Mark 2:23-3:6 (Year B May 29-June 4) contains two segments that I will consider separately.
Mark 2:23-28 is a pronouncement story concerning plucking corn on the Sabbath. Jesus and his disciples pluck corn on the Sabbath, which sets the story in April-June, when the corn was ripe. The Pharisees who observed this action viewed it as an infringement of the third commandment regarding observing the Sabbath by no work, for which they had basis in Exo 34:21. Strict Sabbath observation was and is one of the great identifying features of Judaism. However, Jesus shifts the focus from the injunction against doing work on the Sabbath to a concern for those in need and those who are hungry by referring to I Sam 21 and its account of David and his troops having a personal need that overrode legal requirements. The episode concludes with a stern, even harsh, warning for the Pharisees. His interpretation of the creation account in Gen 1-2:4 is that the Sabbath serves the needs of humanity and is not just a sign of the identity of the Jewish people. The Sabbath hints at the need of humanity to express gratitude and exhibit trust. Jesus then affirms that the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath, suggesting that his actions on the Sabbath humanizes the Sabbath.
Mark 3:1-6 is a story of a healing and a pronouncement on the Sabbath. An episode involved the approach of a man with a withered hand to him on a Sabbath. Jesus asks the Pharisees if it is lawful to do good and save life on the Sabbath, to which Jews everywhere would respond that it is. Mark stresses the spiritual obtuseness and the desire to abide by the letter of the Torah of those gathered by stressing the silence of the Pharisees. In I Kings 13:4-6, Jeroboam stretches out his hand against the man of God at the altar and his hand withered. The king asks the man of God to have his hand restored, so the man of God prayed, and God restored the hand of the king to what it was before. Jesus commands the man to stretch out his withered hand the man receives healing. In verse 6, the episode ends with the dark cloud of death that will hang over the ministry of Jesus, as the Pharisees conspire with those who are agents of Herod to conspire to destroy Jesus.
Mark 3:20-35 (Year B June 5-11) has incidents of the strain in relationships Jesus had with his family and with the scribes. Behind the concern of these incidents is the honor and shame culture in which Jesus lived. The fact that Jesus ‑‑ a commoner outside the boundaries of the scribal tradition or Pharisaic authority ‑‑ had publicly amazed people with his mastery of Scripture, his healings and his exorcisms had gained him honor. In the eyes of the scribes, this gain meant that they had lost honor and had shame heaped upon them instead. The only accepted method of redistributing the shame/honor scales was through public confrontation. [1]
In Mark 3:20-21, a passage unique to Mark, shows the fears of the family of Jesus. They fear for the honor of the family name because of the rumors regarding Jesus. They show concern for us person while failing to understand his mission. Those who thought they knew him best and longest could not comprehend all the stir and turmoil that followed him. Their concern was that rumor was that Jesus had lost his sanity.
Mark 3:22-30, also in Matthew and Luke, is a pronouncement and sayings on Jesus and Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. The pronouncement replies to the charge by scribes from Jerusalem that Jesus exorcized demons by the power of Satan. The controversy arose with the exorcism of a dumb demon. The rise in honor Jesus experienced meant its decline among the scribes. His response to the charge draws from proverbial wisdom and subtle irony. He invites them to ponder the question of how Satan can cast out Satan. The principle from which he argues is that a kingdom or house divided against itself cannot stand. Thus, if Satan rises against Satan or is divided, then Satan cannot stand, but rather, the end of Satan has come. The irony involved is that if what the scribes is true, than Satan is ending the work of Satan through the deeds of Jesus. Is that what they want to say? [2] Jesus viewed himself as being in a battle with the devil. He then raises the issue of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. He stresses the universality of the forgiveness of sin, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is a different matter. The issue arises because the scribes accused Jesus of having an unclean spirit. The point Jesus is making is that his mighty acts are the work of the Holy Spirit. [3] Forgiveness of sin is a primary theme of the gospel. This sin is a perversion of spirit in which one calls light darkness. Attributing charitable acts, such as exorcism, to Satan, would be such blasphemy. There is great moral danger in getting to this point. He emphasizes that the Spirit has a function at the final judgment.[4] We do not read that Jesus is angry. Rather, Jesus has nothing more to say to those who think and speak in this way. He simply draws attention to this sin. If they have fallen into it, they have done so through their actions.[5]
Mark 3:31-35 is a pronouncement on the true family of Jesus. Here the issue of kinship and blood loyalty makes honor an even more crucial commodity. The flagrantly dis‑honorable action of one family member could bring shame and dishonor on the entire kinship unit. Because one's most basic identity lay with the group, the family, threatening the honored status of the group put all members at risk. The family of Jesus is physically and metaphorically outside the crowd that is around Jesus. His mother, brothers, and sisters, want to talk with him. This behavior prompts Jesus to reflect upon the nature of kinship. Those who do the will of God are his brother, sister, and mother. The natural bond created by a blood relation recedes in favor of the spiritual ties that bind people to each other through their commitment to do the will of God.
Mark 4:26-34 (Year B June 12-18) has two parables that focus upon the mysterious nature of growth.
Mark 4:26-29 is a parable of the seed growing by itself unique to Mark. The parable contributes to our understanding of the identity of Jesus (Christology), the bringing in of the rule of God (theology), and the path of proper discipleship (instruction). The first stage of the coming rule of God is someone scattering seed on the ground, sleeping and awakening night and day. The second stage of the rule of the God is that the seed sprouts and grow, and the person who scatters the seed does not know how the seed matures, but he waits patiently. The mystery surrounding its growth stresses that God is responsible for the growth. In the third stage of the rule of God, the parable stresses that the earth produces the transformation from a seed to a plant to a crop in the field. The point is the progressive and unchecked growth and development of the seed. This growth is a gift of God for which the sower must patiently wait. This growth includes fruitfulness, for as it exits it enlarges its own circle. In the fourth stage, typical of the language of the Jewish apocalyptic of the period, borrowed from Joel 3:13, when the grain is ripe, the sower brings the sickle, because the harvest has come. The rule of God is already present in the ministry of Jesus, moving toward the speedy arrive of the rule of God symbolized in the harvest. The sower notices the ripe fruit and begins the harvest. Woven throughout this cycle is the presence of the farmer. The farmer sows the seed, waits for its growth, and finally, at the correct time, harvests the crop. The contrast between the action of the farmer at the beginning and end on the one hand and the seed growing secretly on the other is at the heart of the parable. The parable contrasts what seed and earth do apart from the minor work of people. The farmer acts only at the beginning and end; the seed grows without the farmer being aware of it, and it produces grain on its own, without the farmer’s help. Only at the end, at harvest time, does the farmer re-enter the picture with his sickle. It contrasts how little humanity contributes to the harvest compared with what the earth contributes. It stresses the duty of the farmer to be obedient and have confidence that in the scattering of the seed will be its maturing in ways the farmer does not know, and that the full grain will one day appear.
Mark 4:30-32 (Q =Luke 13:18-29) is a parable concerning the mustard seed. The proverbial smallness of the mustard seed is a surprising metaphor of the rule of God, which is usually associated with images with greatness. The weed was an annual shrub that would grow from two to six feet tall. One could cultivate them for spices.[6] In unusual cases, it might get 9 to 15 feet high, so “tree” might be appropriate. The distinctiveness of Jesus at this point shows itself in the image of the rule of God as a shrub rather than the mighty cedar or oak. The arrogance to which the image appeals in Daniel gives way to the modest affair of the rule of God as proclaimed by Jesus. It offers little by way of earthly reward, and thus contrasted his view of the rule of God from the typical hope human beings have for greatness. The rule of God is inconspicuous, growing in its ability to provide shelter for others.[7] It reveals the nature of the rule of God, stressing the ability of God to bring in the rule of God from tiny and insignificant beginnings. The rule of God is already present. People already seek its shelter. They are willing to do so, even though it remains a large shrub. Jesus may offer a parody of the noble cedar that we find in Ezekiel 17:22-23. The Lord will take a sprig or break off a tender twig from the top of the mighty cedar and plant it on a high mountain. It will produce fruit and become a noble cedar where every kind of bird will live in its shade. We find a similar image in Daniel 4:10-12. Nebuchadnezzar sees a great tree at the center of the earth. All nations could see it. It was beautiful, its fruit abundant, and it provided food for all. Animals found shade, birds nested in it, and from it all living beings found their food. In this case, However, he also saw the tree cut down. For us to think of this as a parody, we need to think of Jesus as engaging in some type of scholarly discussion with the scribes and Pharisees. We might even think of apocalyptic literature as supporting such a majestic image for the rule of God. In that context, this image of a mustard seed growing to become foot high weed is surprising and challenging. We might think of Jesus as saying something like this. So, you think the rule of God is coming with majesty? Maybe not. It will come in the form of a seed that grows to become a troublesome weed. The image of the rule of God as an insignificant but annoying weed is not one of the most appealing.
In Mark 4:33-34, Mark underlines that the parable was a primary means of communication of Jesus to the crowds, while he also explained what his teaching to his disciples in private. We as readers are part of the uncomprehending crowd. You can have some fun with parables. You can figure out new ways to interpret them and apply them to new situations. Parables engage us and entice us into their world. Jesus let the listener make the Good News become his or her own story and experience. We become part of a new parable, the parable of our lives. You add a chapter to the Gospel story. What chapter did you add to your gospel this week? How did the parables act out in your life witness to the Good News?
Mark 4:35-41 (Year B June 19-25) is the story of a miracle involving the calming of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. However, some scholars suggest that we properly read the story as an epiphany, a moment that reveals the divine identity of Jesus. The story has clear parallels with Jonah 1:5-6, as both Jonah and Jesus fall asleep during a storm and the travelling companions of both awaken them. Yet, the contrast is just as important. Jonah is in this position because he is running from God. Jesus is in this position because, although he needed rest from an exhausting day, he is fulfilling the purpose of God in serving the rule of God. The story declares the sovereignty of Jesus over nature and Satan. It calls for faith in God as creator and sustainer of nature. Understanding the Old Testament images of raging waters is important. This passage draws on traditional imagery used by the Israelites to speak of God's divine power over nature. The power to control the seas and subdue storms belongs to God. The Lord is the one who rules the raging of the sea so that when its waves rise, the Lord still them (Psalm 89:8-9). The Lord has more majesty than mighty waters and the waves of the sea (Psalm 93:3-4). Controlling the seas also conjures up God's divine action in the Exodus, as the Lord rebukes the Red Sea so that it becomes dry like a desert (Psalm 106:9). Storms become metaphors for evil forces active in the world, evil forces from which only God can save. The Psalmist can God to save him, for the waters have come up to his neck, while he has come into deep waters and floods sweep over him, so that his petition is that God rescue him from deep waters and for God not to allow the flood to swallow him (Psalm 69:1-2, 14-15). Thus, the stormy sea in Mark 4:37 is much more than an uncontrollable, unpredictable action of nature. The sea is a malevolent expression of the power of a destructive force that stalks the created world. A human life is full of the storms of life. Evil and chaos can seem overwhelming. The little boats we build may seem all right when the sea is calm. However, if the storm rages, the structures we have built are no longer sufficient.
I'd better change my wandrin' ways,
I know I've seen my better days,
Always gettin' high when I get low
Well, I left my soul out in the rain,
Lord, what a price I've had to pay
The storms of life are washin' me away.[8]
The peace of the eternal God is revealed in this story to be in Jesus, so trust or faith is the proper response of a disciple. Throughout the Old Testament, sleep is also an important image. The gift of being able to sleep untroubled and peacefully is a sign that one can trust in God's power. The sleep such a person is sweet, for the Lord will be the confidence of such a person (Proverbs 3:23-26). Likewise, when it appeared that God had lost interest in the people, they assumed that God had ceased to watch over them and was asleep. When the people were distressed and troubled, they would call upon God to awaken, fearing that the Lord is asleep (Psalm 44:23-26). These two Old Testament images powerfully overlap with Jesus' sleeping as the storm rages around the frightened disciples. Jesus is asleep, at peace in the care of the Father, as the waves toss the boat about in a frightening and dangerous way. His faith in God's power to keep him safe remains strong, unlike the panicked disciples. There is an ancient Near Eastern tradition of recognizing that sleep and rest are in fact divine characteristics, activities gained by divine right, not signs of human weakness. In Genesis, as well as in a number of other creation myths from neighboring Near Eastern cultures, the all‑powerful Creator‑God acknowledges the completion of the creative impulse by resting (see Genesis 2:2). Resting is clearly a divine prerogative. Indeed, in Genesis, God's gift of the Sabbath to created men and women indicates the elevated status of these human beings. Like God, the Sabbath commandment calls them to observe a time of rest.[9]
Jesus uses the same command to still the sea as he does to squelch the upstart demon in Mark 1:25 ("Be silent"). Neither the demonic storm at sea nor the nagging demon in the synagogue has any power to threaten this divine Jesus. Jesus deals with both swiftly ‑‑ almost as if they were no more than an annoyance. As one possessed of all‑powerful divinity, Jesus can sleep amid the raging sea because his Father in heaven has already conquered it. Jesus muzzles the hostile powers of wind and sea and makes them powerless to harm the disciples. Jesus silences a demonic storm, operating with what can only be the full authority of God. The great calm that occurs after Jesus' command reflects God's power over the waters of chaos, which had risen to cover the mountains, but now reside in their divinely appointed boundaries (Psalm 104:5-9). Such notions lead to a portrayal of Jesus as the one whom God has invested with divine authority and one who has control of demonic forces. We can see the close topological relation to the exorcism and healing genre in the vocabulary Jesus used. However, Jesus’ control over these destructive, life-threatening forces is not merely an expression of sheer power. When his frightened disciples so rudely rouse the sleeping Jesus, Jesus turns to this watery demon and conquers it ‑‑ not with action, but simply with a word. A genuinely divine rebuke is enough to slap the sea back into submission.
I am looking at this story as having two messages. One is the nature of discipleship as placing our trust in Jesus. Two is the revelation of the identity of Jesus. We learn of these twin messages through two important questions asked in the passage. The early church saw itself in this story. The challenges and difficulties of life can be like a storm that causes them to fear. However, since Jesus is in the ship, the ship cannot go down, the situation is not too much, and the living presence of Jesus is enough to assure them of all this. [10]
The first question unlocks the message of this story. It comes from Jesus: why are they afraid? He speculates that they still have no faith. They have behaved in a cowardly fashion, even as they will at the end, when they abandon Jesus. His messaged has urged hearer to believe the gospel (1:15), but have those closest to him not yet responded to that call?
The second question comes from the disciples: who is Jesus, that even the wind and the sea obey him? This question focuses on the identity of Jesus. Here is the question Mark wants to answer throughout his gospel. Now they are shocked at the man who holds power over the demonic forces of nature.
John Wesley lost his nerve while crossing the Atlantic. Wesley grew anxious during the storm, while the Moravians were unperturbed by the winds and waves. What made those Moravians so peaceful in the face of the tempest? He may well have an example that the punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.[11] As Teresa of Avila put it, everything in human experience passes, but the faithfulness of the love of God toward us does not change. We need patience, of course. We might attain a level of spirituality in which we realize that if we trust in God, we lack nothing we need for that moment. God alone is enough. As chaotic, destructive, and storm a human life can be, all of which can lead to anxiety, we will not find much growth toward health, wholeness, and meaningfulness without learning to trust. The saint is one who manages to find God in a life filled with noise, the demands of the people, and the relentless storms of life.
Mark 5:21-43 (Year B June 26-July 2) contains two stories that invite us to contrast the characters involved, consider the role of faith in both, and note the compassionate response of Jesus to the desperation of both. This section includes two separate pericopes that are interwoven in a typically Markan manner. This was a way of intentionally building tension to highlight the theological themes of Mark. We properly read them together because they throw light upon each other. Interweaving healing stories reveals a deeper truth they would not have if told independently.
Mark could not have put together two people that are more different if he had tried. Mark refers to Jairus by name, identifies him by status, and he appears as powerful and persuasive. Moreover, Jairus as leader of the synagogue plays a significant role in the life of the Jewish community. Yet a common experience binds these two diverse individuals together: They are both utterly desperate, and they both come to Jesus as their last and only hope. Although Mark introduces Jairus in verse 22 as a significant member of society, Mark pushes aside his personal significance just as Mark pushes aside his story right off the pages by the determination of the nameless, powerless, bleeding woman.
Another reason to think Mark has brought these healing stories together is that both stories highlight the importance of touch. In the first significant work of human psychology, the “De Anima,” Aristotle pronounced touch the most universal of the senses. Even when we are asleep, we are susceptible to changes in temperature and noise. Our bodies are always “on.” Touch is the most intelligent sense, Aristotle explained, because it is the most sensitive. When we touch someone or something we are exposed to what we touch. We are responsive to others because we are constantly in touch with them. “Touch knows differences.” It is the source of our most basic power to discriminate. The thin-skinned person is sensitive and intelligent; the thick-skinned, coarse, and ignorant. Think of Odysseus and the Cyclops, Jacob and Esau. Aristotle was challenging the dominant prejudice of his time, one he himself embraced in earlier works. The Platonic doctrine of the Academy held that sight was the highest sense because it is the most distant and mediated; hence most theoretical, holding things at bay, mastering meaning from above. Aristotle insisted that flesh was not just some material organ but a complex mediating membrane that accounts for our primary sensings and evaluations. Savoring is wisdom; in Latin, wisdom is “sapientia,” from “sapere,” to taste. These carnal senses make us human by keeping us in touch with things, by responding to people’s pain — as when the disguised Odysseus (whose name can be translated as “bearer of pain,”), returning to Ithaca, is recognized by his nursemaid, Eurycleia, at the touch of his childhood scar. Aristotle did not win this battle of ideas. The Platonists prevailed and the Western universe became a system governed by “the soul’s eye.” Sight came to dominate the hierarchy of the senses and was quickly deemed the appropriate ally of theoretical ideas. Western philosophy thus sprang from a dualism between the intellectual senses, crowned by sight, and the lower “animal” senses, stigmatized by touch. And Western theology — though heralding the Christian message of Incarnation (“word made flesh”) — all too often confirmed the injurious dichotomy with its anti-carnal doctrines. …[12]
Mark 5:21-24, 35-43 is a story of the miracle of the raising of the daughter of Jairus. Despite his importance, Jairus becomes nothing more than a desperate father. When people from home arrive with the message that his daughter is dead, Jesus urges him not to fear, a response death often evokes, but only believe. This will be a story of faith finding that Jesus is its sufficient resource. Jesus touches the girl by taking her by the hand. It includes the Aramaic words he used, which means, “Little girl, get up!” We rightly pause to ponder this scene. Old woman, get up. Young man. The one you do not know how you will ever manage to live without. The one with whom you do not know how you ever managed to live. The reality of God confronts the reality of death. Which will prove to be the greater and true reality? Jesus can see how the decision will go. His solitary No to death, in the power of his solitary Yes to the omnipotent mercy of God, is the reason for his severity in that house of death. When Jesus enters this house, it can no longer be a house of death.[13] Little girl, “Get up,” he says. The other use of funerals is to remind us of those two words. When those who gather sing the last hymn, the minister offers the benediction, and the immediate family escorted out a side door, they may be the best way we have to make it possible to get up ourselves.[14] However, the story concludes with Jesus ordering witnesses to be silent about it. The text shows awareness of the regard the work of Jesus evoked that is the basis for the post-Easter affirmation of divine sonship. Jesus is aware of the ambivalence into which his message thrust him. [15] Jesus is aware that this family needs to return to normalcy, the daughter returning to her childhood and the parents to return to the responsibilities of everyday life.
