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.

That Farmer Again

Jesus told another parable about a farmer being apparently downright perverse. In this case it was a farmer who refused to let his wheat field be weeded, in case any wheat plants were pulled up by mistake. Yet surely if you allow weeds to grow amongst wheat they will steal the nutrients and crowd the wheat out, so what on earth is he playing at?

Jesus then told them this story:
The kingdom of heaven is like what happened when a farmer scattered good seed in a field. But while everyone was sleeping, an enemy came and scattered weed seeds in the field and then left. When the plants came up and began to ripen, the farmer’s servants could see the weeds. The servants came and asked, “Sir, didn’t you scatter good seed in your field? Where did these weeds come from?”
“An enemy did this,” he replied. His servants then asked, “Do you want us to go out and pull up the weeds?”
“No!” he answered. “You might also pull up the wheat. Leave the weeds alone until harvest time. Then I’ll tell my workers to gather the weeds and tie them up and burn them. But I’ll have them store the wheat in my barn.”

'Weeds' is a remarkably unhelpful translation here; it is very likely that the Greek word zizanion refers to darnel ryegrass, Lolium temulentum. This is also known as poison ryegrass, because it is commonly infected with poisonous symbiotic fungi, Neotyphodium. There is a factsheet on darnel ryegrass on the BioNET-EAFRINET website which advises:

Lolium temulentum is a weed of wheat farmlands. Even a few grains of this plant will adversely affect crop quality. Its seeds are poisonous to people and livestock. It is very difficult to separate the seeds of L. temulentum from those of wheat and other small grain crops as they are similar in size and weight. L. temulentum can be a host to a variety of crop pests and diseases.

If prevention is no longer possible, it is best to treat the weed infestations when they are small to prevent them from establishing (early detection and rapid response). Controlling the weed before it seeds will reduce future problems.

Although they then add:

Hand weeding can control this species although this is difficult to undertake early because of the resemblance between this weed and the infested wheat crops.

So maybe the farmer isn't being quite so daft after all; he just needs to make sure he gets his timing right.

The parable isn't about grasses though, it's about people. In particular it is about telling the difference between those people who are beneficial and those who are poisonous. It is not always easy to tell the difference.

Religious groups have a nasty habit of trying to make the distinction based on their own prejudices, traditions and rules - mostly equating to "are they like us" - but God waits for people to show their true colours. Sometimes this means getting the timing right - see the Bible story of Zaccheus - sometimes it means being able to see below the surface - see the story of Simon the Pharisee - and sometimes it is about not excluding people because of superficial matters - see the story of the Ethiopian eunuch.

The promise is that at 'the end of the age' there will be a cleansing. Those who prove themselves to be poisonous will be removed, along with all causes of harm, and those who prove to be wholesome will be welcomed into God's Kingdom, to 'shine like the sun' in a renewed world where there will be no more crying and no more pain, but God himself will comfort them.

The Wolf Will Reside With The Lamb by Loulou13

Church Going?

Not Church ... just a building

I was not brought up in church: my parents were not churchgoers. I was brought up agnostic, which hardened to atheism in my teens, and I only came to faith after I was 21.

In Caversham churches, at least, this seems to be very much a minority position. Most churchgoers here seem to have grown up going to church. Likewise, these days, most non-churchgoers have never regularly been to church, and have had little exposure to church culture.

It makes a difference. I’ve been actively involved in churches for more than 30 years now, but I still find a lot of what goes on there alien and alienating. The somewhat separatist culture, the fixation on rules, what John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford, calls the ‘sacred-secular divide’ – the idea that what goes on inside church buildings and church structures is, somehow, more special to God than what goes on outside. Then there’s the weird time-warps: 19th-century, 17th-century, medieval – some of it can convey a rootedness in worshipping history, but most of it is little more than anachronistic escapism, it seems to me.

Not to mention the way many churches obsess about sex and about controlling people’s private lives (not so much at St John’s, where I now worship, to be fair, but definitely at other Caversham churches), very much contrary to Jesus’ own attitudes. In fact that’s an important issue: the rather obvious gap between the words, attitudes and actions of Jesus, on the one hand, and the words, attitudes and actions of those who claim to follow him, on the other.

So, when people say – as they do – that they are spiritual but not religious, I can see where they are coming from. When people say they admire and respect Jesus, but are not interested in institutional religion, I can relate to that. And when people say that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian, it is undeniably true – a basic knowledge of British church history covers that, albeit with a twist.

And yet ... and yet ... it is also true that from the beginning, following Jesus was something to be done in company, in a supportive community of fellow-followers. A mixture of very different people, sharing joys and sorrows. The blind supporting the lame, whilst the lame guides the blind. People who can bring God’s comfort when God Himself seems far off – he’s not, but when life gives us a kicking then He can seem that way. A hand, a kindly word, a listening ear ... in some US churches there is a tradition of taking food around to someone who is going through a rough time: practical, kindly and comforting. Also, the reality is that we are here to make a difference, and that is so much easier when we work together, rather than alone.

So, yes it is true that you don’t have to be part of a church to follow Jesus – I know people who do just that; but they are better, stronger men and women than I. But when it comes to Christian community, like it or not, institutional churches are the only show in town ... at least here in Caversham.