confused, always a step or two behind, often afraid. Jesus, meanwhile, keeps talking about an upside down Kingdom where death is the path to life and humiliation is the path to glory - exactly the kind of things which had been happening in Rome.

Mark is telling his readers not to get discouraged, their experience is not a sign that God's plan has gone wrong, but a sign that it is progressing.

If the disciples were shown as confused and afraid, how much more was Peter the one who always seemed to get things wrong. Yet Mark's readers had known a Peter who was the strong leader of their church; Peter had denied Jesus once, now he had willingly given his life for him. If Peter can change like that then so can any of them.

Mark leaves his writing open-ended: will the women overcome their fear and confusion and tell their story? Will the disciples go back to Galilee, to meet Jesus in their daily lives and to continue to follow him there? Will the Christian community in Rome, and throughout the empire, be able to go back to their lives? Will they be able to find Jesus there, in the midst of devastation, and can they walk with him again?

"Why?" remains a live question today. Mark provides no simple answer, but points to a person; a person who leads us through an upside-down world toward a Kingdom of justice and peace. His question is: "Will you follow?".

Mark: Not The End

The 'end' of Mark's Gospel is odd, doubly so.

Firstly, the original ends very strangely and, secondly, later editors have stuffed on a couple of extra bits, to try to 'correct' the strange original.

The original ending says:

"Don't be alarmed," he said, "You are looking for Jesus the Nazerene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter. He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you."

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

What sort of ending is that? Who would end a story this way?

Obviously, Mark would. The reason is that this is not a simple story, or biography, or history. It's not anything where the reader or listener is a passive observer. This is a story which continues and where Mark's listeners were called to be part of that story, and where you and I are called to be part of the story too.

As Mark told us, way back at the start, this 'Gospel' is the beginning of the good news of Jesus, Messiah, Son of God. We are, or can be, part of the continuation of that good news.

Mark's readers knew that the women had overcome their fear, moved past their initial reluctance, and told the disciples. They knew because they already knew the story - Peter had been with them in Rome for several years before he was executed.

Mark's story ends with an implicit question - what will the women do - to which his readers knew the answer. But Mark is also asking the Christians in Rome a question - will they give up after the persecution they have been through or will they carry on, however confused, upset and afraid they are feeling? We know now that the church in Rome continued and grew; but now the question is passed on to us. What will we do with the good news of Jesus? Will we pass it on, or does it end with us?

The 21st-Century church in Britain has different problems, different confusions, different worries, but I think it is fair to say that things haven't gone the way we'd have expected or hoped in recent decades. If we're really honest, the church hasn't done a particularly good job over many years, certainly not in following the example we've seen Jesus set in Mark's Gospel.

Just as Jesus told the disciples, it's time to go back to basics, to return to Galilee to meet him there and start again. The disciples hadn't done particularly well, but they had endured and God could use them. Maybe we haven't done that well in following Jesus in confusing times either, but God can use us.

Where is your Galilee? What lies at the beginning of your journey of faith, and where is its heart? How can you rediscover that simple walk with Jesus, that early enthusiasm, that honest appreciation of the life that Jesus brings? And how will you pass that on?

This is not the end!

Mark: Triumph Over Death

The end is nigh! This is the final week of the CTM Parish's Mark sermon series, as we come to the end of Mark's Gospel. Of course, we all know how the story ends - it's pretty much summed up in the title above ... isn't it?

Except that Mark doesn't really tell it that way.

At the end of last week's instalment, the trap had closed - Jesus was on his own, betrayed, abandoned and captured. The religious authorities had taken him and planned to exact their revenge. The outlook was bleak.

They give Jesus a mockery of a trial, and are still having trouble making their case. So Jesus helps them out, agreeing that he is "the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One." A reminder that Jesus is no helpless victim in this process; he has been prodding and poking and shaming the religious leaders to provoke a reaction from the beginning. He is not letting them off the hook now: they can choose to do evil or they can choose to do good, but they must choose.

Off to Pilate, the local leader of the occupying Roman power. He is playing his own games, but has no interest in blocking a determined drive by the native powers-that-be. Jesus is tortured, mocked and condemned to death.

Then they crucify Jesus.

There's more mockery, mostly along the lines of 'if Jesus is really who he says then he'll come down off the cross and avoid the suffering and death'. Maybe it's a cry of anyone faced with suffering: surely if God loves us then he would save us from this. Yet Jesus is telling us - as he has told us before - that in God's upside-down Kingdom life comes through death, and healing through wounds.

Mark's readers in Rome had been forced to endure terrible suffering and loss: they had made it through, but how to make sense of the cost? Mark, as ever, doesn't give a clear explanation, he just shows Jesus on a cross. Jesus quoting an ancient Hebrew song: a song which begins in lonely suffering - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" - but ends in vindication and triumph, "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him."

The sun goes dark, Jesus breathes his last, and the curtain in the Temple is torn in two. Just as the heavens had been torn apart at Jesus baptism, for God to affirm Jesus as his son, now the veil of the Temple - symbolically separating God from the people - is torn apart, and the foreign NCO in charge of the execution squad affirms Jesus as God's son.

It's strangers and religious leaders who have condemned Jesus, but it is also strangers and a religious leader who help him: Simon of Cyrene who carries his cross, the unnamed centurion who tells his identity, and now Joseph of Arimathea lays Jesus in his tomb. Women - two Marys - look on.

After the Sabbath is over the story takes a twist: the tomb is empty, Jesus is not there.

Our best estimate of the original ending is that the three women were told to tell the disciples that Jesus had been raised and is going ahead of them to Galilee, but they "said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." That's it: the alternative endings given in most Bibles are believed to be later additions.

But how can the story be known, how can Jesus' resurrection be known, if the women kept silent? That's the point, of course. They were terribly afraid, they wanted to keep silent, but at some point they must have spoken out anyway. And so the Church began.

In late 60's Rome Christians were terribly afraid, they would have wanted to keep silent, but what would they actually do? Can the Church carry on? Mark's Gospel is open ended.

In early 21st-Century Britain many Christians seem ... unwilling to speak up; at least those who are not modern day Pharisees. Uncertainty about what it all means, doubt about the place of faith in a secular world, unwillingness to force one's beliefs onto another, many different reasons perhaps.