Mark 5:25-34 is a story of healing of the woman with hemorrhage. This story interrupts the Jairus story, emphasizing that she is the opposite of the respectable man, for she is a woman alone, ritually unclean for twelve years and therefore without the spiritual resources of the community learning and worship (Lev 15:25-27), she is without a name, and poor because physicians were unable to help her. She assumes that healing will come through touch, which is a sign of her faith. She feels the healing power of Jesus before he says a word to her. many in the crowd brushed against Jesus, but this woman did so with faith. Jesus acknowledges her faith exhibited in her touch. Her faith is the conviction that resources are present to meet the needs of this moment. Despite the challenges of her situation, she has faith. As a daughter of Israel, she will be restored to the learning and worshipping community. The story raises the question of faith in a highly personal way. Do you or do you not believe that you have the resources you need to face the challenges of your life as a follower of Jesus?
Mark 6:1-13 (Year B July 3-9) contains two stories of Jesus that give us an opportunity to reflect upon travelling light in this world. They also raise the entire question of how we deal with the inevitable failures of life.
Mark 6:1-6a (Matthew 13:53-58 and Luke 4:14-30, indirect in John 4:44) is a story of the rejection of Jesus at Nazareth and the effect it had on him. His teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath led to astonishment as a reaction among many, a response like that of the scribes in 3:22, leading them to ask questions like where he got it and the wisdom he has received and the deeds of power his hands are doing and pondering if this is this is the craftsman who made yokes, plows, and other instruments for farm and home. This question stresses the ordinary quality of his occupation. Such a skill carried with it some local social status, as paid him well. They also ask if he is the son of Mary, who also has James, Joses, Judas, and Simon for brothers, and some sisters as well. This stresses the ordinary quality of his lineage. We now learn that the questions derive from a hostile place, for they are the result of taking offense at him. They think Jesus is trying to elevate himself above his ordinary station in life, becoming a basis for rejecting his message. The response of Jesus is the proverbial wisdom observation that prophets have honor, but not in their hometown or in their family. This rejection was the reason Jesus laid his hands on a few of the sick, a reference to an action of Jesus that accompanies healing, and cured them, but could do no need of power there. The rejection of the message he preached led to a limit on his healing.[16] Jesus did what was possible, what circumstances would allow, rather than do all that he wanted to do. Yet, it was Jesus’ turn to be amazed, but at their unbelief, the absence of faith surprising him.
Mark 6:6b-13 (Matthew 10:5–15; Luke 9:1–6) is the story of the missionary call of the disciples. The mission of the disciples is an extension of the preaching ministry of Jesus. The early church rooted its own missionary activity in the mission charge of Jesus. The mission charge suggests urgency and hostility.
First, Jesus has called the disciples. Jesus has chosen them for a particular ministry.
Second, their mission is communal. Jesus began to send them out two by two. This assures the validity of their witness (Deuteronomy 17:6) and shows their own participation in a community of faith.
Third, as Jesus himself has healed and exorcised, Jesus gave them authority over the unclean spirits. They go in the name of Jesus, doing what Jesus commands them to do, not what they think their mission is. They do not possess independent authority but go only with the authority Jesus gives them.
Fourth, as Jesus himself engaged in an itinerant ministry that relied upon the hospitality of others, Jesus invites the disciples to do the same. They are to be utterly dependent upon the hospitality of others. He gives them a mandate to travel light. 8 Jesus ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. Similarities with the Cynic pattern here is one of similar social manners, not just rhetoric. Let us consider their prohibition of the use of money. Diogenes Laeterius: "Diocles relates how Diogenes persuaded Crates to give up his property to sheep-pasture, and throw into the sea any money he had." Similarly Monimus, after deciding to follow Diogenes: "straight off pretended to be mad and easy flinging away the small change and all the money on the banker's table, until his master dismissed him; and he immediately devoted himself to Diogenes." Julian described Diogenes as "Cityless, homeless, a man without a country, owning not an obol, not a drachma, not even a household slave." Other statements: "if all the gold, all the silver, all the copper should give but, I would not be injured in the least." "... are you not afraid of the money? ... For by no means does money always profit those who have gotten it; but people have suffered many more injuries and more evils from money than from poverty, particularly when they lacked sense." Cynic teachers could also prohibit the use of the beggars’ bag under certain circumstances, even though usually, it was part of their property. Paul’s refusal to accept compensation shows how concerned he was that his message remains credible. This was undoubtedly a common proverb, based on the laws of hospitality in the ancient Near East. The dress code, and what they are to take or not to take, is not an issue of asceticism. Rather, Jesus is instructing the disciples to learn to be at home among strangers. The itinerant ministry to which Jesus commissions his disciples bears little resemblance to the settled ministries that arose in Christian centers within a generation or two after Jesus' death. One of the distinguishing characteristics of Paul's ministry, in fact, was its itinerant nature, and the establishment of settled Christian communities with resident leaders is already clearly visible in Paul's correspondence (e.g., Romans 16; 1 Corinthians 16). Indeed, the nucleus of such settled Christian communities may perhaps be discerned in the households of Peter (Matthew 8:14-15), Mary, Martha and Lazarus (John 11-12), and perhaps Jairus (whose daughter is raised just before the sending out of the disciples, Matthew 9:18-26). Those most directly affected by Jesus' ministry would be most likely to preserve and spread the account of that ministry.
Fifth, as Jesus himself has received welcome and rejection, the disciples can expect the same. 10 Jesus said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. A vague, simple instruction. When you stop, stay put. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” They can expect to have a similar reception to the one Jesus just received. Where people receive and embrace the gospel, disciples are to remain; where people reject the gospel, they are to move on. He orders his traveling disciples to create quickly a home base while they are staying in one locale. He prepares them for the inevitable moments of frustration and failure they will encounter. The disciples’ foot-shaking would communicate official separation from a relationship between the household or village and the disciples. By leaving a place with such a symbolic finality, the disciples were proclaiming threat the inhabitants and leaving them to the judgment of God. The symbolic gesture depicted here responds negatively to an entire community's unwillingness to receive the missionaries. When faced with civic rejection, and I will show you how foolish all this is disparagement of those who refused to receive them. Some scholars think of this as an example of humor. Rabbis said the dust of the heathen was polluting. However, this view seems far removed from Jesus, who rejected the concept that ritual impurity could result from contact with lepers, or the dead, or gentiles. Yet, Jesus’ inauguration of a “sacrament of failure” does not send the disciples out to fail. His order includes instructions for how to carry on in the face of failure. Hospitality was important in missionary preaching. Shaking the dust off implies they are heathen. It is not a curse. It is a testimony intended to provoke thought. This text concludes by offering a sharp contrast between the environment of faith and the environment of skepticism and rejection. The text is obviously saying something to contemporary disciples, sent out by Jesus into an often-rejecting world. Even though he gave them authority, he does not promise his apostles success or enthusiastic reception. The evangelist is to be so committed to the story that the listeners’ response is not the sole validation for the telling of the story. There is a time to reach out and intrude, relentlessly pursuing and persuading. Then there is a time to shake the dust off our feet and move on. Even as Jesus was amazed at the unbelief and rejection by his own people, he moved on to other villages. He encourages his disciples not to linger among those who do not believe, but to move on as well.
As much as the Christian tradition values the virtue of perseverance, is there also faithfulness in letting go? Could we express our faithlessness by persevering and refusing to let go? Could there ever be a time when the loving thing, the faithful thing is to shake the dust off your feet and move on? There is grace in going the second mile with someone. Nevertheless, there is also grace in knowing when to let go. Parents worry about children in their thirties. Teachers work with their students. Sometimes, we let go so that God can come. In other words, Jesus means that the grace of letting go comes after all other reasonable efforts have failed. Disciples do not give up lightly. We say, "There, I've done all I can do. Now, let God take you."
Christians can learn to forgive themselves and others, and not be afraid to lead "error embracing" lives. We must know when it is time to blow the dust off, roll up our sleeves and start working; and when it is time to shake the dust off, redirect our energies and go on our way. Jesus knew there was a time to get down to work and time to get out and get on.
We need a sacrament of failure. Just as there are ways to live that teach the world about Christ, there are also ways to fail that are uniquely Christian. People do not like to hear they are going to have to face failure in life. There is nothing like momentary successes to make anyone’s fear of failure grow exponentially. As servants of our calling, we must fight against the almost pathological desire and expectation to have everyone like us.
We need to learn to handle failure and defeat gracefully. We can get back on our feet. We can take a break, put our lives and hold, and do something fun. Defeat or failure is not the end of the world. We can find a friend with whom to talk. We need to remember that we have this one life to lead. It will be better for us to dare mighty and glorious things, even though it will mean failure will be part of our lives. It will be a poor life if we neither enjoy nor suffer much because we have known neither victory nor defeat.[17] Our lives will end. We ought to fear far more that our lives will never truly begin because of our fear to fail.[18]
The thrust of this passage for all who would follow Jesus and be sent forth by him is this — being laborers in the harvest is not about what they do for Jesus, but what Jesus does for and through them. Jesus authors the capacity for laborers to be faithful in carrying out the tasks he sets before them. Jesus does not empower those he sends forth to avoid, but rather to face head-on the challenges and even suffering that accompany laboring in the harvest. Laborers are called and prepared for the harvest by the one who has compassion for the flayed and wounded. Thus, laborers are empowered to endure suffering through the harvest.
This may seem daunting. Who really wants to take this kind of call?
However, how can it be any other way? The time is full with the coming of the reign of heaven, and the harvest is at hand. This is good news, but not necessarily easy news. For the imagery of the harvest concerns the unsettling reality of old dispensations being undercut and uprooted on the way to being transformed according to God’s purposes for a new heaven and new earth.
The result of the missionary charge, offered in summary fashion because the Mark wants us to focus upon how Jesus prepared them, was that the disciples proclaimed to all persons that they should repent, the same message as John the Baptist, and cast out many demons, and anointed with oil the sick, becoming a biblical basis for the Council of Trent to urge the continuation of unction as a sacrament. The title “Christ” refers to the Anointed One. In that sense, every time the church anoints someone it refers us to the mystery of Christ. The anointing of the sick becomes a sign referring to this mystery.[19] Jesus sent the disciples to do the same he had done, to preach the message of repentance and actualize his message.[20] These activities demonstrate how the rule of God is already in their midst and that it is still on its way.
Mark 6:14-29 (Year B July 10-16) deals with the death of John the Baptist by Herod, tetrarch who ruled Galilee and Perea (4 BC – 39 AD). This story is between the sending out of the Twelve in 6:7-13 and the return of the Twelve in 6:30-32, an example of the tendency of Mark to use intercalation. Mark is making a point in separating one story into two parts by inserting a quite different story. In this case, his point is that the fate of John the Baptist foreshadows the fates of Jesus and those who follow him.[21] John the Baptist prepares the way of the Lord not only in announcing Jesus' ministry but also prepares the way in announcing his fate, one like his own fate -- death. At some point in the ministry of Jesus, Herod placed John in prison and executed him. Jesus preached in the district around Tyre and Decapolis. The flashback to the death of John occurs in the context of Herod wondering who Jesus is, some speculating Elijah, who was viewed by many Jews to return and usher in the day of the Lord (Mal 3:1-2, 4:5-6), or a prophet who would restore others to life. Such speculations suggest that many Jews thought of John as one like a prophet of the Old Testament. However, Herod thinks Jesus is John resurrected, an interesting notion, but the re-embodiment of a dead person in someone else is different from an eschatological resurrection of the dead and transformation into a life that is vastly different from a human life on this earth.[22] Historical difficulties with the account by Mark arise because of the account by Josephus, in which Herod arrested John because he was suspicious of his popularity among the Jews and imprisoned him in the castle Macherus for two years, at the end of which Herod had him executed.[23] The description of the reaction of Herod to the preaching of John as perplexity is not what John wanted. He wanted repentance. The parties of Herod were legendary. The portrayal of Herod as being incapable of doing what he knows to be wrong foreshadows Pilate. The fact that the body of John was placed in a tomb by his disciples may serve as a contrast to the disciples after the death of Jesus. The point is that tyrants do not treat well those who speak the truth to them. Mark has a realistic view of what disciples of Jesus can expect.Tyrants naturally have concern for the stability of their rule since they do not rule justly. Among the reasons that the consent of the people is so important in modern political systems is that the hope is that people will not vote in favor of tyranny.
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 (Year B July 17-23) contain two summaries of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee.
Mark 6:30-34 is a story about Jesus concerning the return of the disciples. In context, it appears that when Herod arrested John the Baptist, Jesus went to Galilee. The summary suggests that the purpose of the journey to Galilee was to escape attention by being out of the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas. It highlights the importance of time away from our main tasks and the people who are close. Times of personal renewal need to be built into the lives of disciples. The apostles, rather than the usual disciples, is because they have returned from their mission as those sent by Jesus, those who operate in the name of and under the authority of another. Those sent by Jesus gathered around him to report what they had done, their healing (6:13) and what they had taught, their proclamation of the message of repentance (6:12). Since there was no leisure because so many people were coming and going, Jesus knows the apostles need physical rest, so he has them come to a deserted place to rest. Implausible as it sounds, they went by boat four miles to the west or northwest side of the Sea of Galilee, while many saw this and hurried on foot ten miles and arrived ahead of him. The crowd seems desperate, and when Jesus sees them, inviting us as readers to see the same thing, he had compassion (to suffer with), a spontaneous and emotional affection, for them. Such a response involves entering the lives of others when they open their lives to us, which is what these crowds have done in pursuing Jesus and the disciples so vigorously. Jesus internalized their condition, suffered with them, and took their burden upon himself. Jesus was not having a calculating and rational response, but an open hearted one. He allowed the situation of the crowd to affect him. He did not isolate himself from them. In having this response, Jesus becomes a model to the apostles for how they are to respond to the crowds, who are like sheep without a shepherd, so he began to teach them, which was the heart of the ministry of Jesus. Moses asks the Lord to appoint someone over the congregation so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep without a shepherd (Numbers 27:17). The prophet Micaiah saw Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep who have no shepherd (I Kings 22:17/II Chronicles 18:16). Ezekiel notes that with no shepherd, the people scattered (Ezekiel 34:5).[24] Thus, Mark highlights Jesus’ linkage to ancient Hebrew leaders by identifying his role with that of a good shepherd.
Mark 6:53-56 is a summary of healings at Gennesaret, showing his to be a peripatetic ministry. Gennesaret was three square miles of fertile plain along the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee, a freshwater lake 12.5 miles long and 7 miles wide. Classical sources know the lake as an abundant source of fish, and the thriving fishing industry. His parabolic wisdom and his power to heal formed the basis of the public ministry of Jesus and the core of his proclamation of the rule of God, although this summary focuses upon his healing power.
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (Year B August 28-September 3) are selections from two discussions of the Law. The binding character of Jewish oral traditions must have been a real issue for the first decades of the church. Jesus will expand the issue involved to the way adherence to oral Tradition and Torah establishes a boundary between the people of God and those outside Torah that inhibits their witness. Rejection of kosher rules and other purification rituals takes away the observable outward markers that separate Jews from their Gentile neighbors. It would have been in line with the prophetic tradition for Jesus to insist that ethical life is as important as purity laws. Jesus took the argument a step further, however, challenging the essential nature of kosher as holiness and the ethical. In verse 19, Mark offers an editorial comment: “(Thus he declared all foods clean).” The kosher diet[25] must no longer be a barrier to table fellowship with non-Jews. Mark agrees with Luke (Acts 10:9-16) and Paul (Romans 14) that Jesus and the earliest Christian communities believed in the removal of such obstacles to building community with Gentiles. While the Pharisees and scribes began with a question about following “the tradition of the elders,” there is a deeper question: Will the table be a place where they maintain boundaries? Alternatively, will the table be a place where they will welcome outsiders? His comment about all foods being clean is really an example of taking something from the life of Jesus and applying it in a different context. Although Christianity began within the Jewish community, by the time Mark wrote his gospel, it had expanded well beyond Jews into the Gentile world. The early church had to wrestle with the issue of how much of Jewish practice was to be required of Gentile Christians, and what they produced was “not much” (see Acts 15). In fact, kosher practices sometimes made it difficult for table fellowship to happen in the early church when both Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles were present. Thus, Mark took this story of Jesus’ comments about what defiled a person and “sermonized” on it. His parenthetical remark implied something like: "Even Jesus recognized that keeping kosher without the accompanying holiness of heart was pointless. Therefore, we should not allow differing dietary practices to divide us in the church now.” In this incident, Jesus wasn’t out to “kill” kosher practices, but instead, he identified what is truly kosher. What is truly kosher, as Lev 20:25 makes clear, is to be holy to the Lord, set apart for God’s purposes.
In verses 1-8 is a pronouncement story concerning the oral tradition regarding the subject of the ritual washing of hands. The incident occurs in Galilee. It occurs in the marketplace as Jesus encounters the Pharisees and scribes. Jesus seeks human contact with the sick and unclean in the town square; the Pharisees and scribes, on the other hand, adhere to purity laws. Even as the disciples gathered around Jesus after their mission (6:30), the Pharisees and scribes gather around Jesus, although this gathering is for a confrontation. They challenge the behavior of the disciples. Earlier, he and his disciples were eating with the wrong people, thereby not respecting food laws and separating Jew from Gentile (2:15-17). They eat at the wrong time, without regard for the ritual practice of fasting (2:18-20). They eat food gathered in the wrong way with work on the Sabbath, thereby breaking Torah (2:23-28). In this case, they were eating without the ritual washing of hands, and thus, with defiled hands. Mark explains for the benefit of Gentile readers that for the Pharisees and the common practice of the Jews wa not to eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands. This was a tradition of the elders. Nor do they eat anything from the market unless they wash it. He then stresses other traditions regarding washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. The tone of this explanation is hostile, not just informative. Such rituals were part of the hedge Torah creates that separate Jew from Gentile. Thus, the question up for discussion, offered in a confronting way, as if an interrogation, is why the disciples do not live according to the tradition of the elders by eating with defiled hands. The question relates to the daily practices and habits of the disciples, not just their one-time failure to wash properly. His response begins with a short, pithy saying from Isa 29:13, using the wording of the LXX, although the point is the same in the Hebrew text as well, that this people honors the Lord with their lips, but their hearts are far from the Lord, so in vain do the worship the Lord, teaching human precept as doctrines. This saying supports the early church in suggested that the Old Testament anticipated the movement Jesus began. Jesus then applies the saying to the present setting by accusing them of abandoning the commandments of God and holding to human tradition. The point here is that oral tradition moves against divine intention. Here is a place where the various denomination traditions need to exercise care of falling under the same condemnation. The danger is that in the act of human transmission people will evade the Word of God. If the human subject rejects and invalidates the Word for the tradition, another betrayal of Jesus occurs.[26]
In verses 14-15 are sayings regarding purity laws that focus on clean and unclean foods. The reference to Isa 29:13 will be crucial here as well. Reaffirming that the context is the marketplace, the scene shifts to Jesus calling the crowds to listen to him. Nothing outside a person will define, but the things that come out are what defile. In terms of our understanding of the spread of disease, this is not true. Airborne viruses and bacteria introduced by our hands to the mouth or eyes can introduce disease from outside a person and defile our bodies. Apart from diseases that may be genetically inherited, disease visits us through the germs we inhale, bodily fluids we exchange with someone else, the smoke we breathe, the toxins we ingest and so on. The most effective way to avoid colds and flu is to rigorously wash one’s hands. However, in the context of the first century, the Pharisees that if their hands were clean in the sense of adhering to the traditions of the elders, God would consider them righteous. For Jesus, right standing with God was a matter of the heart. What defiles is that which comes from within us, from our hearts, from our very essence and nature. Such a saying is an aphorism that challenges the laws governing pollution and purity. It can apply to other forms of pollution. It challenges the everyday, the inherited, the established, and erases social boundaries taken to be sacrosanct. In saying that nothing taken into the mouth that can defile, he undermined a whole way of life. We can understand the verse following the pattern found in Hosea 6:6, where the Lord desire steadfast love rather than sacrifice and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea was not calling for abolishing the sacrificial system, but that ritual subordinate itself to ethics. What Jesus is saying is that what really defiles people is not what they eat, but what they do. Since one need not take the saying in a literal fashion, one can also apply it to other forms of pollution, as Mark has explained. It challenges the everyday, the inherited, the established, and erases social boundaries taken to the sacrosanct. If Jesus taught that there is nothing taken into the mouth that can define, he was undermining a whole way of life. Jesus is abrogating the Law concerning clean and unclean meats. He returns to the theme of eating and impurity, but not to the Pharisees’ original question. While the previous conversation focused on the replacement of God’s commandments by human traditions, here Jesus focuses on the food laws themselves. In Lev 11:43-44, we read: “You shall not make yourselves detestable with any creature that swarms; you shall not defile yourselves with them, and so become unclean. For I am the LORD your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” The laws of purity were an essential feature of Israel’s piety. Jesus’ statement, therefore, is a radical notion. However, he responds in the tradition of the prophets that challenges the practice of ritual through the practice of ethics.
