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As if the cleansing of the Temple, which we heard about last week, wasn't enough, now Jesus is saying that God has withdrawn his protection from his Temple.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