But if the end result is that those who faithfully and lovingly follow Jesus are not heard, if the message of God's Grace through Jesus is drowned out, how can the Church continue?

Now, as then, Mark's Gospel remains open-ended.

Mark: Are Wives Like Cars?

Maybe you know what it's like: you get your first job, you can afford to buy your first car ... and it's wonderful! Beautiful, shiny, the feeling of freedom.

A few years later, the car's a bit less shiny, a bit tatty round the edges, perhaps, doesn't go quite as well as it once did; anyway, you've done quite well for yourself, you can afford better, something that shows off your success. So you trade in your old car and buy a nice shiny newer, better one.

Is that how it is with wives? Is it how it should be?

As a rule of thumb, if you think Jesus is setting down a command, a law, a line you mustn't cross - you probably haven't understood what he is talking about. That certainly applies to what he said about divorce (taking that passage from Mark slightly out of sequence). It begins with the Pharisees seeking to 'test' Jesus: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

We know, from other writings, that this was a live question at the time: not so much the question of lawfulness - that was just the opening gambit - but the question of what was sufficient reason for divorce. Can a man divorce his wife (it was always that way round, by the way) for any reason he fancies (like changing his car), or is it only for specific reasons, such as persistent infidelity or - 'obviously' - infertility.

The Law of Moses is, at first sight, clear: "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her". Incidentally, the point of that 'certificate of dismissal', or Get, is that it states that the woman is free to remarry.

On the other hand, the Prophets seem divided: "For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel," as Malachi puts it. But there are also prophets who talk about divorce as the appropriate response to extreme infidelity (generally as an analogy with Israel), for example in Jeremiah: "For all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce."

Jesus would have been expected to do the rabbinic thing of bouncing around these quotes (and others, especially Hosea), along with precedents and other rabbis' teachings, before coming up with a balanced judgement about when it was right for a man to divorce his wife, and when not.

Jesus doesn't play that game.

The underlying assumption of the question is that wives are possessions. Either possessions which can be freely traded, like cars, or functional items whose job is to provide (legitimate) children ... dynastic enablers, if you like. This assumption is (in)famously reflected in the tenth commandment, not to covet a neighbour's house, wife, slave, ox or donkey.

Jesus comes at the issue from a different angle - for Jesus the starting point is the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 1, where God creates humanity in his own image, male and female together, to work in partnership looking after his world.

Women are not 'things' to be possessed but colleagues and companions to be joined with in true partnership. There are families to raise, together, communities to build, together, and a fallen world to heal, together. That's the way marriage was meant to work ... sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't, but God's intent should be the starting point for discussion.

Divorce is allowed in the Old Testament for when this breaks down, for 'hardness of heart' as Jesus puts it. The commitment, 'contract' if you like, is for lifelong faithfulness to one another, and is before God, so don't treat it lightly.

But 'hardness of heart' is as real today as it was in Ancient Israel. Violence, abuse, abandonment, and extreme unfaithfulness can all destroy a marriage - the wrongdoing is not the certificate of divorce, but the (possibly many) factors which caused the breakdown.

Technically, the most faithful wife, once divorced and remarried, breaks her original commitment when she first sleeps with her new husband. Then the first contract is broken, annulled, and a new contract established, hopefully one which will last, bringing healing and purpose - the way God intended marriage to be.

I usually try not to criticise other church traditions on this blog, but to me the Roman Catholic church's take on divorce and remarriage - refusing communion to the new family - is simply heartless and evil. The new Pope has suggested he wants to change this, but to have treated people that way at all is simply wrong.

So if Jesus isn't giving a rule here, yet another burden, then what is he saying?

Firstly that marriage is a precious union of equals, a lifelong commitment before God. Do everything in your power to make that work for good.

But do also recognise that we live in a fallen world and relationships do go wrong. If so, the Bible gives us a way out. Divorce should never be taken as an easy option, but sometimes, because we all have hard hearts, breaking the old covenant and starting anew, before God, is the only way forward.

God loves you and is on your side, trust him with all that you are.

Mark: The Trap Closes

As if the cleansing of the Temple, which we heard about last week, wasn't enough, now Jesus is saying that God has withdrawn his protection from his Temple.

The Temple at Jerusalem was at the heart of Jewish national and religious identity. It was also politically controversial: rebuilt, in the traditional despot architectural style, by Herod, a Roman imposed ruler, and run (corruptly) by Caiaphas and his family, Roman imposed high priests.

Jesus has signed his own death warrant.

Jesus follows this up by warning his followers that they too will suffer terrible persecution. When the religious and political leaderships connive together to murder the innocent out of expedience, then great suffering and destruction will follow before things can improve. Mark's readers, of course, will have seen this for themselves; their only comfort is "The one who endures to the end will be saved."

Then the authorities find the opportunity they have been waiting for: Judas can be suborned. There looks to be unwritten backstory here, but the important thing is that now the religious leaders have the information they need to strike: in darkness and secrecy, because that's how the corrupt work.

In the meantime Jesus and the twelve come together for their Passover meal, what would later become known as the Last Supper, the precursor of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. Jesus knows he is about to be betrayed yet he includes Judas in the fellowship meal. As the next section of chapter 14 shows, Jesus is also aware that Peter will deny him and that the remainder of the Twelve will desert him, scattered like sheep. Yet all are included in that Last Supper.

There is a really ugly misrepresentation of something the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, which claims that you have to be 'worthy' to take part in the Eucharist. This is about as far from the reality of the Last Supper as you can get. Jesus knew his followers and their weakness, but still he ate in unity with them (which was actually Paul's point as well).

There is a version of the invitation to take part in Communion used by some churches which captures this rather well:

Come to this table, not because you must but because you may, not because you are strong, but because you are weak.  

Come, not because any goodness of your own gives you a right to come, but because you need mercy and help.  

Come, because you love the Lord a little and would like to love him more.  

Come, because he loved you and gave himself for you.  

Come and meet the risen Christ, for we are his Body.

Jesus shared his Last Supper with his betrayer, his denier and friends who would desert him in his hour of need. Can you really say that you are less worthy than them?