In verses 21-23, Jesus has shifted a home with the disciples. The list of sins is Pauline, suggesting that it is from the center of one’s life that evil comes, thereby defiling oneself and others. Thus, the inner thoughts of people are the source of evil intentions, which then form behaviors like fornication (any sex outside marriage), theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness (any sex not included in the first two references to sex), envy, slander, pride, and folly. The focus upon sexuality was a typical Jewish concern of the first century. Jesus had a traditional Jewish view of marriage. Mark 10:1-9 is his clearest statement. The central teaching is that sex belongs only in a lifelong one-flesh relationship between a man and a woman. Jesus endorses only celibacy and committed heterosexual marriage. Thus, on sexual matters, Jesus and the Essenes have stringent standards and prohibitions. His views were those of mainstream Judaism. We need affirmation from those of the same gender that comes in a non-sexual way.[27] Such evil things begin in the heart and when they come forth in behavior defile a person.
Mark 7:24-37 (Year B September 4-10) contain two healing stories that illustrate our need for honesty about our condition, humility regarding our abilities, and faith in Jesus. Yet, each story disturbs most readers.
Verses 24-30 contain the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman and the healing of her daughter. We will see a pattern of honesty as to her condition, humility regarding her ability to change it, and faith in the power of Jesus. The story assumes the cure. Mark often has cures associated with contact or a commanding word, so the procedure here is unusual. The story easily rubs readers in the wrong way. The primary interest of the story is the attitude of Jesus toward Gentiles. The way it approaches this theme is disturbing to us. Healing stories are supposed to impress as the divine power reveals itself. This story does not measure up. Jesus is outside his usual Galilean haunts. The attitude of Jesus seems as discordant as is his new location. Though Mark’s gospel may preserve what seems like a harsh statement of Jewish primacy in God’s favor, Mark also records the good news going to the Gentiles. Jesus leaves Galilee and goes to Lebanon, biblical Phoenicia, foreign and unclean territory for Torah. The movement from Jewish Galilee to Gentile Tyre occurs with the background of socioeconomic tension involving food grown in Galilee and disbursed in the markets of Tyre.[28] If much of scholarship is right about the dating of this gospel during the Jewish War (66-73), tension between Jew and Gentile is even higher. Tyrian Gentiles killed and imprisoned many Galilean Jews.[29] In any case, Jesus seems to want to get away from the place is well known. We can identify with him in that desire. Being in a place where people do not recognize you can be restful. The first thing he does here is to enter a private house to keep his presence in that place from public knowledge. He wants rest. Even in this culturally distant region, he could not escape notice. Thus, when a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard Jesus was there, she bowed at his feet as a sign of respect. She is aware of her need, and she exudes faith in Jesus. She is honest and genuine about her situation and condition. The focus shifts suddenly from her faith to her identity. She was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician origin. Yet, the concern of Jesus was not so much with ritual purity. He was open to the non-conforming elements of Israel. He would have had regular contact with Gentiles in Galilee. The Jesus we know who ate with tax collectors and sinners and told the parable of the Good Samaritan would not seem likely to make such a statement seriously. Jesus did not view himself as forming a remnant in contrast with Israel. His movement was open to Israel as a whole.[30] The danger is that this encounter will lead to moral uncleanness. Zeal for ritual purity here, in the guise of doing what is right, could lead to much that would be wrong. She begs Jesus to cast out the demon, identifying the unclean spirit mentioned earlier with the demon. The response of Jesus seems curt, cold and cutting. Jesus seems unresponsive to anything besides this woman’s ethnic and religious identity. Here is the heart of the difficulty we have in reading in this story. Yet, what if the exchange went something like the following.[31] Jesus may have looked at his Jewish disciples and referred to the children of Israel receiving food, and then looking at the woman, before offering food the Gentile house dogs. Jesus may be ironic here. Is she just a dog? Jesus may want to see a response of faith in this woman. Jesus may want to teach a lesson to his disciples. Jesus may have had a smile, as if chiding those in the room to consider whether the woman really is what Jewish attitudes say she is. Jews could refer to Gentiles as dogs and themselves as children of God. Jesus may be inviting her to engage him in some intellectual banter. He may have looked at the woman and said it in a way that made her feel acknowledged as a person. Thus, if Jesus is engaging in teasing banter or sparring, then his comment that she is like a puppy is an invitation to be his sparring partner. He is honoring her with this invitation, for rabbinical sparring is a role explicitly denied to women in that time. The response of the woman suggests the validity of this interpretation when she accepts the invitation to an intellectual sparring match by saying that even the domestic dogs under the table eat the crumbs left by the children. The woman is in a lengthy line of biblical examples of those who engage God in a debate. I think of Hannah (I Samuel 1), Abraham (Genesis 18), Jacob (Genesis 32), Moses (Exodus 3-4), Gideon (Judges 6), and the book of Habakkuk, as part of the biblical background for such an interpretation of this exchange. It makes one wonder what would have happened had Noah had the argumentative spirit of this woman and the other biblical cases. That she would not only speak out but also cleverly and incautiously talk back to this man Jesus while asking for his help is even more outrageous. If this is the case, then the woman is not beating Jesus in this verbal contest of wits so much as rising to the challenge Jesus has given her.Jesus teasingly insulted her by calling her a dog, and she twisted the reference to place herself among those who would be part of God’s eschatological banquet. Thus, the second quality we see in the woman is humility. She had a humble spirit. Jesus may be testing her faith and setting jup a chance to level the playing field between the Jews and Gentiles, like eliminating the distinction between clean and unclean foods in the previous chapter. She might be a cultural dog, but she will gladly accept that position if it means receiving the food she seeks. Such humility opens the door for the reception of great gifts and graces. Even if Jesus humiliated her, her humble response meant that grace and honor were on the way. Because she engaged him in this intellectual sparring match and showed Jesus how clever she was, she exhibited the faith that led Jesus to pronounce that the demon had left her daughter. The woman responds faithfully by returning home and finding her daughter on her bed and the demon gone.
Verses 31-37 contains the story of healing of the deaf man. The story easily rubs readers the wrong way. Jesus returns to the familiar territory od Decapolis, near the Sea of Galilee. The first approach by the deaf man is with the help of the crowd. It demonstrates honesty as he understands the need he has. He needs help. He has clarity regarding about his condition and situation. Jesus isolated the man from the crowd, put his fingers into his ears, and spit and touched his tongue. In contrast to most of the healing stories in the New Testament, this healing is a hands-on affair as Jesus put his fingers into his ears, spit, touched the tongue, looked to heaven, indicating the source of his power, sighed, and uttered the words “be opened,” which opened his ears and his tongue released so he could speak. Jesus ordered him to tell no one, showing that Jesus was aware of the ambivalence into which his message thrust him and that he tried to counteract it.[32]Neither the man healed, nor the crowd could obey this order of Jesus, as they zealously proclaimed what happened. They were astounded and part of their proclamation was that Jesus had done everything well, making the deaf hear and the mute speak. That being the reputation of Jesus, it can lead us to ponder what the reputation of the people of God have today. They recognize the power of Jesus and articulate their faith. The healed tongue will not stop running! Ironically, their disobedience to Jesus’ request shows how much faith they have in him.
Mark 8-10 contain texts that focus on appropriate models of discipleship. The journey motif is prevalent.
Mark 8:27-38 (Year B September 11-17) contains a story of the profession of faith by Peter, the first prophecy of the passion in Mark and a group of sayings around theme of loyalty in following Jesus. Gospel of Thomas 13:1-8 and John 1:35-42, 6:66-69 contain similar scenes.
Verses 27-30 provides the background for the profession of faith by Peter. The historical probability that those following Jesus as disciples and those interested enough to be part of the crowd wondered who Jesus was. The disciples would not have left everything if some form of this profession of faith were not true. The focus of the story Mark is telling shifts from what he does to who he is. The issue now, an question that has been behind all the activity recorded by Mark, is the issue of who he is, his identity. Who is this man who can issue the command, “Come, follow me,” and people do so immediately (1:18, 20)? The unclean spirits know who Jesus is (1:24; 5:7). The prologue of Mark (1:1-13) lets us as readers know who Jesus is. However, as Mark tells the story, the disciples and others curious about Jesus must learn who he is. Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man (2:10, 28). King Herod wonders who he is, speculating he might be John the Baptist come back from the dead (6:14-16). So far in the story, the disciples have only given him the title of teacher (4:38). When Jesus fed the crowd of 5,000 and the 4,000 (6:30-44, 8:1-10) and when Jesus walked across the water (6:45-52), Mark provides a revelatory moment of who Jesus is. His healing of the Gentile girl (7:24-37) and his healing of the blind man (8:22-26) were significant enough to stimulate the question of his identity.
The story occurs in Caesarea Philippi, 25 miles from Bethsaida, an area known for its many temples, especially for one devoted to Pan. [33] The Cave of Pan is at the foot of Mount Hermon, north of the Golan Heights. Greek and Roman myth identified it as one of the entrances to Hades, though the other caves are in Greece. This move may have separated the disciples from the crowds, providing them an opportunity to talk. Jesus has made it made it clear that the disciples do yet understand (8:21). Along the way, Jesus initiates the question of who people say he is with his disciples. They provide three answers, already mentioned (6:14-16): John the Baptist, suggesting they thought of him like a prophet of the Old Testament, the prophet Elijah, who was viewed by many Jews to return and usher in the day of the Lord (Mal 3:1-2, 4:5-6), or one like the prophets of the Old Testament who would restore fidelity to the Lord and revive the people of God. Such a report is complimentary of Jesus, but, considering the end of the story of Jesus, they are incomplete. The next question of Jesus reveals a hope, as he asks them, who do you say that I am? The disciples should know that there is something more in Jesus than the complimentary titles suggest. Peter answers for the disciples: You are the Messiah (Χριστός), the Christ, the Anointed One. This affirmation becomes a model for others. The tension in the story Mark is telling has built to this climax. Mark will focus upon the fulfillment of the messianic mission of Jesus as he moves toward cross and resurrection. We can see the geographical symbolism as Jesus from the northerly point of the travels of Jesus high among the mountains to the southern mountain on which Jerusalem rests.[34] Peter provides an example of the difference between affirming one’s faith within the fellowship of believers and confessing one’s faith in the presence of those who may oppose that confession. This affirmation of faith in the presence of the disciples will contrast sharply with the words and actions of Peter at the arrest of Jesus, where he could have confessed his faith in the presence of others.[35]
These verses have parallels in other passages. In John 6:66-69, many disciples turned away from Jesus because of the difficulty of his teaching. Jesus asked the twelve if they also wished to turn away from following, but Simon Peter said they had no one else to whom to turn, for he had the words of eternal life. “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” In John 11:25-27, Jesus informs Mary, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Mary responds, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” The gospel of Thomas 13 has an unusual exchange that will contrast the special relationship Thomas had with Jesus versus the relationship the other twelve had with Jesus. Clearly, this passage disparages Peter and Matthew and elevates Thomas. It comes from a time when Gnostic believers were making clear their distinction from the apostolic churches.
Peter’s astonishing declaration also opens the door for even more profound misconceptions. He will have significance only as he embraces the path of suffering that Jesus will follow.[36] The title harkens back to the Jewish understanding of “the Anointed One” — one who had been anointed by God for a special purpose. In the Old Testament, one sees this primarily in relation to kings and priests and carries the connotation that not only has God chosen the person, but God has also empowered the person. It can refer to the anointing of Aaron and his sons (Exodus 29:21), the anointing by the Lord of Saul (I Samuel 10:1, 6), David (I Samuel 16:13), and the anointing by the Lord of the prophet (Isaiah 61:1). It was a title of honor and majesty. A warrior prince would conduct a crusade that would liberate the nation and lift Jerusalem to eminence for the entire world to see. The anointed one anticipated the triumph of Israel over its foes. “God’s Messiah” was the name of the prince in the Psalms of Solomon (50 BC). Jewish people welcome him as a conquering hero.[37] Yes, Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, but this messiahship brings a salvation radically different than anyone had expected. Given the misconceptions possible here, it is understandable that Jesus tells them to tell no one of the truth of this affirmation. Mark shows the regard the disciples and the crowds had for the word and work of Jesus that would lead to the post-Easter confession of faith in Jesus. Mark has also, through the theme of the messianic secret, as Jesus commands silence, that Jesus was aware of the ambivalence into which his message thrust him, given the political dimension of the title, and that he tried to counteract it.[38]
Some would argue that such a Christ-centered affirmation of faith is nothing more than the theological counterpart of geo-centrism in cosmology. It represents an anachronistic absolutizing of our own contingent place in the scheme of things. Thus, the center of our religious history is also the sole hope of salvation for the rest of humanity. The history of world religion teaches us that while there are high points, an absolute center does not exist.[39] Yet, ever since Peter makes this affirmation of faith, the church understands its uniqueness in this way. What makes Christians who they are is Jesus. If God had given the church a book, it might become a noble philosophy of life or a system of virtues. What the church has instead is one who came in Jewish flesh and through whom God saves. He was the son of a Jewish carpenter, he lived briefly, he died violently at 30, and he unexpectedly rose from the dead. The church believes it has seen as much of God that it hopes to see in this life. Even in his own time, especially, the identity of Jesus was hardly self-evident. Some believed or hoped he was the promised Messiah and eventually believed he was God come to humanity in the flesh. Others thought he was crazy. Since the time of Jesus, many others have undertaken to identify Jesus. H. S. Reimarus (1691-1768) said Jesus was a Jewish revolutionary figure who died a disappointed failure. David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74) showed how this was the case by removing the miraculous elements of the Gospels. Ernest Renan (1823-92) offered a romantic picture of Jesus as a strange, sweet, spirited poet and a great moral teacher and example. H. J. Holtzmann (1832-1910) portrayed Jesus as a teacher of timeless ethical truth. Johannes Weiss (1863-1914) returned attention to the kingdom of God as an apocalyptic, end of the world notion that ended in a disappointed Jesus. Albert Switzer would agree with this assessment. The question for us, of course, is the decision we make regarding Jesus. Such scholars ought to remind us that our images of Jesus will often reflect our aspirations. Yet, Jesus keeps breaking free of our limited images.[40]
The church tradition has developed far more complex affirmations of faith than we see from Peter. The Council of Chalcedon in 431 adopted its creed. The creed defines that Christ is “acknowledged in two natures,” which “come together into one person and one hypostasis.” The formal definition of “two natures” in Christ sides with Western and Antiochene Christology and diverges from the teaching of Cyril of Alexandria, who always stressed that Christ is “one.” Regarding the person of Christ and the Hypostatic union, Chalcedonian Creed affirmed the notion that Christ is “One Person,” having “One Hypostasis.” The creed states explicitly the Christological notions of “One Person” (monoprosopic — having one prosopon / Greek term for “person”) and “One Hypostasis” (monohypostatic — having one hypostasis) to emphasize the Council’s anti-Nestorian positions.
The incomprehensible and ineffable nature of ultimate reality will make sure many persons will hesitate to accept such a claim. After all, it seems arrogant to claim one religious description of reality as superior to rival descriptions. Further, no tradition can claim exclusive rights to the means of salvation. Many Christians, desiring not to give offense, will back away from the uniqueness of the saving work of Christ. Yet, the affirmation of this nonexclusive particularity of salvation in Christ may well be the condition for genuine respect from others.[41]
Mark 8:31-33 is the first prophecy of the passion. Mark has provided the reader with a summary of his understanding of the gospel message, reflecting the belief of Jesus that the Son of Man, the Messiah, must suffer like the suffering servant in II Isaiah. Considering the hostility of Jewish leaders, the suffering reflected in II Isaiah and by the prophet Jeremiah and even by Elijah, as well as the arrest and death of John the Baptist, it would be surprising if Jesus did not consider this potential for his own fate. The suffering servant passages, as well as Psalm 22, contain the exaltation of the one suffering, which Jesus would have communicated to his disciples. However, the details of the prophecy reflect the preaching of the post-Easter church. As Mark understands the gospel message, the Son of Man must suffering from the religious establishment, kill him, and stating briefly that the Father would raise him from the dead.
Paul in I Corinthians 15:3-4 wrote a summary of the core beliefs he received, undoubtedly soon after his conversion, which would have been about three years after the death of Jesus. It contains a summary that relates the death of Christ for our sins “in accordance with the scripture,” and of God raising him to life “in accordance with the scripture.” Luke uses similar terms. In Acts 2:23-24, Jesus the Nazarene received death through the power of the Jewish leaders and the foreknowledge of God, crucifying him through Gentile powers, but God raising him to life, freeing him from Hades, for Hades did not have the power to hold him. In Acts 3:15, Peter again says that they killed the prince of life, but God raised him from the dead. In Acts 3:18, God said through the prophets that the Christ would suffer. In Acts 13:27-31, Paul relates that the people of Jerusalem and their rulers fulfilled the prophets. Jesus was innocent, but they condemned him and asked Pilate to have him put to death. They carried out scripture foretold. Then, they took him down from the tree and buried him in a tomb. However, God raised him from the dead. He appeared to his companions, and they became witnesses. The summary shows that Mark knew the two steps of Paul. Therefore, Mark composed a gospel climaxing with the cross and the promise of resurrection. The early tradition behind the passion story seems simply to have recognized the divine necessity of the innocent suffering and death of Jesus in fulfillment of the prophetic testimonies of scripture, a view we find here. This early tradition contrasts with later theological interpretations that give the death of Jesus an expiatory significance.[42] However, this view of the death of Jesus corresponds well with Galatians 5:2, which says that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. Much of historical scholarship would not think of Jesus as making crucifixion the goal of his message and ministry.[43]
Jesus saying such things that were so contrary to Jewish expectations of the time regarding the Son of Man and the Messiah leads Peter to rebuke Jesus. He challenges the authority of Jesus as he expresses a harsh truth. Thus, Jesus rebukes Peter and reasserting his authority in these matters, inviting Peter to accept his role as a disciple, and refers to Peter to as Satan. The temptation Jesus experienced in the wilderness after his baptism has returned in the person of Peter. The all-too-human concerns of Peter and in sharp contrast with the divine necessity Jesus has expressed. Jesus knew he could not skip the hard part of his path as he understood the will of God. In Peter we can see that the way of Jesus is confusing to us. The temptation is always present to think in an ill-informed and earthly way, the way human beings usually think of things, rather than from the perspective of eternity. Peter represents us all in that we keep experiencing this temptation. The disciples will show that they do not get it (9:10, 32; 10:24, 35-45).
