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: 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: 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.

Life Matters

If a puppy was born with a badly deformed heart, so it was in pain and distress, if it needed a long series of major operations to have even a chance of growing up, most people would sadly take it to the vet to be painlessly put down, I suspect. It would be seen as a mercy.

I have known two babies born with badly deformed hearts. Both suffered pain and distress and went through a long series of major operations, without a great chance of success. So far, both have made it through: they are battlers. In their short lives they have known far more than their fair share of suffering, but they have also known much joy and love.

Should they have been put down at birth, or even before? I suspect most of us would strongly feel they should be given their chance at life, although some high-profile figures might disagree. Somehow life is important and its quality depends on more than just lack of pain and life's significance lies in more than just its length.

Good Friday is a day when Christians remember the suffering and death of Jesus, we believe for the sake of the world, so that all who put their trust in him may have fullness of life, forever.

I think this has relevance to the suffering that goes on in the world; although no way would I claim a complete answer to this venerable question (recently brought up by Stephen Fry and treated by the media as if it were a new thought).

Why do we live in a world where children are born with deformed hearts? I don't know, but I do believe that their lives matter, and that surrounding them with all the love we can matters, and that their parents are heroes who should be celebrated.

Why do we live in such a world? One answer is that God is either incompetent (or at least not omnipotent) or evil. This is slack logic: these may be two options, but they are not the only two. One other that strikes me is that any alternative may be worse.

Why did the parents of these babies allow them to go through such distress? Because they believed that their lives mattered, and they did whatever they could to allow their child every chance to experience life and love and joy. They could have wiped the slate clean and started again, but they chose not to. That individual baby mattered.

Our lives matter to God: that we find love and joy and meaning is, I believe, his priority. Rather than wiping the slate of the world clean, he gave his son to live with us and to die for us, so that we might have every chance to find that love, joy and fulfilment. Every loving parent knows that there is a price to be paid for their love; sometimes that price is hard to bear. God, through Jesus, paid the highest price, because he loves us and because our lives matter to him.

There may be all sorts of other reasons for the suffering in this world. I don't know, I am not God. But I do know that faith is about trust.

I trust that God is good and loving, and that life is in him. And life matters.

Fair Trade Hope

We're currently in the middle of Fairtrade Fortnight. At St John's Church this morning we showed the full version of the Fairtrade Foundation's film showing the difference that Fair Trade makes in people's lives. To the right is the short version; for the longer version click here.

The Anglican lectionary takes no notice of such things: it just ploughs on with an excerpt from the Noah story and a section from Mark's Gospel where Jesus starts to set his face toward Jerusalem and the cross, and warns his followers that suffering is part of their journey.

I think the link between the two is hope. In Old Testament times, following Noah, the rainbow was God's sign of hope to the people of the world. In New Testament times, and all the way through to today, it is Jesus' followers - all of us - who are called to be God's sign of hope to a struggling world.

We are called to be a sign of hope when we go through hardship and suffering, by our trust in God through Jesus even when things are very, very difficult. We are also called to be a sign of hope in our ordinary daily lives, in the things which we value and in the choices which we make. Including our shopping choices, of course

The Fairtrade Foundation's films are very good at showing the practical differences which the extra income from selling Fair Trade goods makes to the daily lives of the poorest communities. But I also think it illustrates how meeting basic needs gives space for hope and for making plans for a better future.

The Big Issue magazine has the motto that it is "a hand up not a handout". It aims to support vendors in their struggles to escape poverty and all that goes with it, by helping them to work their way into a better situation. The same concept underlies Fairtrade and other trade-related groups and campaigns, seeking fair "Trade not Aid". The idea is to provide the poorest communities with a fair income for their wares, allowing them to work their way to a better life.

The Fairtrade foundation do a wonderful job ... as far as they go. They work with primary producers: the growers and agricultural labourers. As far as I know, they don't do anything to move the higher value aspects of trade away from wealthy countries and into poorer ones. Things like processing, packaging, marketing and distribution. The 'added value' areas where the bulk of the money paid by the consumer goes.

A couple of years back I was disappointed to see Good African Coffee - which is processed in Uganda - disappear from Waitrose, although I was pleased - if surprised - to find that I could buy it in Tesco. After Tesco's recent turbulent times it looks as though they are cutting back on their product range, though, as there was no sign of Good African Coffee when I went looking this week. Maybe they can't pay the vast sums which Tesco are said to demand for a visible shelf position.

Looking at their website I get the impression that Good African Coffee are running out of steam. But I do hope they they have been pioneers of a process which will see fairer trade overall between rich and poor nations. Fair trade in primary agricultural and mineral production, but also fairer trade in processing, distributing and marketing of products.

In many ways the reality of that depends upon us, the consumers. If we use our spending power to encourage fair trade, to bring hope rather than exploitation, to provide a hand up rather than just responding to appeals for a handout, then we can change the lives of so many for the better.

Wouldn't that be a useful change to make over your Lent 2015?

Edit:  Oops. It turns out that it was part of the Abraham story rather than Noah in this week's lectionary. No wonder people looked confused when I talked about rainbows this morning!

Lives After Them

"The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." —Shakespeare

My last post looked at evil and grace from the angle that Jesus gives a way back for those who have made bad choices - he has paid the price to redeem the souls they have sold, if you like. The other side of the coin is dealing with the mess and pain which evil leaves behind.

Shakespeare's quote above is mostly intended to be about reputation, I suspect - slightly odd-sounding today given our culture's supposed reluctance to 'speak ill of the dead.' Nevertheless it is all too true in the sense that the consequences of evil for those impacted will often last far longer than the deeds themselves.

Ruanda, Bosnia, and South Africa all still bear the scars of evil, open wounds often, as do the victims of Jimmy Saville, and of the gangs in Rochester and elsewhere, and of the abusers in children's homes and orphanages, and of all the abusive family members and 'friends' who make children's lives hell. The evil lives on in damaged bodies, shattered trust and ruined lives.

Good lives on too, but it always seems so much more fragile.

As is often said: it is quicker and easier to destroy than it is to build up.

In the long term the Bible is clear that this will be reversed: those affected by evil will be healed, cleansed and comforted by God Himself. It also says that all good that is done for Jesus will have lasting impact, however small and fragile that good may seem.

I heard a loud voice shout from the throne:
God’s home is now with his people. He will live with them, and they will be his own. Yes, God will make his home among his people. He will wipe all tears from their eyes, and there will be no more death, suffering, crying, or pain. These things of the past are gone forever.

In the meantime there is work to do for God's people. We are called to be the hands and hearts and feet and voices of Jesus in the world. Our task is to do what we can to show God's Kingdom here on earth 'as it is in heaven'. Jesus said that the key marks of his ministry were:

The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

Jesus came to reverse the effects of evil, to transform sickness to health, and to bring fullness of life to all - that is now the task of his followers, in all our weakness and vulnerability. Like Jesus:

“The Lord’s Spirit has come to us,
because he has chosen us
to tell the good news to the poor.
The Lord has sent us to announce freedom
for prisoners,
to give sight to the blind,
to free everyone who suffers,
and to say, ‘This is the year the Lord has chosen.’”

Where there is evil, pain and injustice, there you will also find followers of Jesus working, in their small way, to bring comfort and healing. Because Jesus comes to those in need; and often that's through his faithful people.