By the end of our passages for the sermon series this week, Jesus is on his own: "All of them deserted him and fled." The trap has closed and the 'victim' is caught. Jesus is close to defeat and death ... in God's upside-down kingdom he knows that is the road that leads to life.

But for this week, this chapter, we leave Jesus alone, trapped, abandoned. It is a difficult story, when we truly enter into it.

Mark: Bread, Wine & All-Age Worship

Dali - The Sacrament of the Last Supper

As we reach the penultimate week in our parish sermon series the mood gets even darker. This week's readings concern: the cost of following Jesus; the Last Supper; and Jesus' arrest at Gethsemane.

Sunday morning's service at St John's Church is an all-age service. Presenting good news for all ages from a section of the story which Rowan Williams entitles 'The Trap Closes' will be an interesting challenge.

If it was me, I would drop the first of the three readings - together they are too long for an all-age service. Then I would start to think about friendship: specifically falling out with a close friend then trying to rebuild the friendship later.

All ages experience this.

Young children seem to be able to argue, even to shout and scream and throw a tantrum, then next day carry on as if nothing has happened. But by about 9 or 10 it seems to get nastier, as children play relationship games, excluding individuals from their clique; usually that child is back in favour after a day or two and it's someone else's turn to be the outsider. Secondary school appears to be a maelstrom of relationships, in-crowds, outsiders, and emotional turmoil. As parents we miss most of this, hearing about it later as the 'children' grow and mature, and look back.

Then it astonishes me how many middle-aged and elderly people I listen to who have old friends or family who they don't talk to any more. Something was done which was wrong, perhaps, and then something was said, and then a close and valuable relationship is lost, perhaps forever. Maybe, because it was 'their fault', it is up to them to make the first move, maybe peace overtures have been made and rebuffed so now it is their turn, or maybe what they did is simply unforgivable.

I keep going back in these posts to Mark's readers, especially those in Rome. This is because Mark wasn't trying to write an abstract history or biography, he was writing to encourage, reassure, and inspire those who had been through terrible suffering, in Rome, or who were going through terrible suffering, in Galilee and Judea, or who were afraid they were about to go through terrible suffering, in the chaos of civil war throughout the Roman Empire. Mark's Gospel was intended to be good news to people who desperately needed some, not a nice bedtime story.

There's little detail written about Nero's persecution of Christians, but from more recent historical equivalents we can make an educated guess that there will have been Christians who lay low and denied ever having followed Jesus; there will have been Christians who, from fear or under torture, betrayed fellow-Christians to Nero's thugs; and there will have been Christians who held firm and lost everything through their faithfulness.

Think about the aftermath. The persecutions in Rome come to an end: what are the relationships like between these three groups? How can those who held firm ever forgive those who denied Jesus, still less those who betrayed their friends? And how can the latter ever face up to their own guilt? Surely any renewal of the old Christian community is impossible.

Which brings us, finally, to chapter 14 and the Passover meal. Communion and the Last Supper contain a wealth of different meanings, but one of the most basic is about community and relationships: "Though we are many we are one body, because we all share in the one bread," as the Anglican liturgy puts it. This is an aspect emphasised by the nature of the Passover Meal, and by the importance of table fellowship in those days, especially amongst Jews.

So what does Jesus do? He knows Judas will betray him, yet he takes the initiative to share bread and wine with Judas; he knows Peter will deny him and the rest of the disciples will scatter, abandoning him to the Temple thugs. But Jesus shares with them all, emphasising the importance of what he was doing by his famous "This is my body" and "This is my blood" statements.

When your friend hurt you, was that worse than Judas did to Jesus? When your friend abandoned you, or wouldn't back you up, was that worse than Peter and the others did to Jesus? Yet Jesus went out of his way to accept his friends, for all their failures, and to rebuild their relationships. Is it really impossible for you to follow him in doing the same?

Jesus sets a pattern for his followers; Mark emphasises its importance in difficult times, then and now.

To finish, a personal story. About twenty years ago an old friend of mine, Howard, took off, leaving home and family, to go to Central Europe. Not long afterwards I was very poorly and he kept moving on, so we lost contact. Many years later his younger brother got in touch, on Facebook, and told me that Howard had returned to the UK because of health problems. He was living at the far end of the country, but I got in touch and made the effort to go up and see him. He and his brother made the effort to come down to see me. Then, suddenly, Howard died.

You can imagine how relieved I was that his brother had got in touch, and that we had all made the effort to meet up. What if I hadn't bothered, or if I had waited until he made the first move, then found that he'd gone and died and there was no second chance?

None of us know what tomorrow will bring, but a part of the good news of Jesus is that he frees us to renew lost relationships. Because he made the first move in coming to us, we can make the first move in reaching out to others. It won't always work out, but surely trying is better than an eternity of regrets?

Mark: Poverty, Service, Struggle

If you take a strip of, say, paper and stick the ends together with a single twist you end up with a Moebius strip - see picture.

One odd property of a Moebius strip is that if you start from the top and follow the same side all the way around the loop, instead of ending up back where you started you are on the other side: upside-down and back-to-front. One could say that a Moebius strip is a parable of the Kingdom.

In Mark's Gospel, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus tells them that the wealthy, for whom all doors are opened in normal experience, face a challenge akin to threading a needle with a camel. Power and status come from service and humility, not from coercion and wheeler-dealing. Religious authorities are called to account for abusing and exploiting the faithful. The giving of the poor is valued more than the beneficence of the rich. The values Mark describes in this week's chapters are really nothing like our normal world.

The promise is that one day everywhere will live by these upside-down values, when God's Kingdom comes. In the meantime it is up to those who follow Jesus to do what they can to demonstrate these priorities to a waiting world. Those with power and status may hate them, but there will be others who are just waiting to hear that things can and will be different, that there really is a better way to live.

So it was with Jesus, and so it is for those who truly follow him today.

But Mark had another point. Mark was writing for people who had suffered terrible persecution in Rome. They had lost family members and friends, homes and livelihoods to Nero's spite. Their world had turned upside down; Mark is telling them to hold on, to stick with Jesus because his kingdom was easier to get into from an upside-down state.