Mark 8:34-38 is a collection of sayings around the theme of following Christ. They have to do with loyalty and fidelity by the followers of Jesus when faced with circumstances that call for courage and sacrifice. We learn some hard lessons about discipleship here. Yes, salvation is free and a gift. Yet, discipleship will cost you your life.[44] At this point, it becomes quite clear that theology is necessary to make preaching as hard for the preacher as it must be.[45] I will not try to soften the blow. What Jesus now says is that just as their perception of the Messiah needs to change, so does their perception of faithfully of the Messiah need to change. Having spoken to the disciples about his identity, he will now share them their identity as disciples and the cost of following him. This instruction occurs while they are on the way to Jerusalem. They are on the way to the cross. This road is one that every group of disciples in every generation must walk.[46] Jesus called them to follow him, and Jesus defines a discipleship that has the cross in its sights. The sayings provide the conditions for following Jesus.
First, Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and their self-centered concerns. The first condition we need to meet to follow Jesus is to deny the self. Though denying oneself is language we find psychologically familiar today, this was an odd phrase for both the Hebraic and Aramaic ear to hear. The concept of a freestanding "self" was unknown in that ancient Near Eastern culture. Thus, instead of using this text as evidence of an early martyr-complex, it would be more accurate to think along family lines and kinship ties. In that culture, any life of an individual did not define the self. Rather, relationship within the family group defined the self. This kinship group controlled the individual, gave identity, and maintained the world within which the individual existed. Thus, the demand of Jesus is radical, something like saying, "Give up your world." Give up the human family that defines you, and instead make Jesus your only family, your only reference point for authority and guidance. The challenge here is that to follow Jesus, one simply must renounce, withdraw, and annul, any existing relationship of obedience and loyalty, namely, to oneself. Self-denial in the context of following Jesus involves a step into the open, into the freedom of a definite decision and act, in which it is with a real commitment that people take leave of themselves, the person of yesterday, of the people they were. They give up their previous form of existence. What matters now is not the self, but to follow Jesus, regardless of the cost.[47]
Further, disciples must take up their cross. The second condition to follow Jesus relates to the cross. This statement pulls the individual even farther away from the safety of the family unit. The cross was a familiar form of public execution by the Romans, designed to keep conquered people submissive. The insistence of Jesus that a potential disciple must not only deny all old familiar ties but must be prepared to suffer horribly because of their identity as a disciple is unprecedented. After two millennia of "cross" imagery, our senses are not as shocked by this reference, as listeners to Jesus must have been. The pain, brutality, and degradation of a death by crucifixion ‑‑ including the spirit‑stripping practice of making the condemned "take up his cross" on this final death march to the execution site ‑‑ was a torture reserved for only the most despised of state criminals. Yet this is the very image Jesus chooses to represent as the fate of his most devoted disciples. This means that each disciple has a cross to take up, rather than to fear, hate, avoid, evade, or escape the affliction that falls on the disciple. Discipleship becomes a matter of each Christian carrying one’s own cross, suffering one’s own affliction, bearing the definite limitation of death that in one form or another falls on one’s own existence.[48] Paul said he died self every day (I Corinthians 15:30). Jesus is already suggesting that to follow him means co-crucifixion, a theme we find in Paul as he refers to his own crucifixion so that his life is a matter of Christ living in and through him (Galatians 2:19-20). Thus, it pulls individuals even further away from the safety of a self that the kinship group defines. We need to find our cross, that for which we will spend our lives for the sake of the calling God has issued. Many people have discovered joy and happiness in life only when they chose to die to the selfish pursuit of happiness. They have found joy in discovering a mission that will require sacrifice for something grand and meaningful. Discipleship is a matter of forming a new identity in the destiny of Jesus. The bearing of your cross is the consequence of the special calling and sending we receive from God. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross, so the disciple follows in that destiny.[49] Just as following Jesus means denial, so also it means death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said in his Cost of Discipleship, that when Christ calls us, he bids us to come to him and die. Thomas à Kempis wrote,
In the Cross is salvation;
in the Cross is life;
in the Cross is protection against our enemies;
in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness;
in the Cross is strength of mind;
in the Cross is joy of spirit;
in the Cross is excellence of virtue;
in the Cross is perfection of holiness.
There is no salvation of soul,
nor hope of eternal life,
save in the Cross. (The Inner Life)
"If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you"
(The Imitation of Christ, 2.12.5).
Jesus then offers the invitation to follow me. The third condition is to follow Jesus. In context, Peter must be the first to do this, of course. Yet, the way of the cross was for the multitudes and not just for the disciples. To follow Christ involves denial of self in the sense of yielding freely to this total service and therefore refusal to save their lives for themselves. Jesus lays out requirements for discipleship that go far beyond any usual conversion practices. Jewish proselytes had to decide to accept Jewish faith and law freely, willingly rejecting old pagan relationships and acquaintances. The focus on discipleship is identification with the destiny of Jesus. Mark makes clear that Christology and discipleship are inseparable, and that the way of Jesus to the cross is also the way the disciple must follow.[50] Such a saying is hard because we want to avoid suffering. Yet, we forget how intimately love and suffering are connected. You cannot love a dog without experiencing the suffering involved in putting the dog down at the end of its life. To avoid suffering is to cut ourselves off from the one thing that eases it, which is the love we share for others and the love others share with us. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering. When we know that the way of love, this exodus, this going out of oneself, is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others and becomes more human. People who have consistently avoided suffering do not understand other people. They become hard and selfish. We have no literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy. We have only moral answers. Yes, in the face of suffering at the hands of other human beings we may despair. Yet, hope also comes from other human beings. [51]
The next saying (also in Luke 17:33) is a paradoxical secular proverb. Those who save their lives (psyche, life, soul, self) will lose it, while those who live their lives for the sake of following Jesus and for the sake of the gospel will save them. We cannot have fullness of life by preserving a life defined by the past. We can see here the supreme value of the soul or the true self. We cannot put a price on it. Setting aside our definition of the self will lead to happiness and real living. Such a life is meaningful. As the Prayer of Saint Francis puts it, “For it is in dying to self, that we are born to eternal life.” When we choose the self, we lose what we seek.[52] We renounce the self in favor of Jesus.[53] If we concern ourselves with the self in our practice of discipleship, we will miss the very thing discipleship offers. You will achieve the desire of your heart as a follower of Jesus if you lose your focus upon the self.[54] The first person to live out this pattern was Jesus. Jesus saved his life at the cost of proclaiming his message of the rule of God. Had he saved his life, he would have made himself independent of God. He would not have been the Son by an unending finite existence. Jesus chose an earthly existence consumed in divine service. He did not cling to his life. He showed obedience to the mission, regardless of the consequences.[55] Yet, we might also ponder the matter of personal identity that animates every individual life. We have a natural desire for self-preservation. We recognize the hint of truth in the saying that to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.[56] How can one save one’s life by losing it? “Soul,” meaning even if death is the result, the disciples has preserved the true self. Such renunciation is in favor of the living Lord, Jesus Christ.[57] This claim is the form of the Gospel, of the promise of the free grace of God by which alone human beings can live, but by which one may live in the full sense of the term.[58] In a sense, by choosing oneself, one loses what one seeks, becoming supremely non-human. To do so is to give oneself to the pride that is the heart of human behavior.[59]
Jesus offers another proverbial or secular wisdom in the form of a rhetorical question. What would it profit anyone to gain the entire world and forfeit one’s life? What will you give in return for your life? It would be a bad exchange. The point of the question is to deepen our understanding and appreciation for the value of the self. One can only offer one’s life in response to the gift of life. Adolf Harnack thought with good reason that he had found a Magna Carta of the message of the infinite value of every human soul.[60] Our devotion needs to be to the people and tasks of our lives to find life. Much of modern notions of self find their critique here. Many parts of psychology have faith in the pursuit of selfhood as we form our identity. Yet, excessive focusing on our identity is a deformation of the theme of a human life. The goods and tasks of our lives and our openness to God need to be primary and therefore the source of our identity. We can see a parallel in Plato as he suggested that the upright and good are happy, while the pursuit of happiness for its own sake is egocentric and leads us astray. Only those who seek the good for its own sake will find happiness and identity (Gorgias 491bff, especially 506c.7ff and 470e.9f).[61]
The notion of denying self is difficult for many people in the West today. I think the difficulty arises from at least two fronts. One is that we have learned how fascinating self is. Whether in spiritual formation or in psychology, we explore the richness and fullness of the self. Two is that studies in addictive and co-dependent behavior have taught us that too often we get ourselves in relationships in which we sacrifice ourselves for no redemptive purpose. Each of these insights makes us justly suspicious of any call to self-denial. However, if we focus too much upon self, if we protect self too much, if we seek security in self, we open ourselves to the possibility of losing who we are? I understand it seems paradoxical. Yet, focusing on saving our lives may well derive from fear. Losing ourselves may well arise out of faith. A large part of learning what you really want in life is learning what you are willing to give up getting it.[62] We may find our purpose in life as we take up the symbol of punishment, the cross. We may find our true self as we lose ourselves in following Jesus.
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr has a wonderful prayer with this theme.
O Lord, who has taught us that to gain the whole world and to lose our souls is great folly, grant us the grace so to lose ourselves that we may truly find ourselves anew in the life of grace, and so to forget ourselves that we may be remembered in your kingdom.
The section concludes with a sentence of holy law (verse 38 = Matthew 10:32-33 and Luke 12:8-9). The final eschatological scene offered here by Jesus reminds his listeners that whatever choice they make, for Jesus or against him, there will be consequences. He raises the issue of shame. In a saying influenced by Daniel 7:13-14, if we have shame before our contemporaries, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he enters the glory of the Father and the angels. Such a saying stands at the beginning of Christian confession. It refers to publicly taking sides in a conflict, in this case, the conflict relating to the message and person of Jesus.[63] Jesus becomes the head of the elect community. Holy law promised definite eschatological ramifications to the fulfillment of human actions. It offers strength and solace to first century followers of Jesus. Here, Jesus attributes the judgment that the Son of Man will pronounce in correspondence to the message of Jesus and hence according to the criterion of confession or rejection of Jesus.[64] The passage draws a parallel between response of people to Jesus on earth and the reception they can expect from the Son of Man. The suffering and rejection involved in the path Jesus has chosen as Son of Man and Messiah, that results in the same for the disciple, will lead to power in the future. This power, though, does not have its grounding in the perspective of the world, whose sands shift over time. The passage exhorts the follower of Jesus to this life of power and success, but power and success defined as faith in God through a life of rejection and sacrifice. These motifs will continue to surround Jesus as he makes his way to Jerusalem and actualizes his predictions of suffering and death, but they also surround the church who continues to try to follow Jesus today.
Mark 9:30-37 (Year B September 18-24) continues the theme of 8-10 on appropriate models of discipleship.
9:30-32, occurring while on the road, is the second passion prediction, the first being in 8:31-32. The theme of the suffering of the Son of Man relates to the vision of Christian discipleship we find in Mark. Knowing who Jesus is comes only from God, who remains hidden but present in the life of Jesus. After Jesus healed the boy with the mute spirit whom his disciples were unable to heal (9:14-29), they continue traveling through Galilee, keeping a low profile. Jesus wants his disciples separate from the crowds to give them some difficult instruction concerning persecution and trials. This prediction emphasizes that people will participate in the plot, even while inviting us as readers to direct our attention to the plan of God. First, a chilling new detail is that someone will betray the Son of Man into human hands who, second, will kill him, and third, he will rise again. Jesus as the Son of Man becomes passive in the sense that others will betray him and kill him, while yet another will give him new, eschatological life. The role of God in the passion is difficult to put together. The disciples respond to this prediction with silence, as they did not understand, but were afraid to ask what he meant. They were unable to understand why they could not heal the boy with the mute spirit, with Jesus responding that this spirit could come out only through prayer, with some later manuscripts adding fasting. The confusion of the disciples becomes lack of understanding here. Even though the disciples are receiving answers to their questions and seeing glimpses of glory (the transfiguration, 9:2-13), they are still unable to understand the place of the suffering of Jesus in the divine plan. Repetition of motifs is the method Mark uses to emphasize that the disciples will not understand who Jesus is and what discipleship means until after the crucifixion and resurrection.
9:33-37 is a series of sayings around the paradox of true discipleship, service, and true greatness. Knowing how to follow Jesus comes only from God, who remains hidden in the simple acts of serving each other and welcoming the vulnerable. Mark opens by providing the setting for the sayings, which is in the town of Capernaum and the house of Peter. Since students did not walk beside their rabbi, but behind him, Jesus asks the disciples what they were discussing among themselves. They are silent because they did not want to admit that the topic of conversation was whom among them was the greatest. The New Testament gives hints that this type of conversation occurred among the disciples after the resurrection and the early formation of the church. Galatians 1-2 show the tension between Peter and Paul, while I Cor 1-3 show such concerns. The opening chapters of the book of Acts reveal such tensions as well. Given that the early church consisted of the original Jewish-Christian congregations, as well as Pauline and Johannine congregations, we can see that such tensions that began in the ministry of Jesus continued throughout the first century. They knew something was wrong about even having such a conversation. Their desire to keep it a secret from Jesus is typical of sin, which loves secrecy. The conversation reveals who they are. Their ambition is to receive honor. The denial of self to which Jesus called the disciples in the first prediction of the passion is the furthest thing from their minds.
In verse 35, Jesus begins by putting restraint upon ambition. He sat down and called them to him, putting himself in the posture of their teacher, and focuses upon the peculiar work of God at work in him. Mark has increased the irony when we recall the setting. As Jesus was traveling to his death in Jerusalem, the disciples have concern only about their personal success. Therefore, Jesus underscores the previous lesson about self-denial by stressing that they must become servants. Mark connects ideas of service with discipleship. This is particularly apparent, as the paradigmatic teacher, Jesus, is the one who will serve by suffering, by giving his life (10:45). Their teacher is setting forth the model of discipleship by his life. The paradox is that they become first by serving.
Verses 36-37 contains a story about Jesus, children, and providing a welcome to the poor and vulnerable. Jesus is giving his disciples these private lessons amid a warm, comforting environment — a home — by the casual presence of a child. Jesus’ action immediately makes the child — who had only moments ago been an insignificant, slightly annoying part of the environment — the central focus of all attention. Jesus embraces the child, welcoming the child. This may illustrate what many have felt in their relationship with Jesus. It is not that anyone can prove anything logically and rationally, but that he has embraced us in a way that has changed us and made all the difference. He then offers a proverbial saying. To welcome the emissary is the same as welcoming the one who dispatched the emissary, and thus, those who welcomes the child illustrates that one who welcomes Jesus welcomes the Father who sent him. True greatness finds God, the loving Father of Jesus, in the simple acts of welcome and service.
Mark 9:38-50 (Year B September 25-October 1) contain a pronouncement story followed by sayings on self-examination and sin.
Verses 38-41 are a pronouncement story on the unknown exorcist. In verses 14-29, the disciples could not cast out a spirit from a young boy, but now, one who is not among the twelve is casting out demons in the name of Jesus, and the disciples John reports that the disciples tried to stop him from doing so. Such a person could have been part of the larger group of 70 or one of the disciples of John the Baptist, but the text makes no such designation. Since he is not among the twelve, he has no authority. The man used the name of Jesus to perform healings. Their enthusiasm for shutting off divine compassion toward those hurting is another way the disciples disappoint readers. Although they tried to stop him, Jesus now says they must not prevent deeds of power being done in his name, for such a person will not speak evil of him. In 9:1, the rule of God comes with power, and is opposed the rule of darkness. Jesus widens the circle of the faithful community. Verse 40 is a proverbial remark that whoever is not against us is for us. Confirming the proverbial character of the saying, Cicero (first century BC) remarked that though Caesar viewed everyone as an adherent who was not against him, in contrast to others, who held everyone to be opponents except those explicitly at their side. The saying expresses the openness and inclusiveness of Jesus toward his contemporaries. In verse 41, this aspect of Jesus receives further confirmation in the Christian proverb that whoever gives them as disciples a cup of water because they as disciples bear the name of Christ will not lose their reward. All Jesus requires is the tiniest hint of respect and interest in those who witness in the name of Jesus. Such persons are not opponents to what Jesus is seeking to do. God will reward even the simple act of offering a cup of water out of respect for Christ. This saying underscores the open and tolerant attitude of Jesus toward those who look with graciousness upon those who are followers of Jesus. The power of the rule of God was such that it moved beyond the circle of the disciples. In fact, one can see the rule of God in any act of simple kindness.
Verses 42-50 contain the teaching of Jesus on honesty and self-examination concerning sin. The rule of God comes with power whenever one takes care not to harm others in the community (9:42). Becoming a stumbling-block to a little who believes in Jesus is a serious matter, so much so that it would be better to have a millstone hung around the neck and thrown into the sea, a proverbial saying that focuses attention on the danger one member of the community can be to another. The image is graphic and violent designed to shock listeners into recognizing their importance. Such a violent death by drowning is better than becoming a scandal to another. The concern of Jesus is toward those who take advantage of others, the little ones. The rule of God comes with power whenever one realizes that to follow God is more important than possession of life itself (9:43-48). He counsels the ancient mechanism of pars pro toto, the partial sacrifice for the sake of survival in a situation of pursuit, threat, or anxiety, to behavior that would lead others astray. Thus, if the hand, foot, or eye causes one to stumble, cut it off, for it is better enter life or the rule of God with one hand, foot, or eye, than to go to hell, the unquenchable fire, where, referring to isa 66:24, their worm never dies and the destroying fire is never quenched. Jesus focuses on the danger we can become to ourselves, contrasting Gehenna with the rule of God and life. It is a violent image of a self-mutilated body, a body abhorrent in the first century AD, was to be preferred to the submission to that which caused scandal to oneself. Yet, he may will use humor to demonstrate the absurdity that one can deal with spiritual obstacles by focusing on the body, for sin does not arise in the body, but in the soul, spirit, or heart. A heart and mind turned in the wrong direction uses the body in sinful ways. If sin rules your life, Jesus argues, then you are not eligible to receive new birth and enter the new life of the resurrection; therefore, rooting out sin is the only way to enter that new life. Remove anything that would hinder entry into life and the rule of God. All that Jesus asks of us is that we endeavor to rid our lives of sin that arises from human will. It was of supreme importance to remove any obstacle to entering eternal life. Entry into the rule of God means to become a disciple and enter the community.[65] To find access to the rule of God is of the very essence of salvation. The common reference to entering the rule of God has a future sense, referring to participation in the future fellowship of salvation.[66] These verses, however, are not about maiming, but more about the blessing of life; God is more important than parts of our body. Given the richness of life in the rule of God, it would be better to be without hand, foot, or eye than to live a human life without entering it. One can live without hand, foot, or eye, but one cannot truly live without entering the rule of God. To allow hand, foot, or eye to bring one to the unquenchable fires of hell is unthinkable.[67] The rule of God will come with power every time believers are who they are — the salt of the earth, living at peace with one another, thereby demonstrating that the rule of God transforms relationships and the way one views the world (vv. 49-50). Jesus alludes to the refining trials and tribulations of life as salting with fire, alluding to the purifying nature of fire. Such salting tests the community, ridding itself of sinful behavior, submitting the test of self-examination and honesty, will lead to being at peace with a world that misunderstands them, and be at peace with each other. In verse 50, a saying also in Q, affirms that salt is good, but it loses its saltiness, it has lost its ability to be useful. Disciples are like salt in the world, purifying and preserving. The image emphasizes the importance of the presence of believers as well as the nature of their presence. Such disciples are to have salt in themselves and be at peace with each other. The disciples have not exhibited little peace among themselves in this chapter, but if they adhere to what Jesus has said, there can be peace among the disciples. The saying is a benediction of Jesus upon the disciples. The way to peace is a life seasoned with salt, which may be with common sense.
Mark 10:2-16 (Year B October 2-8) contains to pronouncement stories, one concerning marriage, divorce, and remarriage, and the other concerning children in the rule of God. This is a difficult passage that has raised questions regarding marriage, divorce, and remarriage and recently has entered the human sexuality debate.
10:2-12 (Matt 19:3-6) is a pronouncement story on divorce and adultery. The Pharisees pose the question to test Jesus involves the legality of an action involving a man divorcing his wife. Jesus responded to the question of the legality of divorce with a question regarding what Moses commanded them. The Pharisees respond with a reference to Deut 24:1. The text assumes the right of the Jewish man to divorce his wife for any objectionable or shameful behavior, establishing the grounds for divorce, although the man must observe the ritual of providing a written bill of divorce to the wife in front of witnesses, sign it, and deliver it to his wife, verbally announcing what he is doing. [68] The court system is not involved, for the matter is solely between the man and the woman. This was a tiny safeguard for the divorced woman since she could offer such a bill as “proof” that she was legally free to remarry (although the man may not remarry the wife he divorced if she remarried and then was widowed or divorced again). The context assumes that divorce will occur in the normal course of the life of the community. In Exod 21:10-11,[69] a female Hebrew slave, purchased as a “bride,” has the right to leave servitude absolutely and without any payment to the master should the master fail to provide “food, clothing, or marital rights.” The only continuing debate about divorce in first‑century Judaism related to the debate was whether the something objectionable related to sexual indecency or anything objectionable, w hich provides the immediate context for the testing of Jesus. The more conservative Shammai school taught that the “objectionable” behavior that could give a husband just cause for divorcing his wife was adulterous behavior or the wife’s extreme failure to observe Jewish law. The more liberal Hillel school, however, allowed that any behavior that caused the husband annoyance or embarrassment was legitimate grounds for giving the wife a bill of divorcement. Jesus renders his decision by observing, first, that Moses wrote this commandment because of the hardness of their hearts, which led to relaxing the divine ideal of lifelong partnership. Divorce is a sign of human sinfulness, revealing the brokenness of human life revealed in broken promises in the most intimate of relationships, marring the original vision of God for human life in the creation of man and woman. God does permit divorce and remarriage. God does this because of sinful human nature, and such issues are for the couple decide, not ecclesiastical courts. He points to the Gen 1:27, where God made them male and female, thereby stressing the significance of gender difference from the beginning, and this gender difference is part of what marriage is. Jesus then refers to Gen 2:24, where a man leaves his parents, joins to his wife, and the two become one flesh, stressing that they are one flesh. Gender difference and marriage were part of the realities of the Garden of Eden. Such a statement is resistant to divorce. Men and women have a problematic and checkered relationship. Without this focus on its permanence, marriage would become the playing at love, a non-binding experimentation that dispenses with all real discipline and exempts itself from exertion. It implies mutual co-ordination that is not to modify by the vicissitudes of time. Marriage joins the male and female to complete the divinely intended unity of creation. Human beings freely and joyfully delight in joining with God in creativity and fruitfulness. This joining together is the calling and gift of God. Jesus urges a return to the pre-lapsarian ideal so that divorce is no longer necessary. He returns to the divine ideal prior to the introduction of Mosaic law. God shared a vision of the marriage relationship. God intended marriage as a gift to bond two people together in a wonderful unity. God established the creation ideal before the humans turned away from God. Does this assume that every human marriage is so constituted? It may well rest on human caprice and error. It becomes dissoluble because in the judgment of God it never had proper divine establishment. Marriage is the ordaining of our bisexuality for the marital relation. Our sexuality has an orientation to marriage as an inviolable life partnership. The statement is a set goal, like human nature itself, which for its achievement is referred to the tool of social and cultural life, but which for this very reason may never be fully reached. Only in the light of the eschatological message of Jesus can the inviolability of the marital relation to which Genesis posits can we understand the creation as a male and female as a pointer to our imperishable fellowship in the reign of God and the new covenant.[70] The hope and prayer of marriage recognizes that one may receive fulfillment in only a provisional and relative way. One may receive a measure of help and comfort, but not the real thing at which one aims. [71] Jesus now offers an aphorism regarding marriage in the form of an antithetical couplet: what God has joined together, let no one separate. This saying suggests that the Pharisees do not have the right to judge someone else’s marriage. Opening divorce to the legal debate devalues marriage and treats divorce lightly. Any falling short of the divine intention at creation involves sin. The inner goal of marriage is to unite with the creative and life-giving purposes of God in creation, so even externally staying together could be a sin if it failed to fulfill that purpose. God takes it all seriously, in part because God knows human desire is toward knowing another deeply and toward letting the other know you deeply. Such a saying undercuts social and religious convention. The saying is radical in rejecting the prudent Mosaic legislation, for Jesus embraces the radical notion that divorce is contrary to the purpose of God in creation, without exception. The saying also implies a more elevated status for women. Jesus refuses to give preference to either of these two schools. He cuts through the long‑established and prudent Mosaic tradition to bare the true roots from which spring the marriage bond. Instead of viewing marriage as a legal contract, a mere human contrivance, Jesus locates marriage in God’s initial creative actions and intentions. Instead of taking the human resistance to God as his pattern for desired behavior, Jesus focuses on what God had originally intended for human beings at the time of creation. Jesus refuses to relegate marriage to jurisdictions of legal debates and nit‑picking. For Jesus, marriage is part of the divine will for a completed, perfected creation. Because Jesus places marriage so wholly under God’s authority, he declares it beyond the power of any human individual or human institution to separate that divinely intended unity.
Jesus conforms to the uniform Jewish perspective on same-sex relation. Jesus never explicitly mentions same-sex relations. However, he does discuss other issues related to sexual ethics, such as marriage, divorce, remarriage, lust, fornication, and adultery. His Jewish world uniformly condemned same-sex relations and he held strict views regarding marriage. Judaism is remarkably uniform in its prohibition of same-gender relationships. Such prohibitions include a concern for pederasty, but one cannot limit the concern to that. That culture considered teens young adults. It was common for 30-year-old men to marry 15-year-old girls. The appeal of Jesus to the creation account reminds us that homosexual union blurs distinctions between the role of man and woman in a way that Judaism could not embrace.
However, Jesus vigorously debated by word and deed his Jewish brothers and sisters in how he related to and loved those who violated a Jewish sexual ethic. We know that Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinner in a way that aggravated religious leaders. The presence of the rule of God and participation in its salvation includes remission of sins and overcoming of that which separates us from God. The turning of Jesus to tax gatherers and sinners makes it abundantly clear that God includes sinners in the saved community. The mention of table fellowship is the most striking expression of the message of the saving love of God.[72] Luke 7:36-50 involves the incident of the woman washing the feet of Jesus with ointment, but the issue relevant here is that she is described as a sinner, one who transgressed Torah regarding its sexual ethic, but it ends with his embrace of her and the message of forgiveness. John 8:1-11 relates the story of the woman caught in adultery that also ends with Jesus embracing her and offering forgiveness. Jesus embraced those whom Jewish religious leaders shunned. It was shocking to see Jesus embrace those shunned by those who adhered to the legal standards of Judaism. Luke 15:11-32 has the prodigal son losing money on loose living, suggesting the breaking of Torah, which the elder son specifies as spending his money on harlots. Yet, the father in the parable embraces his son. Jesus consistently moves against legal approaches to the life of the people of God. To interpret this passage in a legal fashion, which today would result in not allowing divorced persons to be members of the church or to be ministers in the church, is not the path Jesus charted. The sayings regarding divorce and remarriage needs an interpretation that moves away from a legal approach and toward the embrace of the Christian community and the practice of forgiveness for sin.
With the scene shifting to a home (verses 10-12, Matt 5:31-32-Luke 16:18), the disciples asked him about the matter of divorce, and he adds to what he said by saying that the bond of marriage is so strong that he forbids divorced couples to remarry, stating as a fact that they are committing adultery if they do so. In a narrow case, Jeremiah 3:1-5 ponders whether a man who divorces will return to the same woman, using it as an illustration that Israel has gone after many lovers. The historical setting of Jesus (Mark 6:17f), in which Herodias separated from Philip to unite with Antipas, may have led Jesus to make this statement. His pronouncement is a comment on the divorce and remarriage of these rulers. In Jewish law, divorce was solely the prerogative of the woman. Greek and Roman law provided for divorce initiated by the woman. Herodias followed Greek and Roman in sending a letter of separation to her husband Philip after deserting him for Antipas. Jesus’ dictum places the responsibility for sinful behavior equally on the shoulders of both marriage partners. However, the only unchastity Jesus speaks of here is on the part of the divorcing partner who remarries. Jesus teaches the end of divorce and the possibility of remarriage because the rule of God is on breaking through and will soon be present. This eschatological orientation of his teaching makes sense in that people will be able to fulfill their promises because marriage will soon end. The intent is sexual asceticism, a form of self-control in imminent expectation of the rule of God. This stringent approach differs from the rabbis of the first century who thought of divorce as possible in most situations, and in some cases the husband could have trivial reasons.[73]
Writing to the Corinthians about a decade before Mark (I Corinthians 7:10-15), Paul shares both convictions. Testifying to the Lord’s command, Paul affirms the indissolubility of the marriage bond (vv. 10-11). Then, Paul goes on to permit believers, on his own authority, to remarry if “unbelieving” spouses, either husbands or wives, separate from the family. It is of note that in I Corinthians, Paul advocates the principle of the equality of husbands and wives in marriage. Paul offers to wives and husbands the same advice on maintaining the marriage bond as well as the same directives on separating from an “unbeliever.” Earlier in the same chapter, Paul teaches that wives and husbands have equal conjugal rights (1 Corinthians 7:4).
The yawning gap between divine intentions and human realities in marriage was no less gaping in Jesus’ day than in our own. Jesus accepted the union of a man and a woman as the only context for marriage. He affirmed the divine intention disclosed in the Genesis account that that this union be a lifelong partnership between a man and a woman. Yet, what if human beings, as they often do, fall short of the divine intention? What if one partner commits adultery? That seems like a valid exception. What if the unbelieving spouse deserts the Christian spouse? That seems like a valid exception. Thus, the New Testament opens a difficult conversation concerning challenging cases in which the reality of human beings missing the mark of the intention of God in creation faces followers of Jesus. This diversity in the biblical material is a mark of the seriousness of the subject and the difficult pastoral issues that arise in the first century church. What if one partner is abusive to the spouse or to the children? Most would agree that is a valid exception. What if one partner denies sexual fulfillment to the other and they live together as roommates? It might work for some, but others may find it impossible. When it comes to remarriage, Paul recognizes the power of human desire toward sexual fulfillment. I would expand this to the desire for another human being to know us truly and for us to know the other. This orientation toward the other is so powerful that if the Christian community legalistically denies remarriage, it opens the door for sin in multiple ways. My point is that married Christians ought to approach such matters prayerfully and with discernment rather than trying to follow a rule. Respect for what God intended in creation for marriage, acknowledging the reality that human beings miss the mark, and acknowledging the need for forgiveness and compassion in such situations, are proper guidelines by which most of us can live. I do not offer them as rules, but as a context within which Christians can pray.
If we slip back into a legal orientation when interpreting such passages, we are doing something Jesus did nowhere else in his life or teaching. Such a focus reminds me of the little novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. We give people who have struggled with their marriages to the point of divorce the impression of a scarlet “D” upon their chest. We forget the sinfulness of the human condition, demonstrated in the human habit of breaking all the rules. We forget the need for grace and forgiveness. Like the declining physical health of the minister who committed adultery in the novel, we often deny to divorced persons, at precisely the time they need it most, the grace, forgiveness, and wisdom of the church.
The distinction between male and female descends from creation. Marriage is part of the covenant of God with humanity at creation. As they leave their parents, they start a new family. They become “one flesh.” Yet, such oneness does not occur over night. Such oneness is a daily discovery, uncovering layer upon layer of what we have withheld from this new intimacy we have created. To keep a vow means not to keep from breaking it, but to devote the rest of one’s life to discovering what the vow means and be willing to change and grow accordingly. Every time we attend a wedding and hear marriage vows, it reminds us of the vows that we made to our own spouses. Anyone who is honest about marriage will tell you that holding those vows takes effort. Selflessness. Choice. Growth. Compromise. This is what two lives becoming one flesh means.[74]
Men and women need to listen to each other with generous hearts, “always ready to learn something new, to turn the corner and see something better.” Yes, we are riddles to each other. Therefore, we need to learn to listen to the question that the other puts to us. The relationship between man and woman is a practical puzzle worth figuring out. Yes, man unsettles woman, and woman unsettles man. Men and women are responsible to each other for living out their humanity.[75]
Marriage is not one bond, but many. In time, a strong marriage grows to become a veritable web of relationships. Love fashions the web. Such love begins with romantic love and matures into a slow-growing devotion. In both, we will find companionship. Such love involves loyalty, interdependence, and shared experience. Such a web of love weaves in memories of meetings and conflicts, triumphs and disappointments. Such a web consists of communication, a common language, and the acceptance of lack of the lack of language to express what we think and feel. The web consists of knowledge of our likes and dislikes, our physical and mental habits and reactions. The web of love involves are instincts and intuitions, as well as known and unknown exchanges. The web of love that makes up a marriage consists of close affiliation, living side by side day to day, looking and working in the same direction. We weave the web in space and in time out of the substance of life itself.[76] Marriage requires a large commitment for the couple. In involves a lifetime commitment. They say publicly that they will spend the rest of their lives with the other person. They will spend the rest of their lives discovering more about the other person. Such a commitment says much about the mystery that is human nature, the delight we receive in discovering deeply the gift of the other, and that it may well take a lifetime to discover it.[77]
Helmut Thielicke, in his book How the World Began, made this observation.
I once knew a very old married couple who radiated a tremendous happiness. The wife especially, who was almost unable to move because of old age and illness and in whose kind old face the joys and sufferings of many years had etched a hundred lines, was filled with such a gratitude for life that I was touched to the heart. Involuntarily, I asked myself what could possibly be the source of this kindly person’s radiance. In every other respect they were common people, and their room indicated only the most modest comfort. But suddenly I knew where it all came from, for I saw those two speaking to each other, and their eyes hanging upon each other. All at once it became clear to me that this woman was dearly loved. It was not because she was a cheerful and pleasant person that she was loved by her husband all those years. It was the other way around. Because she was so loved she became the person I saw before me.
In the 2004 film, Shall We Dance?, starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, we find a well-known and powerful statement. Mrs. Clark, played by Susan Sarandon, is talking to the private investigator Mr. Devine, played by Richard Jenkins. She hired him because she thought her husband, Richard Gere, was having an affair. When she finds out that he is not having an affair — he is only taking dance lessons — she dismisses the P.I. Before they part, a conversation ensues:
Mrs. Clark: “All these promises that we make and we break. Why is it, do you think, that people get married?”
Devine: “Passion.”
Clark: “No.”
Devine: “That’s interesting, because I would have taken you for a romantic. Why then?”
Clark: “Because we need a witness to our lives. There are a billion people on the planet. I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage you’re promising to care about everything: The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things. All of it, all the time, every day. You’re saying, ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.’”
Mark 10: 13-16 (Matt 9:13-15=Luke 18:15-17) contain a pronouncement story of Jesus concerning children. Jesus is still in the house. Some parents were bringing their children to Jesus to bless them with his touch, but the disciples spoke sternly to them, typical of their failure to understand Jesus. Jesus became indignant, the only time Mark describes the reaction of Jesus in this way, at the way the disciples were treating these parents and their children, so he gathered the children around him and told them to let the children come to him, for the rule of God belongs to them because they receive it as a gift. The story expresses the social complexity of human beings in the helplessness and openness of the situation of children. He makes clear the status of children in the rule of God. Jesus saw here an openness to the nearness of the rule of God he proclaimed.[78] He then solemnly tells all those gathered that those who do not receive the present rule of God as a little child will never enter it. The saying shows how Jesus took eschatological conceptions and presented them as a gift one can receive now. To find access to the rule of God is of the very essence of salvation, in that the rule of God belongs to one who comes as a little child and receives it as a little child.[79] Being children of God is the essence of the Christian life.[80] We find children portrayed here in a positive, hopeful, and distinct way. As a new creation, the Christian life begins as one who is quite different, who starts again from the very first, who is in fact a little child in this sense.[81] Even in our independent and adult life, we are to relate to God as children who expect and receive all things as gifts from the Father. [82] The blessing of the children here simply shows adults that regeneration is essential.[83] We must reckon with a positive readiness for unlimited trust whose real object is the true God revealed in Jesus.[84]
Mark 10:17-31 (Year B October 9-15) contain a series of stories and sayings regarding riches.
Verses 17-22 (Matt 19:16-30 and Luke 18:18-30) is a pronouncement story concerning the rich young man. The version in Mark presents the most poignant, sympathetic picture of this man. The text shows this seeker’s genuine piety by having him run to Jesus and kneel. This eager man clearly recognizes both Jesus’ goodness and wisdom. Here is an earnest quest for eternal life. It depicts Jesus getting personal in a personalized and detailed scene from his ministry. Jesus is on a journey. A man rushes to Jesus and offers a gesture of honor and respect by kneeling before him. He recognizes a divine claim has come upon his life through Jesus, putting himself with the disciples in acknowledging the force of that claim. He refers to Jesus as good teacher, unique among the Jewish sources we have from the period, demonstrating he high esteem he had for Jesus. His question regards what he must do to inherit eternal life, the apocalyptic life received at the end of time in the resurrection. He thinks there are conditions beyond what Torah requires. He is sure that the fleeting temporal life is problematic considering what death reveals about it. He suspects he is missing something in his quest. He suspects that while he does not have an answer, Jesus might. Jesus opens with the probing question of why the man calls him good, for only God is good. Yes, God is good, but so is creation, so are the commandments, although Jesus refuses the title for himself. The man who kneels needs to shift his focus from human abilities, such as what he does or the presence of a good teacher and focus upon the goodness of God and the righteousness of the commandments. Jesus distinguishes between himself and his heavenly Father. He stresses the goodness of the Father as an attribute of divine love. We see that at the heart of the message of Jesus stood the Father and the coming rule of God. He did not direct attention to himself. Jesus differentiated himself as a mere man from the Father as the one God. He subjected himself to the claim of the coming divine rule, just as he required of his hearers. He sees himself as a creature below God as he asks his hearers to do in his message of the nearness of the rule of God. In making this distinction, when we place it in the context of discussions of the Trinity, we can see the self-distinction of the Trinity as it relates to the deity and attributes of the persons of the Trinity. We might also see here a basis for saying that in the monarchy of the Father, the Father is the one God.[85] Jesus then refers to specific commandments to not murder, not commit adultery, not steal, not bear false witness, and honor parents, but adding a commandment not part of the Ten Commandments, to not defraud. They suggest the importance of interpersonal relationships in relating ourselves to God and the question of eternal life. The man is delighted and confident with this response, since he has lived his life that way. However, Jesus looks at him and loves him, clearling have an emotional reaction to the situation. This should not surprise us. He was a man of virtue and evoked admiration from Jesus. Out of love, Jesus confronts him by demanding a major move that will reveal what the seeker lacks in his life by saying that he lacks one thing, which discloses itself when he gives the man two commands, telling the man first, to sell what he owns, give to the poor, thereby ensuring his treasure in heaven, and second, to come and follow him. To ask the man to do such a demanding thing does not sound like love. It hints that he did not genuinely love his neighbor in that he was unwilling to share with those in need. It hints that the man did not truly hear and obey the first part of the Ten Commandments relating to God, or the Shema of Israel to love God with the whole heart. That Jesus chose a life of poverty shows a difference between himself and Jewish teaching of riches being a sign of divine favor. Jesus’ command not only shocks the questioner; it stuns the normative standards of first‑century Judaism. While there was no scriptural prohibition to keep the pious from giving away all personal belongings, scribal legislation restricted almsgiving to one‑fifth of one’s personal property (Kethubim 50a). This insured that the pious giver would not be reduced to poverty – thus becoming another candidate for charity himself. Jesus’ suggestion that the man impoverish himself also flies in the face of the collective understanding that possessing wealth was a sign of divine favor. Jesus’ command made clear that nothing less than a complete commitment to God and God alone would enable a believer to lay up “treasure in heaven.” Jesus does not put himself on the side of monks, fanatics, and legalists here. Any flight into inwardness can look like obedience from the outside by inwardly be disobedience. In this case, the man prefers the yoke he has chosen path rather than the freedom to which Jesus called him.[86] Nor must we be so amazed at the first command of to the man that we forget the second command to follow him, finding that Jesus is the answer to our search for genuine life. Kneeling before Jesus was not enough. He had come close to Jesus but was not close enough. He needed to follow and belong to Jesus, thereby becoming free for God and free for his neighbor. The response of the man reveals his heart, as he was shocked and went away from Jesus grieving, and we learn for the first time that he had many possessions. His sorrow and his withdrawal from Jesus reveal the power of the claim of God upon his life. The two commands of Jesus reveal the source of the well-being of the man. His sense of self came from status, power, and security that wealth brings. He judges the cost of inheriting eternal life in the way Jesus taught and lived as too high and departs. The claim of God upon the life of this man was too much. He becomes disobedient to the claim of God that came upon his life through Jesus. In contrast, Jesus and the disciples are examples of those who are obedient to the divine claim. Both the obedient and disobedient are subject of the living command of God.[87] His disobedience now means that he might obey in another time. Jesus let this wealthy man walk away. He did not badger him, as many zealous persons might have done. Jesus allowed him to leave because the time was not right. Jesus trusted that the day would come when the advice he had received would make sense. We cannot force people to believe something they choose not to believe. Nor can we force anyone to love other people. It must come from within.