When you have sufficient wealth and social status and influence, it is hard not to feel secure in that - to put your trust in those things. When you have lost them you realise how fallible they are and, maybe, are ready to seek something or someone more reliable to trust your life to.

In his discussion with Peter about riches, camels and needles, Jesus says this:

"Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life."

In the context of the persecuted Christians of Rome, as well as those in Galilee and Judea caught up in Vespasian's brutal suppression of a Jewish rebellion, this is about the church.

The church community is to be family for those who have lost family, provide homes to those who have lost homes, and give purpose and meaning to those who have lost their livelihoods.

In other words, the church - then and now - is called to act as the heart and hands and feet and voice of Jesus, and to look after those who have suffered for him.

In this, Mark's message is good news for rich and poor alike. The poor because they will find help amongst God's people, the rich because they can use their wealth, status and influence for good, to help those in need. If they can do this in humility and service then they may indeed find their camels travelling smoothly through that needle.

With God all things are possible.

Mark: Turn & Step

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

The halfway point in our CTM Parish sermon series on Mark seems an appropriate point to focus on what we have learnt so far about 'good news', about the Gospel which Jesus' followers are supposed to live out and to proclaim.

Only once in Mark, right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, does Jesus explicitly say what the good news is, in that strangely circular statement above.

After that Mark applies the principle of "Show, don't tell".

He illustrates the good news by the people who are healed, he illustrates it with parables (the word more or less means 'illustration'), he illustrates it with different people's responses, and he illustrates it with the things that Jesus did and said. But he never directly expands on Jesus' initial words.

Then as now, Jesus' brief proclamation was filled with loaded terms. People thought they understood them, so Jesus had to show that God was doing way more then they could imagine.

I suggest the following as a starting point: for 'Kingdom of God' read 'God's people' (therefore part of God's future of justice, peace and security); for 'repent' read 'turn to God'; and for 'believe' read 'trust'. There's more to all these terms, as you can see as you engage with Mark's Gospel, but these should set you off on the right track.

Also, when you read "repent and believe the good news", don't read that as an order, a burden; read it as an opportunity, and an unexpected one at that. The good news is that you can "repent and believe the good news." You can turn to God and be accepted into his people!

Reading the first half of Mark's Gospel, as we have been doing, makes it clear that membership of God's people (ie entry to God's Kingdom) is open to all, especially those who have long believed themselves to be excluded. Yet many, who believe themselves already safely included, exclude themselves by their attitude to Jesus and to those whom they would keep out.

Open to all, but you still have to turn to God through Jesus and trust him enough step out in faith. Turn and step: what does that look like?

For his first disciples it was dramatic: they dropped everything and followed Jesus, leaving behind the security of home and livelihood.

For the paralysed man it started with friends who trusted Jesus, but it ended with him picking up his bed and carrying it out, in front of everybody.

For Jairus, the synagogue leader, it meant putting aside his status as an important community leader and going out to ask Jesus for help, then holding on to hope and trust in Jesus when everyone around said it was over, his daughter was dead.

For the already-humbled woman with a haemorrhage it meant risking public shame, or worse, by going quietly up to Jesus and touching him, then stepping up and publicly admitting that she had done so.

For the twelve it meant going out, in pairs, without supplies, to neighbouring towns and villages, to tell them to turn to God, and to heal their sick.

For the apostles surrounded by hungry people it meant taking what little was available and using it to achieve more than seemed possible.

For the disciples who still missed the point (again and again) it meant carrying on following Jesus, even when they just didn't understand.

Many of the scribes and Pharisees thought they didn't need to change, didn't need to turn or step anywhere; maybe they had done that long ago and felt no need to do so again. My experience is that turning and stepping is a lifelong process. For many of us there was an important first time - for others there was not - but still we drift and wander as we walk, and we forget to trust, or take God's love for granted, and so we need to turn and step again. That's what many religious people struggle to grasp.

I've presented this as a list because I want you to be able to see Mark's examples and to consider whether any of them are applicable to you. Because Mark was telling these stories for his readers' benefit: he wanted them to turn and step out in faith again, especially those who were worn down and losing hope. 

Mark wanted them, and us, to see that we can always turn to God through Jesus, and step out in trust in the way that is best suited to our need. Because God loves us and wants us in his Kingdom, to be his people, and to know the comfort of his Spirit.

Finally, this halfway point is not the end of what Mark has to show us concerning the good news of Jesus. In the second half of his Gospel the good news becomes more situational: focussing on good news in bad circumstances, rather than good news for supposedly bad people. But that is for the next few weeks.

For today, my prayer for you is that you will see and feel God's love for you, and that you will turn to Him and step out in trust to more fully receive and grow in that love.

Mark: Turning Toward Golgotha

Halfway through Mark's Gospel suddenly the penny drops ... partly.

"You are the Messiah," says Peter, but promptly loses the plot when Jesus talks about dying.

Jesus has been proclaiming good news to the poor, has been gathering in the lost and the outcast, has cast out demons and healed the sick, and has provoked reactions wherever he went. Pretty convincing behaviour for a prophet and a holy man.

But Jesus has also calmed a storm, fed five thousand with five loaves and a couple of fish, then walked across a lake and fed four thousand more with seven loaves and a few small fish. What sort of prophet does these things? The disciples were confused and didn't understand. Then Peter makes a mental leap.

At once Jesus' mission changes direction, and the pace drops. Now Jesus is headed toward Jerusalem and to death. Poor old Peter is left bewildered again. “Get behind me, Satan!” seem harsh, but maybe something strong was needed to start to get past Peter’s mental block?

Peter thought he'd got it sussed: he knew what the story was now, and where things were going. When Jesus goes off in another direction he is lost and confused.

Mark was writing for readers who were lost and confused. Their world had turned upside down: in persecution, rebellion and civil war there seemed to be no justice, no peace, no hope. What comfort could Mark offer them? Or us?

What Mark offers is mystery. A mountaintop experience, where Jesus is joined by Moses and Elijah - symbolising the Law and the Prophets fulfilled in Jesus. God's voice again comes down affirming Jesus, this time for the disciples to hear too: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him!”

Jesus is not starting a new religion. What he is doing reveals the proper understanding of the Hebrew scriptures. The Scribes and the Pharisees had lost their way; Jesus calls them, and us, to a true understanding of what following God means. And part of that understanding involves dying to the old and being raised for the new.