Aristotle commented that a friend could teach the most important things in life precisely because a friend is willing to hurt you in the right way. Happiness, joy, fulfillment, meaningfulness – I cannot imagine any human being not having a desire for these things. In fact, we spend much of our lives trying to figure out the path we need to take to get there. Many of the choices we make in life either move us closer to or further away from what we consider happiness to be. Of course, that is another puzzle, is it not? Do we cling far too tightly to the things of this world? Do we cling to finite things as if they had eternal significance? I hate to say it, but we cling to things because of the enjoyment we temporarily receive from them. These things may well cause our downfall. We can walk away from what God intended, of course. Many people have done so.
Verses 23-27 is a series of sayings on the danger of riches. Followers of Jesus need to re-evaluate their attitude toward wealth and put wealth in its proper role in their lives. Verses 23-25 (Matt 19:24, Luke 18:24-25) have Jesus saying to his disciples that it is hard for those who have wealth to enter the rule of God, and since they were amazed at his words, he stresses that it is hard to enter the rule of God. When Jesus offered a beatitude upon the poor, and woe upon the rich, Jesus clearly did not think of the present or future rule of God as belong to the rich. In context, the rich man who departed from Jesus, rejecting the claim of God upon his life that came through Jesus, confirms the general rule rather than being an unfortunate exception.[88] It is not typical of Judaism to believe wealth is a barrier to entry into the rule of God. For Jesus, riches pose a problem to spiritual welfare. The difficulty lies in the choice between caring for the things of God and caring for wealth. That wealth and entry into this rule of God might be negatively related is an astonishing idea, especially since riches were assumed to be a sign of God’s favor. The notion of “entering” has a future sense, referring to participation in the future fellowship of salvation. Like the message of Jesus, the salvation that he mediates consists of fellowship with God and the related life, which also embraces a renewal of fellowship with others. To find access to the rule of God is of the very essence of salvation.[89] He then states that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needly than for someone who is rich to enter the rule of God (verse 25, Matt 19:24, Luke 18:25). The saying has the exaggeration typical of parables and aphorisms of Jesus, containing as it does a humorous hyperbole. Jesus further dramatizes the difficulty posed by wealth by offering the mind-sticking image of the camel passing through the eye of a needle. Jesus thinks of the rule of God as a present reality. As hyperbole, it expresses what is humanly impossible, such as log and splinter, gnat and camel. In verses 26-27 (Matt 19:25-26, Luke 18:26-27), the disciples are astounded, questioning among each other if anyone can be saved, even though, in context, the disciples did what the rich man did not choose to do, but Jesus responded that for mortals it would be impossible, but not for God, for all things are possible. It is impossible for men and women to save themselves, whatever their financial state. The saving of anyone is something that is not in the power of human to give. No one can receive salvation in virtue of anything he or she does. Everyone can receive salvation in virtue of what God can do.[90]
Discipleship and following Jesus have economic implications in our lives. We must not succumb to the temptation of evasive rationalization in this matter.[91] Sharing possessions are an eschatological sign, demonstrating the transforming power of the rule of God in our lives individually and in our communal life. The rule of God impinges upon the present in such a way that we are free to act with generosity that comes an image of the good future contained in the hope for the rule of God. The question is how we can order our economic practices in the church and in our discipleship so that they become such a sign. Asking this question seriously and in a sustained way will require imaginative reflection and costly change. I do not hold out the hope for a new Reformation in this, but a modest nudge in the right direction.[92]
Verses 28-31 (Matt 19:27-30, Luke 18:28-30) is a collection of sayings on the prospect of reward for those who follow Jesus.
Verses 28-30 (Matt 19:27-29, Luke 18:28-30) Peter points out, appropriate to the context, that the disciples, in contrast to the rich man and most wealthy persons, have left everything and followed. However, Jesus reminds him solemnly that no one has left behind their household, which included family and work for the sake of the good news who will not receive the unsettling message in this age of the blessing of a new household consisting of a new family and new work, but with persecution. He distinguishes the reward receive now and that they will receive eternal life in the age to come. The point is the ability of God to save. The call to discipleship cuts across the self-evident attachment to that which we possess.[93] The saying promises abundance to those who have abandoned property and family in response to Jesus’ summons. The promise of reward to those who sacrificed so much was enticing. The riches of social and religious communion would compensate suffering and real loss.
Verse 31 (Matt 19:30) is a warning. Many who are first will be last, the last shall be first.
Mark 10:35-45 (Year B October 23-29) offer some hard lessons regarding suffering as a follower of Jesus and on serving as the path toward genuine leadership. The third passion prediction (verses 32-34) occurs just prior. Here is another example of the dense quality of the disciples as listeners to Jesus. The twelve are an illustration of the sowing of the word that fell on rocky ground (4:14-20). The fact that Simon is now named Peter, the Rock, may have a double-edged meaning in that he may be solid and firm, but he may also be stubborn and lacking in insight. The twelve repeatedly fail to comprehend the words of Jesus and emulate his actions as they demonstrate a lack of understanding after the feeding of the four thousand (8:21), as they challenge Jesus’ teachings about his suffering and death (8:32-33), and as they seek glory instead of suffering (10:35-45). In Mark 8-10, the gospel writer has Jesus and his disciples play out a similar exchange three separate times. In 8:31, 9:30-32, and 10:33-34, Jesus articulates clear predictions of his approaching rejection, his debasement and death, and his resurrection from the dead. Each of these passion predictions are then followed by some of the most ignorant, wrong-headed comments made anywhere by the disciples. In 8:32-33 Peter rebukes Jesus; in 9:33-34 all the disciples start clamoring about who is the greatest; and in 10:35-41 James and John start queuing up for good seats in the hereafter. In each case, Jesus responds to his disciples’ confused comments by discussing the true essence of missionary discipleship and explaining how it differences from all the disciples’ expectations. In 8:34-38 Jesus counsels taking up the cross; in 9:35-37 selflessness and acceptance are touted; and finally, in 10:42-45 Jesus explicitly identifies service to others as the key to genuine discipleship.
Verses 35-40 (Matt 20:20-23) is a story about Jesus involving a request from James and John. They are bold in asking Jesus to do whatever they ask, but Jesus is patient in responding what their request might be. The request of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, to sit to his left and right in his glory, has a parallel in a legendary account in which Jacob visits his father, Isaac. When Isaac sees his grandsons, he takes Levi in his right hand and Judah in his left hand, blesses them, and then they sleep beside their grandfather, one on the right and one on the left (Jubilees 31:5-32). At best, one might credit these disciples with echoing the final scene between Elijah and Elisha in II Kings 2:9 — there the soon-to-depart Elijah instructs his apprentice Elisha to “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Yet even if that exchange is the inspiration behind James and John’s request, they overstep their bounds by initiating the asking. They are not to ask the Lord for the highest place (Ecclesiasticus 7:4). A proper attitude would be to ask how they have received such favor as to be counted the first witnesses to what God was doing in Jesus (Wisdom 5:5). Yet, as readers of this gospel, we cannot help but think of the question as a pitiful response to what Jesus has said about what will happen in Jerusalem. Their request may refer to the Messianic banquet or to the thrones in the rule of God, fitting well both the messianic and apocalyptic notions popular in first-century Judaism. They perceive Jesus as Messiah. They may believe Jesus is about to reclaim the throne of David. This ask reveals they do not understand their situation. They think the eschatological transformation of the earth will arrive shortly, even though Jesus has spoken clearly of the path of suffering. They failed to understand the teaching about Messianic suffering. This story will underscore how little the disciples comprehend the ministry of Jesus. When Jesus gives the sharp retort that they do not know what they are asking, he discloses the ignorance and arrogance of these two disciples. Jesus asks if they can drink of the cup he drinks. “The cup” has a long tradition in Hebrew Scripture as the cup filled with divine wrath and judgment from which disobedient humanity must imbibe. The prophets often employed the image of “the cup” to threaten God’s vengeance on leaders and peoples who opposed the ways of God. For Jesus, then, to drink of “the cup” is his voluntary swallowing of God’s judgment for our sake. Jesus drinks the cup that was intended for us. In parallel with the cup is baptism, using the practice familiar to the disciples through John the Baptist and his baptism of repentance. Jesus’ reply invites them to consider whether they can face the cost of sharing in Jesus’ messianic suffering. The saying means more than martyrdom. Rather, the cup and baptism refer to the great tribulation that James and John would endure. One might sense here the brash confidence of the disciples. Obviously, neither James nor John has a clue about the nature of this cup and this baptism in which Jesus asks them to participate. When Jesus quizzes James and John about the depth of their commitment, he turns their attention away from the reward they are seeking and focuses it back upon the path leading to Jerusalem. Asking if they can share in both his cup and his baptism, Jesus throws up a roadblock on what James and John perceive as an unmarred road to glory. The cup and baptism represent the suffering that Jesus and his obedient followers will have to endure. James and John misunderstand their calling and their destiny when they quickly assert that they, too, share these symbols of commitment with Jesus. They refuse to acknowledge the truth about the impending trip to Jerusalem, and envision instead an easy go-ahead journey, free from barricades and potholes. The story of Jesus’ passion is the starkly lit symbol of the cost discipleship entails — a painful red light on the road to Jesus’ glorification. Theologically, though, we cannot merely see here an obscure allusion to the approaching path of suffering for Jesus. We must relate the images to his understanding of the baptism he received from John. Jesus linked his baptism by John to the expectation of approaching martyrdom. Only after passing through this baptism can he kindle fire on the earth. This will eventually lead to the teaching of Paul that baptism means participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus. The idea of a baptism of blood rests on transferring the baptism of John for repentance to martyrdom. Jesus was already seeing the approaching martyrdom of himself and his disciples in the context of the water baptism he had received form John. If so, then we can understand that along with the idea of a baptism of blood for martyrs, water baptism as adopted by early Christianity had a new meaning that it appropriated from Jesus. Yet, only from the standpoint of the Easter event did the death of Jesus represent a saving event. Only then could fellowship with the death of Jesus as a martyr that grounds itself in the act of baptism count as a pledge of future salvation for the baptized and the hope of participation in the life of the risen Lord.[94] Their unhesitating willingness to accept this cup and baptism suggests they have ill-advised confident and have not understood the personal cost. Jesus affirms that the cup and baptism Jesus drinks and receives will belong to them as well. For James and John, these symbols were more generally suggestive of the suffering and persecution they could expect to encounter as disciples of Jesus and the gospel. For the church of the first two centuries, the cup and baptism clearly spoke about two channels of individual and communal participation in the sufferings, even the “dying” of Christ. By the second century, baptism became the symbol of the ultimate sacrifice offered by Christian martyrs. Jesus welcomes the two into the communion of suffering and sacrifice, but only God grants what that for which the ask. Jesus thus assures James and John that they may freely choose to participate in his suffering (the cup and his baptism) with the assurance of a place in glory, but like him, they must demonstrate obedience to suffering based on faith, not definite knowledge. By refusing to usurp any divine prerogative, Jesus demonstrates his own obedience to God.
Verses 41-45 (Matt 20:24-28, Luke 22:24-30) is a collection of sayings on leadership with service, addressing the topic of discipleship directly. It shows the lack of understanding by the disciples of the saying in verses 32-34 of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus introduced the theme of servanthood in 9:35. Jesus will express the essence of missionary discipleship and explain how different it is from their expectations. Jesus explicitly identifies service to others as the key to genuine discipleship. The anger of the disciples toward James and John expands the conversation to include all the disciples. Jesus calls them to him and observes that rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. The ones whom they consider great are tyrants over them, Cyrus II of Persia and Alexander of Macedonia often having the title of “the great.” Alexander the Great was the Macedonian king and general who took control of the vast Persian Empire in the 4th century B.C. Tutored by Aristotle, he went on to achieve an undefeated record in military battles. Yet, Alexander was not invincible – a lowly mosquito brought him down. Evidence suggests that he died of malaria at age 32. History teaches that greatness often links with a life of illusion, one that causes people to believe that they are more invincible, powerful, and righteous than they really are. More immediately, ruling as a tyrant would be like Tiberius and Herod Philip. However, that pattern of leadership is not to be an example among followers of Jesus. The comparison is an attempt to shame the disciples into considering their understanding of following him. They are not to use the Gentiles as their pattern, and they are acting like Gentiles when they argue like this. One who deserves the title of great among followers of Jesus is the one who becomes servant, and whoever wishes to be first among the followers of Jesus must become slave/servant of all. A disciple commits to humility and service. Even as the Son of Man, an image drawn from Daniel 7 that contrasts the image of the Human One from the Beastly powers, came to serve, so much more should they be servants for the sake of others and of the gospel. The Son of Man, not Gentile rulers, is the one whom the disciples are to emulate — living to serve rather than having others serve them. In the background of the image of giving his life for others is Isaiah 53. Such service stands in parallel with the giving of the life of the Son of Man as a ransom for many, expanding the notion beyond the Jewish people to all persons, an act of purchase that brings redemption. [95] Thus, the effect of the life of Jesus in service and giving of himself goes beyond that of an example. The statement relates to the notion of the death of Jesus “for us” and “for our sins.” The motif of expiation seems present. The image of ransom is that Jesus Christ paid by his death for us.[96] God acts to deliver from slavery and bring persons to freedom. One who gives his life a ransom for many acts in the place and as the representative of many, paying on their account but without their cooperation what they cannot pay for themselves.[97] Jesus may have reckoned with the possibility of an approaching violent death, even if this does not mean that he willed or provoked this violent death. It becomes quite another matter as to whether Jesus proclaimed his death a ransom for many or as an expiatory death. If Jesus said that his death had an expiatory function, one would expect that the early church would have decided the meaning of his death authoritatively and unequivocally.[98] Standing ordinary understanding on its head, Jesus declares that it is only in service that one may become great. The lowlier and servant-like the service, Jesus suggests, the greater the genuine stature of the disciple. Privilege, claim, and dignity exist under the duty, obligation, and burden of service. [99] Jesus reminds his disciples that the Son of Man himself offers the greatest example of this paradoxical relationship between servanthood and greatness. Yes, Jesus was the man for others. Jesus lets his life be for those in infinite peril. He makes the deliverance of humanity his exclusive task. His encouragement for his followers to be servant of all arises from the man who is the chief servant.[100]
The German philosopher, Nietzsche, called Christianity a “slave morality.” He noted that Christianity was most popular among people on the bottom of society – the poor, women, slaves. He charged that Christianity gave philosophical justification and glorification for the economic plight of those on the bottom. It taught them, said Nietzsche, that there is something good and noble in being people at the bottom. He noted that Jesus did not seem to have many friends at the top, powerful political people who made a difference in the world. Nietzsche meant all this as a criticism. This story suggests that Christians ought to take this as a compliment.
Albert Schweitzer said, “Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.”
I slept and dreamt that life was Joy;
Then I awoke and realized
that life was Service.
And then I went to work — and, lo
and behold I discovered that
Service is Joy.[101]
In a spiritual community, no leader gets privilege. Apart from pastors at church potlucks, no leader gets an easy pass; no leader cuts the line; no leader gets in first or takes the best seat. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be a servant to all the rest. A true spiritual leader serves first, and by serving leads ... through example.
One does not become a leader by fighting the way to the top. One becomes a leader by helping others to the top. Helping employees is as important as trying to get the most out of them.[102] Such leaders do not run away from their calling in life. Abraham Maslow coined the phrase “the Jonah Complex” to describe the person clearly called in a certain direction in their lives but do everything they can to avoid it.
Mark 10:46-52 (Year B October 23-29) is the story of a healing of the blind man of Jericho (Mt 20.29—34; Lk 18.35—43). Discipleship, the nature of what it means to follow Jesus, has been the theme since the beginning of this gospel. Early in his first chapter, Mark reports that Jesus is passing along the Sea of Galilee and beginning to call his disciples, saying to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people” (1:17). Immediately, they drop their nets and follow him. The chapters that follow are full of descriptions of what it means to walk behind Jesus “on the way” (10:52). Disciples are those who leave their jobs to follow him (2:13-14), who proclaim his message and cast out demons (3:14-15), who do the will of God (3:35), who understand the secret of the kingdom of God (4:11), and who have faith — although this is an ongoing struggle for the disciples (4:40). Followers of Jesus are also those who confess that he is the Messiah (8:29). They deny themselves and take up their cross and follow him (8:34). They understand that “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (9:35), who receive the kingdom of God as a little child (10:15), and who are willing to leave everything and follow Jesus (10:28).
Mark wrote his gospel in Rome, for the benefit of those who were experiencing persecution and standing in need of encouragement in their own discipleship. A suffering community of Christians would clearly benefit from words of Jesus such as, “those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (8:35). The message of Mark is not a spirituality for the comfortable power-people of the day, but is instead “a spirituality for the persecuted, the powerless and the done to.”[103]
Jesus is on the last phase of his journey. He is on the way to Jerusalem, but before he sends his disciples to prepare the way for his arrival, he meets one more needy person on the road. This last healing provides the first title of Jesus as the descendant of David, the son of a king. In a subtle way, it shows the difference between King David and this descendent of David. When the original King David entered Jerusalem against the Jebusites as a conquering hero, the inhabitants taunted him saying that “the blind and the lame will turn you back” (II Samuel 5:6). David would take the city and thus have “the blind and the lame” removed before his entry (II Samuel 5:8-9). The Son of David, in contrast to his ancestor, removed blindness instead of the blind as he goes up to the city. This story provides a good example of faith and following the King who is going to Jerusalem not to reign but to become a ransom. It is after a weighty soteriological statement, namely, that Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many, that the journey brings Jesus, his disciples and the crowd into Jericho.
Jesus, the disciples, and a large crowd passes through Jericho, but on the way out they pass by Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar sitting by the side of the road to make it easier to receive alms. What he hears that it was Jesus of Nazareth passing by, we as readers become alert that it is not alms that will be important this day. He does not want this opportunity to bypass him. Upon hearing this proclamation, he adds his voice to the din and cries out to address Jesus: The beggar addresses him as the Son of David. The only other mention of David before this address is in the second chapter when Jesus recounts the story of David eating the bread in the house of God (2:25). However, after this incident with Bartimaeus, when Jesus enters Jerusalem upon the colt the crowds proclaim, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” Mark begins to link Jesus with the restoration of David’s kingdom. These references culminate when Jesus asks how the scribes can say that the Messiah is the Son of David if David himself calls him Lord (12:35-37). It becomes clear from this reference that the title, Son of David, had messianic overtones. This title has little use in the New Testament. We find it only in the synoptic gospels, appearing 14 times in them. Archaeological evidence has shown that people were aware of those who stood in the line of David, so this could be a simple acknowledgement of the one from whom Jesus descended. Based upon the reaction of the crowd, which hurries to silence him, this title could carry revolutionary overtones about which the Romans would have become suspicious. Mark employs this address as a narrative prefiguration to show that the blind man could see whom Jesus really was, the Son of David, the Messiah. Bartimaeus says asks Jesus as the Son of David to have mercy on him. He gets the attention of Jesus. Jesus stood still, enabling the blind man to find him. The crowd sought to silence him, but Jesus wants the same crowd to bring the blind man to him. They are now more kindly disposed toward him, urging him to take heart. he springs up to come to Jesus, wasting no time. He asks the blind man what he wants Jesus to do for him. He responds by addressing Jesus as his teacher and makes the simple request to let him see again. Jesus first strangely tells him to go and then announces that his faith has made him well (5:34 as well). Bartimaeus disobeys Jesus’ first command and, instead of departing, follows him on the road. Bartimaeus is the symbolic ideal.[104] He perseveres in the face of the deterrence of the crowd and the command of Jesus. The blind man sees who Jesus is, responds in faith, and follows Jesus on the way to Jerusalem.
Mark thus closes his section on discipleship with a profoundly positive image — those who truly see Christ feel overwhelmingly called to follow his pathways and purposes. This contrasts sharply with the rich man and the disciples in the earlier incidents of this chapter. They become imitators of Christ as they seek to become perfected disciples. Bartimaeus’ journey was not easy. He began to follow Jesus just when, from a human point of view, things began to degenerate. Jesus now enters Jerusalem to play his part in the final scene of confrontation, prosecution, and execution. There would be little time for a new disciple like Bartimaeus to enjoy approving crowds or balmy days of rest and study. Bartimaeus and all the disciples were rapidly approaching the testing grounds for discipleship trust in Jesus’ being and mission.
Mark 12:28-34 (Year B October 30-November 5) is a pronouncement story concerning the first commandment (Matt 22:34-40, Luke 10:25-28). The form of this story is that of student and teacher discussion. Mark presents the scribe as having a friendly attitude, suggesting that one should not judge this scribe fully by the group to which he belongs. This text concludes a series of challenges Jesus met when he returned to the Temple in Jerusalem for a third day (11-12).
The tendency of religious professions is to make religion complex. Spiritual masters have a way of identifying the heart of a religion. This passage concerns the heart of Christianity. It is a familiar passage, but there is power in the familiar (Fred Craddock). Jesus points to the familiar, the Shema and another text from the Torah, as the heart of Judaism and in doing so has lifted it to supreme importance in reflection upon the Christian life. In this little exchange, Jesus names his center. He names the center of his ministry, of his mission, and even the center of the imminent rule of God he came to proclaim. He reveals something about himself, and in the process also reveals something about God. The law of God is the law of love. Religion is that simple – and that difficult.[105]
A scribe approaches Jesus, his intellectual curiosity tweaked by the learned discussions he had overheard. He is impressed that Jesus answered well the questions thrown at him (11:27f and 12:13f). This individual was well‑educated, well‑respected and well‑off. His extensive familiarity with Scripture and tradition gave him the confidence to confront Jesus with a question of his own. First‑century Judaism had no qualms about determining which of the 613 commandments were weightier, more important than the others are. While all commandments were to be obeyed (itself a highly confident assumption), it was recognized that more “important” commandments could be determined by examining the nature of their demands or – in the case of an infraction – the number and seriousness of the steps necessary to undo any infringements. The reader might naturally expect the scribe to be asking which of the Ten Commandments is “first.” Jesus goes to a familiar passage, the Shema of Israel, one the faithful Jew in the first century recited every day. The Shema of Israel identified the uniqueness of the Lord and the requirement of total commitment to the Lord.[106] The uniqueness of the God who comes to rule excludes all competing concerns. To those who open themselves to this summons, God already comes to rule. The rule of God is imminent, but it also emerges from its future nature as present. The basis is that oneness of God is the content of this future. The divine rule is the outworking of the divine claim to the present life of the creature.[107] In reciting the Shema, we learn that the God of Jesus is none other than the God of Jewish faith, in according to the witness of the Old Testament, the God whom Israel confesses in the Shema.[108] First, it confesses a profound personal response on the part of each who would confess this truth — to love this God. The Shema confesses a profound personal response on the part of each who would confess this truth — to love this God. The original Hebrew had no need to designate both “heart” and “mind.” “Soul” is spirit, self, will, need, desire. “Strength” is physical. The separation of the faculties is not the key, but a complete response to God. To love God is to obey God in Deuteronomy 13:3-4, 30:16-20, Joshua 22:5, I John 2:4-6, and 5:3a. Loving God with all the heart and soul receives emphasis in Deuteronomy 4:29 (=Jeremiah 29:13), 10:12, 11:13, 30:6, 10, and Joshua 22:5. The point of loving God is to honor God by the way we live in harmony with the will of God. One is to love God with the whole self and being. The demands of this command take on life in every aspect of human life ‑‑ heart, soul, mind and strength ‑‑ and are to permeate "all" (repeated each time) corners of that part of human existence. Along with the Jews of his day, Jesus undoubtedly recited the Shema. According to the Mishnah, every Israelite male should recite this verse twice daily.[109]
The love of God summarizes who the children of God are. Jesus addresses the commandment to Israel as part of the covenant and to his followers as part of the people of God. Love alone can correspond to the uniqueness in which God is the Lord. Whatever love may consist in, love will always be the one choice in which a human being chooses God as his or her Lord in the sense in which God has already chosen to be Lord. “You shall,” suggests a commandment from this God. The commandment does not reduce the number of laws but moves against the notion of law entirely. Although we may think it odd to command love only love can make a real demand. The object of the commandment is God. In loving God, humanity has a partner in God, who loves humanity as well. To love means to become what we already are, that is, those whom God loves. To love means to choose God as the Lord, the One who is our Lord because Christ is our Advocate and Representative. To love means to be obedient to the commandment of this God. In every case, love is an accepting, confirming and grasping of our future. In it, this future is identical with the reality of God, who in the fullest sense of the word is for us. This God is our future. People who love God will let themselves be told and will themselves confess that they are not in any sense righteous as ones who love. They are sinners who even in their love have nothing to bring and offer to God. The love of God for them is that God intercedes for them and represents them even though they are so unworthy, even though they can never be anything but unworthy and therefore undeserving of love. How can that have any other meaning than that they are driven to repentance and held there? They can love and will love only as this loving allows this to happen. To love God is to seek God. Now, we cannot seek our own being and activity. Our being and activity as such can only be this seeking. We misunderstand this seeking if we think of it as a special art or striving on the part of those who have already proposed and undertaken the task, or as a wonderful flower of piety that has grown in the garden of those who are already particularly situated and gifted for it. What matters is emphatically not the fact of our seeking, but the direction of our seeking. In all that seeking we are still within the realm of our being sinners. Despite our seeking, we may be rejecting. They rejoice that they have not sought in vain. They are what they are as genuine seekers after God by giving a Yes that comes from the heart, soul, mind, and strength, even when they find God. When the love of God reaches its goal, they hear, feel, and taste afresh that have an incomparable Lord. When they find God, grace meets them, which they then accept into their lives. Grace shows what God does for them. Grace shows that in themselves they are poor, impotent, and empty. It shows that they rebel against God. Grace points them away from self and toward Christ who is the promise of what they can become. Grace does not allow arrogance. Grace reveals the rebellion and imperfection of even the best thoughts and undertakings by humanity. Grace does not allow any arrogance. Grace reveals the lethargy and wildness that lie like a heavy load upon even the best thoughts and undertakings. Grace demands that they live only by grace, and by grace really live. Does the addition “with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength” add anything? The addition is a guarantee against every division and reservation. It means that Christian love is characterized as a total constitution and attitude of humanity. The addition lights up the voluntary obedience given to Christ to love. We shall seek after God only when the commandment to do it has reached all that we are. Such love cannot be lost. Such love is the thankfulness that the believer owes to God in the divine work of revealing and reconciling. [110]
Jesus then offers an unsolicited view that the second commandment is like it, referring to Leviticus 19:18b, that you shall love your neighbor, who is a human being just like you are.[111] Leviticus 19 opens with an emphasis upon the holy God receiving proper respect and then requiring justice and respect to “children of your own people.” The parable of the Good Samaritan shows (Luke 10:25-37) shows that Jesus was expanding the notion of neighbor beyond that of a fellow Jew, erasing national and ethnic considerations in its definition. The saying requires on to have a tender regard for the neighbor. Hillel the Elder was a contemporary of Jesus of whom it is recorded:
“A proselyte approached Hillel with the request Hillel teach him the whole of the Torah while the student stood on one foot. Hillel responded, “What you find hateful (or, What you yourself hate), do not do to another (or, your neighbor). This is the whole of the Law. Everything else is commentary. Now go learn that!”
C.S. Lewis, in his eponymous essay, suggests that one way to carry the “weight of glory” in a practical application is to hold in one’s mind regularly the eternal worth of one’s neighbor. As he puts it, “there are no ordinary people,” for everyone has eternal significance. “Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself,” Lewis writes, “Your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” Just as we blaspheme the Holy Spirit if we ascribe the works of God as deeds of the Devil, so we blaspheme the grace of the Most High given for all people when we treat them as means and not as precious creatures in the Lord’s sight.[112]
At a practical level, most of us will freely admit the difficulty of loving the neighbor. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, "Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you would presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less." We are to love without exception, even if most people are undeserving of that love. Their true value is their creation in the image of God, to which we owe all honor and love.[113] The point is not warm affection toward the neighbor, but to have caring and thoughtful actions toward the neighbor. We are to think of their creation in the image of God. Since we owe honor and love to God, we also owe such honor and love to that which God has made.[114]
We love to think about love. We think love is the answer. We can sing that love makes the world go around. We can sing that all we need is love. We search for love. We seem convinced that love can save the world and make life worth living. Yet, we have a looser grasp on love than we think. Love springs from awareness of the other. When you genuinely see the other, you have the potential to love. Without seeing truly, we will love only the person of our memory and imagination.[115]
The love of neighbor summarizes the action of the children of God. Love of God is serious only in the context of the love of neighbor. As human beings we live in an historical and social context ordered by God. If we are to love God, we must also love what God has created. We honor and love God when we honor and love what God has created.
The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as oneself. It can be hard spiritual work to encounter another human being who needs to spring from the prison they may have built for themselves. We find it far easier to use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince, or control.[116] The capacity to love the neighbor depends upon our capacity to love ourselves. We need to learn to be as tolerant of the shortcomings of the neighbor, even as we tolerant of our own.[117] Granted, human beings are undeserving of such love. We may well find it easier to imagine love for humanity rather than love for the individual who stands before us.[118] Yet, the command of Jesus does not carry with it an exception clause. The reality of a human life is complex. Yet, theologically, we are to think of their creation in the image of God. Since we owe honor and love to God, we also owe such honor and love to that which God has made.[119]
Jesus refuses to separate what is inseparable. Jesus ties together two commands that he deemed essential by focusing on the one overwhelming principle that defines God: love. Neither Hillel nor Jesus was by any means the first to tie together the poetic demands of Deuteronomy 6:5, known in the tradition as the Shema, and the compassionate command of Leviticus 19:18.
[Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, around 137-107 BC)
Love the Lord and your neighbor;
Be compassionate toward poverty and sickness. (Testament of Isaacher 5:2)
I acted in piety and truth all my days,
The Lord I loved with all my strength,
Likewise, I loved every human being as I love my children. (Testament of Isaacher 7:6)
They (what distances you from the Law) do not permit people to show mercy to their neighbors. (Testament of Judah 18:3)
Have mercy in your inner being, my children, because whatever anyone does to his neighbor, the Lord will do to him. (Testament of Zebulun 5:3)
Throughout all your life love the Lord,
And one another with a true heart. (Testament of Dan 5:3)
Now, my children, each of you love his brother. Drive hatred out of your hearts. Love one another in deed and word and inward thoughts. (Testament of Gad 6:2)
Of course, the New Testament shares this emphasis on the love of neighbor in Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, and James 2:8.
Jesus grounds the command for love of neighbor, not in the authority of tradition, but in the goodness of the Creator and in the love of God shown to them in the coming kingdom. We can have a part in such love only as we are ready to respond to it and to pass it on. The twofold command of love is not so much a summary of the main content of the Law, but stands against it as a critical principle, which is why Jesus can say the scribe is not far from the kingdom of God.[120]
In Mark, the dialogue ends with the scribe responding that Jesus right. God is one, and beside this God there is no other (Deut 4:35, Isa 45:6, 14, 46:9), and that loving God and neighbor is more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. The "burnt offerings" refer to animal sacrifices that were completely consumed by the flames. Sacrifices include any offerings, either animal or vegetable, made at the Temple. The response of the scribe has its foundation in the Old Testament.
And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. (I Samuel 15:22)
6 Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,
but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Here I am;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
8 I delight to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:6-8)
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6)
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:6-8)
The commandments Jesus chooses as most important are theological and ethical in nature, while the practices the scribe chooses to contrast them with are ritual in nature. The usual scribal position would have stood in the tradition of Simon the Just (c.200 B.C.) who noted that the world rests on three things: the Law, sacrificial worship, and expressions of love (M. Aboth I.2). It was not until later rabbinical literature that rabbis reordered these elements in religious life so that works of love were superior to cultic sacrificial rituals. In fact, this new order of importance may be the prime reason for adding this scribe’s surprising observation into this text. At the time of the completion of the gospel of Mark, the Temple ruins were fresh. The abrupt loss of the rich tradition of cultic life was a painful, open wound for Judaism. To hear Jesus proclaim that the commands of love were the greatest commands of all, and then to hear a scribal authority not only agree but specifically add that they are “much more important” than the offerings and sacrifices the Temple cultic practices had supplied, must have comforted and instilled confidence. Jesus concludes that he is near to the rule of God as a present reality. This exchange between Jesus and the scribe becomes itself something of an illustration of the Great Commandment. They have joined in the conviction that no commandment is greater than the love of God and neighbor. They treat each other as neighbors.[121] They have stepped away from “us versus them” categories and created an island of reconciliation in a sea of hostility. Their common devotion to God and neighbor silences the debate, and that no one dared to ask him a question.
The dialogue ends in Matthew with Jesus emphasizing their centrality, for on these two commandments than all the law and the prophets (Matt 22:40). Jesus did not “come to abolish the law or the prophets;” instead, he came “not to abolish but to fulfill” (Matt 5:17). They provide a coherent principle for appreciating and observing the other commandments.[122] They provide us a lens through which we read Scripture. Jesus understood the prophetic tradition and ethical demands considering these two commands. He is aligning his ministry and mission throughout the gospel of Matthew in accord with the two commands.
Jesus speaks of his own harmonious orientation. Jesus joins the two commands, expecting one love expressed in two spheres of life. Such love finds that the Creator points to the neighbor and in the neighbor the one points to the Creator.[123] One cannot withdraw from the neighbor to some special religious sphere. Nor can we allow love of neighbor to absorb love of God, thereby taking away its independent quality.[124] Love to others cannot exhaust itself in love to God. Nor can love to God exhaust itself in love of others. One cannot replace the other. Love to God evokes love to neighbor. One cannot have Christ and not have the neighbor. Therefore, one cannot have God without also having the neighbor. Such love is obedience to the direction God wants to take you.[125]
Here Jesus stresses if not the equality, then certainly the dynamic interrelationship operating between the commands to love God and to love neighbor. Accountability to one is meaningless without accountability to the other. The point is the contrast between Pharisaic legalism and the ethics of love for God and neighbor. The two commandments are not identical. At the same time, the second is not simply appended, subordinate, or derivative. The second is like the first. The passage has reference to God, but also to the neighbor. It has the one dimension, but also the other. It finds in the Creator the One who points to this creature, the neighbor.[126] To love God and to love the neighbor are both commandments of the one God. In both commandments, what concerns us is the claim of the one God upon the whole person. The commandment to love the neighbor in the time and world that now is and passes, we are in fact dealing with a first and a second commandment, a primary and a secondary, a superior and a subordinate, commandment of God. Such love is the only way to maintain faith. There are no higher or impressive ways.
The neighbor is the person within the circle of significant relationships we have as social creatures.[127] The neighbor is also the stranger within the gates, the one ignored by our circles of significant relationships.
In the context of Luke’s version of the two great commandments in Luke 10 and 11, we have the example of the love to neighbor in the story of the Good Samaritan and of love to God in the story of Mary and Martha. Clearly, Luke views the two commandments as separate. The story of Mary and Martha reminds us that love to God includes practices of meditation, contemplation, prayer, and worship.
My neighbor is an event that takes place in the existence of a definite person marked off from all other people. My neighbor is my fellow human being acting towards me as a benefactor. Every human being can act towards me in this way in virtue of the fact that he or she can have commission and authority to do so. However, not everyone acts towards me in this way. Therefore, not everyone is a neighbor to me. My neighbor is the one who emerges from among all human beings as this one person. I must hear a summons from Jesus Christ. I must be ready to obey the summons to go and do likewise. I have a decisive part in the event by which a human being is my neighbor. That suffering human needing help directs the children of God to the task that God has appointed for them. God does not will the many griefs, sufferings, and burdens under which we people must sigh. God wills their removal. God wills a better world. Therefore, we will this better world, and a true worship of God consists in our cooperation in the removal of these sufferings. Therefore, our neighbor in his or her distress is a reminder to us and the occasion and object of our proper worship of God. To love means to enter the future that God has posited for us in and with the existence of our neighbor. Therefore, to love means to subject ourselves to the order instituted in the form of our neighbor. To love means to accept the benefit that God has shown by not leaving us alone but having given us the neighbor. To love means to reconcile ourselves to the existence of the neighbor, to find ourselves in the fact that God wills us to exist as the children of God in this way. To love means to find ourselves in co-existence with this neighbor, under the direction that we must receive from the neighbor, in the limitation and determination that the existence of the neighbor means for our existence, and in the respecting and acceptance of the mission that the neighbor has in relation to us. One may flee from love to God to a wrongly understood love of the neighbor. The children of God renounce all movements of flight. The life of the children of God is fulfilled in a rhythm of this twofold love, and there is nothing more senseless and impossible than to play off the one against the other. The children of God abide in love. This applies to both, because they know that, once they have fled to God, they can flee to no other place.
Further, the living out of this faith is the witness to which the neighbor has a claim and which I owe the neighbor. It will be as well not to connect the concept of witness with the idea of an end or purpose. Witness in the Christian sense of the concept is the greeting with which I must greet my neighbor, the declaration of my fellowship with my own brother or sister. I do not will anything that I may not will anything in rendering this witness. I simply live the life of my faith in the specific encounter with the neighbor. The strength of the Christian witness stands or falls with the fact that with all its urgency this restraint is peculiar to it. Neither to myself nor to anyone else can I contrive that someone will give help to one in need. Therefore, in my testimony I cannot follow out the plan of trying to invade and alter the life of my neighbor. A witness is neither a guardian nor a teacher. A witness will not intrude on the neighbor. A witness will not handle the neighbor. The witness will not make the neighbor the object of activity, even with the freedom of the grace of God, and therefore respect for the other person who can expect nothing from me but everything from God. It is in serious acknowledgement of the claim and our responsibility that we do not infringe this twofold respect. I only declare to the other that in relation to him or her I believe in Jesus Christ, that I do not meet the neighbor as a stranger but as my brother or sister, even though I do not know that he or she is such. I do not withhold from the neighbor the praise that I owe to God. In that way, I fulfill my responsibility to my neighbor. I want to offer three forms of this witness. One is that I do not grudge my neighbor the word as a word of help in his or her need, nor in my need. We can fail to bear true witness. One way to do so is to talk about our own sin and need as such, for I am not saying anything helpful to the neighbor at that point. In fact, the narration of such a story runs the risk of placing myself at the center of witness rather than Christ. Another way to fail in witness is to focus upon some experience of help, rather than upon the God who provided the help. In both cases, we are never at a loss for words when we come to speak of our sin and our positive experiences. Either way, we have a rich and certain knowledge. How easy to confuse this knowledge of ourselves with the much less intimate and tangible knowledge of the help itself. Any help we give to the neighbor has the objective of directing people to the God who has helped us. I substantiate to my neighbor by my attitude, the disposition and mood by which I meet my neighbor, which need to be the evangelical attitude of bearing witness to Jesus Christ, what I have to say to the neighbor by word and deed.