Part of that ‘new’ is a new approach to importance, to status and power. “Who is the greatest?” The one who seems least and serves most is the greatest!

What sort of Messiah, of King, is Jesus? Maybe more to the point, how much regard and reputation can his followers expect. Status, respect, authority – the disciples weren't the only religious leaders to want such things; now they are being told the price.

Just as the one who seeks their own life will lose it, so the person who seeks status and authority will not be important in God’s eyes and in God’s kingdom. It is only those who throw away such things who will gain them.

Mark is generally believed to have got the material for this Gospel from Peter, several years later. Maybe the way Mark portrays the disciples' confusion, and Peter's continual cluelessness, reflects that Peter has finally learnt this lesson. How happy are we to look like idiots, if it helps others see more clearly?

The first half of Mark leads us to this point of confused recognition; from here onward the road leads to suffering and death ... and beyond that to new life.

Maybe this was hope for the suffering Christian community in the late 60's AD; maybe it is hope for us now when life goes badly wrong. But that hope remains shrouded in mystery and confusion.

Mark: Reactions To Jesus

Jesus came to set us free from our past, not to encourage us to wallow in it.

I am a pedant: it irks me when people who should know better mix up repentance and penitence. Penitence is about being sorry and remorseful - a reasonable thing to do, perhaps, but on its own it doesn't take you anywhere much. Repentance, in the Bible, is about change: a change of heart, a change of attitude, a change of direction. I have a theory that religious people muddle the two up because they really don't like change.

We're already nearing the half-way point of Mark in the CTM sermon series. Covering the sixteen chapters of Mark in only seven weeks means we get through it awfully quickly! The title/outline that Mark gives at the very beginning tells us that this first half is about the good news of Jesus leading up to the recognition that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ.

I hope you are also seeing Mark's focus on different people's responses to Jesus and his good news - that the Kingdom of God has come near and we are to repent and believe the good news. As I said above repentance is about a change of direction: turning away from the ways of the world and turning to God; whilst believing is mostly about trusting.

The final reading for this week has Jesus winding up the religious leaders again. As usual it starts with them being critical and judgemental, then escalates when Jesus puts them right. The trouble is that they are sure of their own rightness and do not want to change. But Jesus calls everybody to repentance - to change - whether religious or not.

Actually, it seems to me that the religious leaders have three big objections to his teaching. One is on the surface - that what Jesus says and does doesn't fit in with their interpretation of Scripture. The other two are more visceral, it seems: firstly that Jesus is demanding that they must change to enter into God's Kingdom; and secondly that Jesus is encouraging all sorts of people whom they exclude to change and so enter into God's Kingdom - law-breakers, collaborators, the 'unclean' and the disreputable, all are invited to turn and enter into the Kingdom of God.

Maybe that's why reactions to Jesus are so different: those who feel entitled are threatened by what he says, whilst those who feel lost and hopeless respond to the new hope that Jesus brings.

The question for us is to see Jesus' challenge to our favourite beliefs, our views of who is in and who is out, and see how we react to that.

Churches are in an odd position. On the one hand we are called to proclaim grace: God’s forgiveness and acceptance of anyone (even an unclean woman deliberately contaminating Jesus ... even an immigrant, a tax-dodger, a paedophile, a politician?). On the other hand, organisations (and societies) need rules to live by.

Church history is littered with examples of this going wrong: churches seeking social control, power and influence – just like the scribes and Pharisees. But it is also full of those who step out in faith to serve others, to call unexpected people to Jesus, to shine Grace into the darkness. It’s just that the latter, being less self-serving, are often less-noticed.

Who in Caversham (or wherever your community may be) needs, really needs, to know that God loves them, warts and all? Who needs to know that they are a beloved child of God, whatever their past? How can we help them to understand this? And how can we really understand this for ourselves?

Mark: Faith Power Action

Healing In His Wings
by Debra K. Gaines

What a dreadful woman! Unclean, forbidden from touching anybody, there she is in the middle of a jostling crowd around the Rabbi, the holy man. And she dares to touch him! Will God strike her down?

Mark sometimes uses a kind of 'sandwich' technique: half way through one story he suddenly interrupts with another before completing the first. The idea, presumably, is that the two stories illuminate one another.

In the second half of chapter 5 of Mark he does this with two healing accounts. Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, an important man, comes to Jesus for help as his daughter is dying. As Jesus is on his way, the story is interrupted by a woman "who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years."

In religious terms she was 'unclean' and excluded from society whilst the haemorrhage went on - twelve years! No wonder she was desperate.

Two intertwined stories: one of a desperate man, who would be considered an acceptably holy man by 'decent society'; one of a desperate woman, who would not. How would Jesus treat the two of them?

In both cases he responds to their need. Jesus was quite capable, when the situation called for it, of being decidedly caustic with religious leaders; in this case Jairus was a father desperate about his daughter before he was a religious leader (I do highly recommend the film The Miracle Maker, which highlights this conflict). The unnamed woman was just desperate.

Jesus met both needs. But with the woman he went deeper. After twelve years of frustration and exclusion her need went deeper. He speaks to her, he gets her to acknowledge her need in words, and he tells her "your faith has healed you." After twelve years seemingly cursed by God, she is told she has faith which can bring healing: she is an important person before God. Now she can go in peace, freed from her suffering.

There is an oddity here: the woman is told her faith has healed her, yet the account also says that Jesus felt the healing power going out from him. There seems to be a link between faith and power.

'Faith' in the New Testament, it should be remembered, always means something more along the lines of 'active trust' than 'propositional belief'. If we have faith in Jesus it means that we trust our lives to him, not so much that we believe intellectually that there was a guy called Jesus in the Middle East two thousand years ago (although in this case that might be considered something of a prerequisite). Similarly, the word usually translated 'belief' is a related word which most often refers to believing in a person, not to believing some sort of abstract truth statement.

Jesus power is set free in our lives when we live out our trust in him.

So Jesus sends out his disciples, in pairs, to tell people about God's Kingdom and to heal them, It strikes me that this is very early in their discipleship. It seems going out together to tell people about Jesus and his message is a basic part of following Jesus, not just something for his most advanced students. It also strikes me that they were sent out in pairs: sharing freedom and healing in Jesus isn't just an individual ministry, it is something we are called to do together; proclaiming God's Kingdom is a joint task ... so I wonder why church preachers stand alone?

In Mark the pace is brisk: while the disciples are doing their stuff, John the Baptist is beheaded - there can be a heavy cost to doing God's will and speaking God's truth. They are no sooner back and looking forward to a quiet debrief than crowds gather, five thousand are fed, and they are missing the point again.

The calling of all who would follow Jesus is to step out in faith and power and to take action. If we get it wrong, that is part of the walk, part of the growing. If we don't do anything, don't trust him enough to step out at all, that is a problem.

To finish, a verse from a poem I came across this morning on Paquita7's poetry blog, which struck a chord:-

Pause before you act but act
Fast flows the life that's purpose packed
Turn wistful dreams to concrete fact
Think before you act but act.

Mark: Awe & Wonder

There is a sense in which I cheated with yesterday's post: this week's section of the CTM parish sermon series is meant to cover chapter 4 of Mark, as well as the two chapters I looked at yesterday. Chapter 4 is important because at the end of it Mark plants a big signpost to who Jesus is, and why he matters, at the quarter-way point of his book.

My defence is that sermons and blog posts are different beasts, of different length and shape. I would see a sermon on these chapters starting with Jesus' words and actions, and the reactions they produced, and finishing with the storm story (see below) as a kind of punchline. But you can be a little longer and more complex in a sermon (although not too much so in the CofE!); in a blog context I decided two posts fitted better, with this bit of woffle linking them.

This way also gives me a bit of space to mention the parables block which makes up the bulk of chapter 4, and which the sermon series explicitly leaves out. One big problem with parables is that they are usually treated as 'stand-alones', not as part of an ongoing story. Since this sermon series is meant to be about context and continuity within Mark's Gospel, that wouldn't help.

The context of these parables is that they are a follow up to all that Jesus has been saying and doing about a message of good news which demands a reaction, effectively as a summary and reinforcement of the previous chapters.

So you have an apparently careless farmer scattering his seed onto mostly spoiled land, reflecting Jesus mission to the sick who know their need of a doctor, rather than to those who are sure they are well. Then you have other parables about a Kingdom which is visible, a light to the world, but which is to be held generously, given freely, and which grows in unexpected ways to bring comfort to many who are in need.

These are word pictures which make most sense when you look at the things which Jesus has already been saying and doing; if you just try to analyse and dissect their meaning from their text alone you end up with nothing more than dead words chopped up on the ground.

As chapter 4 draws to close, Mark has been painting a picture of Jesus as a remarkable teacher, preacher and prophet. Someone who speaks words of hope and comfort to the lost and words of truth to the powerful, and who backs up those words with action, healing and a sense of urgency.

Then Mark pulls the rug out. The final section of chapter 4 suddenly shows a new picture of Jesus, like a flash of lightning illuminating something new and unexpected.

It's just a brief story: Jesus is asleep in a boat, whilst the disciples take him across the Sea of Galilee. A storm blows up and the disciples - experienced fishermen - are panicking. They wake Jesus and complain to him. Jesus simply tells the wind to quieten down and the sea to be still ... and they do as they are told. "Who is this," the disciples say, "that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

It's a good question. There is a common view today that Jesus was a good man teaching wisdom and truth. That seems to have been about as far as the disciples had got, at this stage. This story is here as a signpost that there is a lot more to Jesus than that. That the Kingdom of God is far more real and impactful than maybe we imagine.

At the time Mark was writing this Gospel, this story mattered. Christians in Rome had been persecuted and brutally murdered; Judea and Galilee were aflame in a terrible revolt, brutally suppressed; the Roman Empire itself was in danger of falling apart as powerful men fought to be emperor. To most Jews of Jesus' day the sea and storms represented death and chaos, like the death and chaos that surrounded them in their lives.

Who is this who can quieten chaos and bring peace to death?

Then, as now, the question mattered.

Mark: Provoking A Reaction

Click to see the original by Gun Legler

In chapter 1 of Mark we saw Jesus starting his ministry: moving quickly, urgently to tell people good news about God and about his kingdom, and illustrating that in his actions. He called disciples and they followed, he healed people and set them free, and multitudes came out to see him. But as the story unfolds we see other reactions.

Soon the grumbling starts.

Jesus doesn't just heal a paralysed man, he tells him his sins are forgiven: he has been set free of more than just his physical need. The religious leaders see that as blasphemy.

Jesus calls a tax collector - not just a collaborator but also unclean, a sinner under Jewish Law - who follows him, and invites his friends to meet Jesus. The religious people complain.

Jesus' disciples collect grains of wheat as they walk through a field and eat them. It was a Sabbath so the religious leaders object.

Then Jesus heals a man with a withered hand ... on the Sabbath ... in a synagogue! He challenges his critics' toxic views on religious duty, then shows what is right by healing the man in need. Jesus is angry and upset at their callousness; the religious leaders are incandescent and start to conspire with those in power to destroy Jesus.

Jesus and his message provoked reaction, but not always a good reaction. Jesus seems to have set out to bring people's deeper selves to the surface, whether that is a deep need of healing and acceptance, or a deep antagonism to anything which disrupts or challenges a set worldview.

One of the big challenges for any who wish to follow Jesus is how to balance humility with conviction, how to listen respectfully to others whilst challenging what is wrong and sharing hope with those in need, especially with the excluded and the disregarded. Part of doing that, it seems to me, is being aware of who Jesus helped and affirmed and who he challenged.

Jesus consistently reaches out to the excluded and the powerless, those who are despised. He equally consistently attacks those who would exclude, those who would delay healing, and those would highlight their own importance by putting others down.

In today's UK, especially after recent elections, popular attitudes to immigrants and to Muslims spring to mind. In much of the church, although less so perhaps in the UK as a whole, exclusion based on gender and sexuality remains an issue.

By the end of chapter 3, even Jesus’ own family have turned against him, as they say that he's out of his mind, and they come to take him away. Jesus responds by saying that those who follow him are his true family: “whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” The rule of God overrides even ties of family.

At the time Mark was writing terrible persecution of Christians in Rome had divided families, both by setting them against one another, and by people having family members murdered. Mark is quoting Jesus's words as comfort to those who are bereaved or estranged: one of the roles of the church, Jesus' body, is to be family to those who have lost their families, to be brother, sister, mother to the lost and the alone. It is not just physical healing that Jesus brought then, and wants to bring now through his followers.

You can find the chapters of Mark I have been talking about on the Bible Gateway: Mark 2 and Mark 3 (in the occasionally idiosyncratic NRSV translation).

What is your reaction to these stories? What impression do they give you of Jesus? How would you feel if you heard and saw these things?

Note: A quick mention of the "unforgivable sin" referred to in Mark 3:28-29, as people sometimes get worried. Imagine you are lost at sea in stormy weather, about to drown, when the air-sea rescue helicopter comes out to rescue you. If you are so convinced that all helicopters are instruments of the devil, out to do you terrible harm, that you desperately and successfully fight off your rescuer, you will drown. So it can be with those whom the Spirit would save.

Mark: Good News Afresh

The trouble with words is that their meaning can be abused and hijacked. Too often 'good news', as presented by the religious, is anything but. Mark, in his Gospel, is careful to put things Jesus says in clusters with things he does, illustrating their meaning, and people's reactions, highlighting their significance.

The Mark's Gospel sermon series throughout the CTM Parish, here in Caversham, gets underway tomorrow. To anyone from a 'free' church a sermon series from a book of Scripture is doubtless unremarkable; in the C of E, which usually uses readings from a lectionary which is only interested in themes rather than books, it is unusual. So I hope it goes well, lest it just become a one-off - interesting but unfruitful.

I've already written a lot about the beginning of Mark in this blog: Gospel Beginning, Two Baptisms, Son of God, Through the Wilderness, and Mark After Trinity. That's probably overkill for one chapter of one Bible book in one blog in less than seven months, but here's one more. At least following along with the sermon series will push me out into the rest of Mark's Gospel over the next six weeks. ;-)

Evangelion can be translated as 'gospel' or 'good news' or 'important news' or 'a message of significance' or even 'hear ye, hear ye' - listen up. The introductory title line of Mark's book calls it "The beginning of the good news of Jesus the messiah, son of God," thereby introducing a pile of different themes and questions, many of which we'll come back to during the series. A key starting point is what did Jesus say about good news:

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

"The time has come" -  the waiting is over. Mark's is an impatient Gospel, things happen quickly. It is full of 'immediately' and of Jesus moving on, provoking responses, challenging assumptions. The disciples are always one step behind, puzzled, confused, indignant, and even afraid.

But that is jumping ahead. First Jesus calls his first disciples. No messing: "Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men," an ambiguous reference of both hope and judgement to the words of the prophet Jeremiah. At once, Mark says, they leave their nets and follow him; without delay Jesus then calls two more fishermen, who also immediately follow.

Come the Sabbath, Jesus is in the synagogue at Capernaum, teaching the people and casting out a demon. People respond with wonder, and word of Jesus spreads. Straight away Jesus is healing: first Simon/Peter's mother-in-law, then a multitude.

Early in the morning Jesus finds a solitary place to pray then, when the disciples come to him, he is moving on. Not staying around to heal more people, but moving on to tell others, in other places, his message.

He heals a leper, moved with either pity or indignation at an implication that he might not want to, but tells him to get the healing checked and confirmed in the proper way, and to say nothing about what Jesus had done. The ex-leper told everyone anyway, and Jesus soon finds himself surrounded by crowds.

So far, so positive. What does this tell us about Jesus' 'good news'? That it is urgent, that it demands a response, that it brings healing to those in need, even to those excluded by society, and that it was to be spread far and wide, not just confined to one place.

What sort of response did Jesus' good news demand? Jesus calls on us to turn and follow him, to let go of all the stuff which holds us back, to turn to God through Jesus and to act. Not next week, or even tomorrow, but immediately.

And to trust in God and in him (in the New Testament the words translated 'believe' or 'faith' have a primary meaning of 'active trust' - a bit like the difference in English between believing something and believing in someone).

Try to imagine yourself hearing this story afresh, without the baggage of two thousand years. Let Jesus surprise you and amaze you. Respond to him openly and freely, and see what he is calling you to do today.

Not everyone responded positively to Jesus, though, as the story moves rapidly on. But that is a topic for next week.

Edit: The above is based around chapter 1 of Mark, which you can read on the Bible Gateway here.

Mark After Trinity

The three churches in the Caversham, Thameside & Mapledurham Parish are doing something a little different in the seven weeks after Trinity (ie from the beginning of June) this year. We are planning to preach a shared sermon series, covering key passages and themes from Mark's Gospel over the seven weeks.

The idea is that the Gospel story is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian, so people should have the opportunity, during their weekly worship, to encounter this story as a whole, not just scattered fragments.

Mark is the gospel of the year in the Anglican lectionary; it is also the shortest, least cluttered, of the accounts of Jesus' ministry, from his baptism to his resurrection. So from a practical point of view, Mark is a good Gospel to go for.

I would also argue that in many ways this is the best gospel for our time: Mark appears to be aimed at people who are busy, cosmopolitan and politically aware; whether they are religious insiders or not. This sounds to me like a description of a large chunk of Caversham, indeed a fair part of today's world (at least the part that is likely to be reading this on the internet).

But this is particularly a message of good news for those who are struggling with uncertainty, with persecution and suffering, and for those whose world is changing in ways they cannot comprehend. Mark is a strange gospel, but it speaks to those for whom chaos and fear are everyday realities.

Each week there will be three readings from Mark, followed by a sermon. In the notice sheets the readings will be listed, along with some short reflections on the themes for consideration over the week. Much of the structure of this is derived from Rowan Williams' excellent little book Meeting God In Mark.

If you live in Caversham or Mapledurham, or hereabouts, why not come along to one of the churches on a Sunday and hear for yourself what this is all about?

Over the period of the series I will also be posting here additional thoughts and reflections on the section of Mark being covered that week. Why not use the comment section to join the conversation, to share your thoughts and what Mark's (or Jesus') words mean to you? You never know who might be helped and encouraged by your words.

Son Of God

Back to Mark's Gospel:

"The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God."

That 'Son of God' bit is odd in all sorts of ways, one of which is that it is in some but not all of the best early manuscripts.

Many New Testament documents start with an introduction which is in two parts: an initial title, to attract people's interest and say what the document is (the equivalent of the Subject line of an email), followed by a prologue, to introduce the main themes and/or characters of the document. Mark 1:1 above is clearly a title, attention catching in the Roman Empire of the 60s, in a scary kind of way, as discussed in an earlier post. In Greek this title is cumbersome, three genitive clauses ('of' or 'about' in English) end to end, so most expert opinion is that the 'Son of God' phrase was in the original but got tidied out by some later scribes.

When Mark was written this phrase would have been seen as a direct reference to a title claimed by Roman Emperors from Augustus to Nero: each emperor would be declared a god after their death, so the next emperor would be a 'son of god', expecting to be declared god himself in due course (when Vespasian was dying he is said to have joked: "Oh dear! I think I'm becoming a god.").

Augustus was the first to claim the title 'divi filius' - the son of God. An inscription from 9 BC, found in Priene, speaks of Augustus as 'saviour' and his birth as 'the beginning of the good news'. So Mark is clearly making a political point in his title, but later scribes might have felt it ... unwise ... to offend their emperor quite so obviously.

The title 'Son of God' also had political implications for Jews. In the Jewish scriptures (the 'Old Testament') the title is used for Israel as a whole, and for her princes and leaders, but most especially for kings thought to be divinely anointed (ie Messiahs), epitomised by David.

So Mark's initial use of 'Son of God' is profoundly political, to both Jewish and Roman hearers, claiming Jesus' rule over Jew and non-Jew alike.

Later in the prologue there is a more personal introduction to this theme: as Jesus comes up from his baptism, he hears God's affirmation and commission:

"You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

In the first half of Mark's Gospel it is only demons and evil spirits who recognise Jesus as God's son. It is not until the pivot point in the story, at the end of chapter 8 and the beginning of chapter 9, that the disciples begin to grasp that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one. Jesus promptly starts talking about suffering, rejection and death, horrifying Peter.

In chapter 9 God repeats his affirmation of Jesus, this time for Peter, James and John to hear:

"This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"

From then on the road is to Jerusalem, to Golgotha and to the tomb.

At Jesus' trial he is challenged by the High Priest:

"Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?"

"'I am,' said Jesus. 'And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.'" 

Enough for the religious leaders to find Jesus "worthy of death".

Finally, at Jesus' death the centurion on guard exclaims:

"Surely this man was the son of God." 

In Mark (unlike John, say) the use of the title 'Son of God' for Jesus is not explicitly Trinitarian. It is about the rule of God: about God, through Jesus, beginning the process of taking the reigns of political and religious control over the world. Not in a top-down, coercive way, but by being recognised and trusted by ordinary people as Lord and Saviour.

Religious and secular rulers conspired to murder Jesus, ordinary Jews and Romans, even a centurion, trusted in him, By the time Mark wrote this Gospel, Jesus' followers had been suffering unjustly, just as Jesus had suffered.

Now Mark is asking the question of his readers (including you and I): will we follow Jesus, even through hardship, or do we continue in the ways of a corrupt and ultimately doomed society, where might is right and justice makes way for expedience?

What is your choice?

Grey Day Ramblings

Grey, gloomy, damp and chilly. I think I must be letting it get to me.

There is a story that has been floating round Facebook for a few days now about a Muslim family allegedly asking that a Romany Roman Catholic be exhumed because he had been buried in the grave next to one of their relatives.

The story was originally reported by The Hinckley Times, before being picked up by right-wing newspapers and Islamophobic groups around the world.

The Hinckley Times have now pulled the story from their website (it was here). When I looked at it earlier in the week it was a classic 'local news' unresearched story, basically reporting on someone feeling upset about what they thought they had been told, but not bothering to check the story out with any of the officials involved. The mainstream newspapers who had copied the story did their follow-up the next day and promptly printed stories saying that no there would not be an exhumation. It was a non-story.

The local parish council, the officials involved, later put out a statement saying:

"An inaccurate, divisive and inflammatory article printed in The Hinckley Times appeared to indicate that Burbage Parish Council has considered the exhumation of a person recently interred at Burbage Cemetery – this is totally untrue and without foundation."

The underlying fact is that in England parish councils cannot exhume anybody, that can only be done by a direct order from the Home Office, which there was never any prospect of in this case.

It looks as though there was a misunderstanding about the purpose of this particular area of the cemetery, the council tried talking to the people involved, the local press found out and misreported the situation, the bigots and racists picked up their report and ran with it, and people get indignant because they cannot be bothered to check things out for themselves.

On a more religious note, I have been trying to find a commentary on Mark's Gospel which mentions what was going on in the Roman Empire at the time (civil war and chaos, basically). None seem to. It is as if this Gospel just exists in a sort of religious bubble, unrelated to the concerns and fears of those it was written for.

Churches wonder why non-churchgoers find what we do irrelevant to their daily lives. If those who study the Bible - which we claim to be the foundation of our faith - cannot even be bothered to think about how what was written related to the daily lives of those who lived then, what chance is there of any of them bothering to look at how it relates to the real world now.

Mark's Gospel seems to have been written for busy, cosmopolitan, politically aware readers. There are a lot of people like that in Caversham, but nothing to communicate what it says to them/us. Traditional translations, even traditional preaching, are framed as churchey meaningless woffle, without contemporary meaning or content (except for the traditional 'moral' lessons, of course).

What I find most frustrating about this, though, is that I am not clever enough to do it myself. I can adapt and comment on other people's work, but actually clarifying what Mark was saying to people in the midst of civil war and political chaos, then restating that for people living through the economic and political chaos of the beginning of the 21st century, say, is beyond me.

Yet those who are clever enough, and who say they care about what the Bible has to say, seem unwilling to present it as something real, speaking to real people in a real society.

As I say, it's a grey day and I feel grey. Nevertheless, tomorrow is another day, and life is a gift, to be celebrated and enjoyed as best we can. Grace and peace to you, and all you care for.