All law seeks to make a form of life that achieves permanence and may even declare a regulation to be normative, so that it must deal with new situations by casuistic extensions or expositions. Freedom characterizes the work of love. Thus, we misunderstand the creative nature of love if, appealing to this passage, we think of Jesus as abrogating the Old Testament law by a new Christian law. Love does not despise orientation to given rules. Yet, agreement with them is always a free act because one does not accept them in every situation. For love, each new situation is an appeal to its inventive powers. In this fact, we find the contrast to the mere following of a law.[128] Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse.
Since fellowship with God along the lines of the love of God commanded in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is possible only in connection with personal participation in the movement of love of God toward the world, Jesus could directly link the command to love our neighbor in Leviticus 19:18 with the love for God that is the supreme commandment.[129] We find here two commands, but primarily, love is not commanded, but living reality, an impulse proceeding from the love of God for the world that lays hold of us and catches us p into its movement. Participation in the kindness of God as Creator ought to be the natural consequence of thankful acceptance of this kindness. To command love and to practice it as the fulfillment of a command is thus self-contradictory because free spontaneity is a constituent of all turning to others in love. With Augustine, love is a motivating force that differs in nature from a command and its observance. Love is a gift of grace that enables us for the first time to respond in our own conduct to the kindness of God as Creator and to the redeeming love of God to participate in them. Yet, if Christian love is participation in the love of God for the world, then we must ask whether we can distinguish at all between love of God love of neighbor. Does not true love consist of sharing in the love of God for the world? In the depth of turning to the co-human Thou do we not also love God?[130] The Scholastic thesis concerned the unity of the act of love in such a way that primarily love of God is an implication and transcendental basis of love of neighbor. Explicit love of neighbor is the primary act of love of God, which in the love of neighbor God is truly if nonthematically in view, and even explicit love of God is still carried by that trusting and loving opening to the totality of reality that takes place in love of neighbor. This does not mean reduction of love of God to love of neighbor. Instead, we free explicit love of God from falsely seeming to represent an exceptional phenomenon of only marginal importance. Because God as silent incomprehensibility is at work in all the relations of humanity, however secular, we can see thematically in the explicit act of love of God what is always already the concern in all human life in co-humanity. The question remains, why this reference must become thematic in and for itself.[131] In any case, many voices in Protestant theology have tended to answer affirmatively that one can identify love of neighbor with love of God. The problem with this is that equating love of God and love of neighbor can easily lead to a moralistic interpretation of Christianity. The relation to God can fade out as a distinct theme, losing it in co-humanity. With Jesus in this statement, one can find no support for absorbing love of God into love neighbor.[132]
Yet, in this command to love God, is faith implicit already, the emphasis that Paul would bring to light? Ritschl thinks so based on the idea that faith is itself a form of love. He did so because he moved in a critically against Pietism and the medieval Catholic theology that had defined the relation of faith and love. Yet, in doing so, he did not want in the least to say that love of God must merge into love neighbor. His point was to make a careful distinction between our religious relation to God in faith on the one said and love as the essence of moral action on the other. Yet, the act of trust does not contain all aspects of love, for love does not just link up with the object of trust as trust itself does but is also the power of recognizing what is different, making fellowship possible.[133]
Are we here to find happiness? In a certain sense, we can answer positively. Love is a relationship, and relationships take time. John Wesley connected happiness, holiness, and love, based on this text. What is the source of unhappiness? It may well come from setting our love of creation above our love the creator, our love of self above our love of neighbor.[134] If so, the source of unhappiness is misdirected love. Thus, genuinely following Jesus is neither more nor less than love, for love fulfills the law and is the end of the commandments. Genuine religion is the love of God and the neighbor, by which we mean, every person under heaven.[135] If we can properly understand Christian perfection, love will sum up such a life. Of course, love to God with all that we are, and then love of neighbor in inseparable connection with the first. [136]
Mark 12:38-44 (Year B November 6-12) contains sharply contrasting religious practices. As the previous incidents show, this relationship was not always negative. This text demonstrates why all those who held traditional positions of religious power find Jesus’ presence and preaching so disturbing. Jesus denies this royal ruler image of the Messiah in verses 35-37. He then declares that based on their complete rejection of the law of love and servanthood toward others, as articulated both by Jesus and the uncommon scribe in verses 29-34, these religious authorities face a future not of greater honor but of greater condemnation.
In verses 38-40 (Luke 20:45-47) contains saying on warning against the scribes. Jesus condemns the vanity and greed of the scribes. He points to desire for praise and respect that demonstrates false piety. It is an example of ostentation on the part of those seeking the kind of respect paid to the scribes. Jesus advises those in the crowd in the temple to be wary of the arrogance of the scribes. Jesus urges his hearers to beware of the behavior of the scribes. He rejected their air of superiority and feeling themselves worthy of respect and admiration. These scribes were associated with the chief priests and elders in Jerusalem. They would have been experts in Torah and its interpretation, but also involved in the nuts-and-bolts administrative duties essential to the political infrastructure of Roman-controlled Judea.
Jesus begins by attacking the popular style of scribal dress, an easy target. A successful first‑century scribe wore a long linen robe with a long white mantle decorated with beautiful long fringes. White robes identified the wearer as someone of importance and prestige. Such dress was a universally recognized mark of one who was a teacher or a philosopher in the ancient Mediterranean world.[137] Marcus Aurelius (167 AD) thought it right for the rich and powerful not to wear embroidered dresses, which are only for show. It would be better to dress more like a private or common person. He even shares the concern of Jesus that one could construe such action as arrogant, and thus, one should avoid it.
They expect others to treat them with honor in the marketplace. Jesus’ observation is a reference to the tradition that dictated that common people “in the marketplace” should respectfully rise to their feet when a scribe walked past. Social convention excused only certain skilled trades working in the marketplace from this social gesture of respect.
The scribe’s synagogue seat of honor placed him up front with the Torah, facing the congregation. The best seat is the bench before the ark, a desirable location and visible.
Jesus refers to their expectation of receiving places of honor at banquets, which was the topic of a parable of Jesus (Luke 14:7-11). Likewise, at banquets and dinner parties, a well‑heeled host would show off his own importance and good taste by having a learned scribe and some of his pupils sitting in the best, most easily viewed seats. They derive honor in public places. The image is people who expect others to pay the greatest deference to them. The saying is an indictment of a certain type of scholar, those whose piety was on parade and who insisted on certain social advantages, such as having others address them properly and receiving the best couches at banquets. We know of this kind of public performance in other societies among the learned who are in situations that deprive them of political power and wealth. The scribal parade of pomp and circumstance is a plausible setting for Jesus’ biting criticism. The problem Jesus pinpoints is not that these scribes receive deference and honor. The problem is they like it too much. They have confused the respect intended for the position they hold with respect for their own abilities and advancements. As with rabbis, scribes in the first century did not receive pay for being scribes. There was no such thing as a “professional” scribe or rabbi in the sense that it was a self‑supporting activity. Thus, despite the honor their positions brought them, many scribes were downright poor.
Our activity must be visible, but never be done for the sake of making it visible. “Let your light so shine before [others]” . . . and yet: Take care that you hide it! . . . That which is visible must also be hidden. The awareness on which Jesus insists is intended to prevent us from reflecting on our extraordinary position. We have to take heed that we do not take heed of our own righteousness. Otherwise the “extraordinary” which we achieve will not be that which comes from following Christ, but that which springs from our own will and desire. [138]
Jesus then accuses them of devouring the homes of widows. This would be a serious breach of Old Testament and Jewish ethic. The Law and the prophets of the Old Testament forbid preying upon the vulnerability of widows.
"Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice." All the people shall say, "Amen!" (Deuteronomy 27:19)
1 Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees,
who write oppressive statutes,
2 to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be your spoil,
and that you may make the orphans your prey! (Isaiah 10:1-2)
You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. (Exodus 22:22)
who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. (Deuteronomy 10:18)
the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake. (Deuteronomy 14:29)
You shall not deprive a resident alien or an orphan of justice; you shall not take a widow's garment in pledge. (Deuteronomy 24:17)
19 When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings. 20 When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. 21 When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. (Deuteronomy 24:19-21)
12 When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year (which is the year of the tithe), giving it to the Levites, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows, so that they may eat their fill within your towns, 13 then you shall say before the Lord your God: "I have removed the sacred portion from the house, and I have given it to the Levites, the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows, in accordance with your entire commandment that you commanded me; I have neither transgressed nor forgotten any of your commandments: (Deuteronomy 26:12-13)
if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow,
or shed innocent blood in this place,
and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, (Jeremiah 7:6)
do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor;
and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. (Zechariah 7:10)
Then I will draw near to you for judgment;
I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers,
against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely,
against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages,
the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien,
and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:5)
The widow without any male protection was economically threatened. Sometimes religious leaders would manage their affairs as an act of protection, but often as a way to make themselves richer. The precise nature of the abuse against widows that Jesus alleges here is unclear, but, it refers to some sort of economic exploitation of the personal holdings of Jewish widows. The culture considered it an act of obedience and piety to extend the hospitality of one’s goods and services, of one’s home and resources, to scribes for their support. Jesus’ condemnation of a lifestyle that often found the poorest and least capable further impoverishing themselves and their households as they attempted to support the needs and wants of members of the religious establishment. Those who write harsh laws in order to exploit the poor, including widows and orphans, will receive severe punishment. A plausible setting would be that some of the scribes, employed by elites who needed their literacy skills, could have used their position to secure a privileged lifestyle. In that case, they would not have concerned themselves with the plight of widows and their children. Jesus denounces their shameless profiteering at the expense of widows.
Jesus continues his polemic by accusing the scribes of offering up long, impressive prayers merely for the sake of appearance. In fact, most risky of all was Jesus’ taking issue with the prayer life of these scribes. He accuses them of offering long prayers to God, not as an attempt to seek God’s will or praise God’s name, but as a means of asserting their superior piety.
Jesus then declares that based on their complete rejection of the law of love and servanthood toward others, as articulated both by Jesus and the uncommon scribe in v. 29-34, these religious authorities face a future not of greater honor but of greater condemnation. Divine judgment awaits sham and shame. This haunting, threatening comment is Jesus’ final public word in Mark’s gospel. It is not surprising that, after this public condemnation of scribal behavior, the next time Jesus makes a public appearance is as a prisoner before the court of the Jewish establishment.
To summarize the lesson, God grants significance and worth to what we ignore. God seems more concerned with those to whom we relate who are, from that standpoint of human convention, beneath us. How do we treat those who serve us? How do we treat those less impressive than us, poorer than us, less educated than us, less respectable than us? That is the test of character. In the presence of God, each person receives the same dignity and respect as a child of God.
In verses 41-44 (Luke 21:1-4), Jesus points to the meager offering of a poor widow as an example of personal sacrifice and generosity. There are parallels to the story in Jewish, Indian, and Buddhist literature. Note the story of a rabbi who rejected the offering of a widow, but in a dream was warned to accept it: “It is as if she offered her life.” See Leviticus Rabba iii, 107a.
The “treasury” to which Jesus sat opposite could have been a special room in the Temple or a collection box in the outer courts. According to the Mishnah (Shekalim VI.6), 13 trumpet‑shaped receptacles stood up against the wall of the Court of Women that functioned to gather the gifts of the faithful for the temple treasury. In the Temple Solomon built, the priest Jehoiada took a chest, made a hole in its lid, and set beside the altar and the priests put in it all the money that was brought to the house of the Lord (II Kings 12:9). Jesus would teach in the Temple area near the place where the coffers were put (John 8:20). This time, Jesus watched the crowd placing money into the treasury, where he observed the rich putting in large sums, but a poor widow put in two small copper coins, worthy a penny, 64 of which would equal wages for a day. As small of an amount as it was, it is significant to the woman. He then gathered the disciples around him and solemnly told them that the poor widow has put in more than all the others who contributed to the treasury, for they have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has contributed all she had. Given the previous reference to the scribes devouring the income of widows, is the comment of Jesus a good thing in that from one perspective she gave more than the wealthy, or a bad thing in that she has nothing more on which to live. The story appears to have its point in the statement of Jesus about almsgiving. The small sacrifices of the poor are more pleasing to God or the gods than are the extravagant contributions of the rich. As Paul put it:
For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not according to what one does not have. (II Corinthians 8:12)
The poor widow gave her all. This widow stands alone as the one who has turned over to God’s uses all that she has to offer. The widow who comes to the temple, then, does not only the disadvantage of her poverty but also of her vulnerability. She is invisible to the legal, religious, political, and social eyes of her society, the object of abuse at worst, pity at best. Jesus’ saying also underlies the ultimate or total nature of the financial sacrifice made by the widow. The small sacrifices of the poor are more pleasing to God or the gods than are the extravagant contributions of the rich.
Among the more recent hermeneutic tacks are those that cast a wider eye on the context of this story. In these interpretations, the scribes and their self‑serving ways that “devour widows’ houses” (as Jesus puts it) are seen not just as bad examples but also as exemplars of a bad system – a system that abuses and exploits the poor. Those with the least work hard to support the lifestyles and privileges of those with the most. The somewhat startling conclusion reached by these interpreters is that when Jesus observes the poor woman putting all she has into the temple treasury, she is an unwitting pawn of an abusive system. His declaration of “Truly I tell you” in verse 43 sounds to them as more of a lament than a call to take notice. Here is a "widow's house" being devoured before their very eyes. Unless he calls attention to it, his disciples will not even see it. As further contextual evidence to support this interpretation, scholars look to the verses immediately following this text. The flow of Mark’s text from 12:44 to 13:1‑2 suggests that readers are to view these events as consecutive. In 13:1‑2, Jesus declares an ominous ending for the great temple, the religious‑cultic center of Judaism. Thus, the destruction of the temple and the religious establishment that depends on it has a link to Jesus’ observation of the widow’s sacrificial gift. The widow may give out of obedience, but she has chosen the wrong recipients for her devotion. She has given her all to a lost cause. The conclusion of such interpreters is that Jesus was lamenting what happened, based on the previous attack and on the following admiration of the Temple by the disciples. He has condemned the scribes for devouring the estates of widows, and now he witnesses a widow surrendering her entire estate to the very institution that was supposed to protect her. Certainly, her faithfulness is noteworthy, yet the position of her story is not incidental. Her story fulfills Jesus’ condemnation of the scribes in verse 40 and immediately precedes his prediction of the temple’s destruction in 13:1-2. Yet, her gift to the temple also echoes Jesus’ charge that the temple had become a “den of robbers” in 11:17.
Taken together the two episodes in 12:38-40 and 41-44 provide a study in contrasts. On the one hand are the scribes, respected members of the religious community, whom Jesus condemns for their arrogance and exploitation, while on the other is a marginalized member of the community whom he praises for a poignant example of faithfulness and generosity. As is the case at so many points in the gospels, here we find Jesus inverting societal expectations of what one is to value and esteem, depreciating the values associated with prestige and upward mobility and holding in honor humility and selflessness.
Mark 13:1-8 (Year B November 13-19) is the beginning of the apocalyptic discourse in 13:1-37.
Verses 1-2 are a pronouncement story on the destruction of the Temple. It is a prophecy of the destruction of the Temple. Jesus and his disciples exit the Temple, and the disciples admire the structure, its large stones and buildings. The disciples were not the only ones impressed with the stature and structure of the Temple. The ancient world considered both Jerusalem and the Temple in its heart to be magnificent. Dazzling white stone, intricate carvings, gold adornments, all made the Temple building and its various courts a “wonder” to all. the temple was an amazing piece of architecture. At the time of Jesus’ ministry, it had been under construction for almost 50 years and was finally nearing completion. Josephus, the Jewish historian noted that its exterior lacked nothing that could astound the viewer. Massive gold plates covered the sides. The sun immediately radiated a fiery flash from which one needed to avert the eyes. First sight of it, one could mistake it for a snow-clad mountain, for the part of the Temple not covered with gold was pure white. Some of the largest stones were 40 feet long, 12 feet high, 18 feet wide and bright white in their appearance. This was more than a Temple in which to worship God; it was an incredible accomplishment of human beings. However, Jesus says that no stone will be left upon another, and all will be thrown down. The saying illustrates the insight of Jesus into the religious and political condition of the day. Jesus stands in the line of prophets. The prophecy must have stunned the disciples. It left no room for negotiation. The double negative makes it emphatically clear that a future event will destroy every sign of the Temple. Although shocking, this prophecy is a logical continuation of Jesus’ activities in Mark 11:12‑21 and his “subversive” teachings delivered while at the Temple itself (Mark 11:27‑12:44). The Roman army destroyed the temple first by fire. After the flames died down, Titus then ordered the stones themselves torn down, leaving nothing standing.
Verses 3-4 contain the story of Jesus concerning the question posed by the disciples. It introduces the apocalyptic discourse of verses 5-37, with the discourse of the ending of the Temple and the time of the end begins. Jesus and the disciples are sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple. Jesus and his listeners enjoy a spectacular view. More significantly, in Zech 14:4-5, the Mount of Olives is the site of redemption in the last days. Peter, James, John, and Andrew, the first four disciples whom Jesus called to follow him, ask Jesus privately, thereby narrowing the portion of his followers involved. Mark prefers such private lessons. Their question regards the when the destruction of the Temple will happen. They also ask about the sign that that these things will be accomplished, as if they did not under when Jesus refused to give his audience a sign (Mark 8:11-12). This will be an eschatological revelation. The phrasing echoes the eschatological predictions made before Daniel by a divine messenger (Dan 12:7). The destruction of the Temple signals the start of something more, the beginning of the time of the end.
Verses 5-8 contain sayings against deceivers and prediction of war. The reply of Jesus is a caution against looking for signs. The disciples request more facts, and Jesus gives them a discourse that combines information with inspirational ideals of how the faithful should interpret the signs. The peril before them is that of others misleading them or deceiving them. Jesus notes that these deceivers will invoke the Messiah's name by claiming, "I am he," trying to usurp the power of the divine name. False prophets are masterful at attaching the credentials of heaven to their earthbound existence. The greatest danger deceivers pose to believers is the false notion that the Parousia is here, that the time for watchful vigilance is past. The very appearance of “false prophets,” Jesus cautions, should alert the faithful to an even more vigilant state. The difficulty historically here is that historians of the first century have no evidence of such rebellions until Bar Cochba in 132 AD. The text then moves to the common apocalyptic expectation of wars. Kings, peoples, potentates, and tribes will be at war and ravage Greece (Sibylline Oracles 3:635, in Egypt, 163-145 BC). “They” will make war against each other, people against people and kingdom against kingdom (IV Ezra 13:31, 100 AD). The point is that as they have in the past, wars and conflicts will continue to occur. However, the simple unfolding of human history is a story controlled and timed by God. In and of themselves, these events are simply part of God’s gradual, unfolding plan for creation – they are not the looked‑for, eschatological, end times. Continuing with images from the Old Testament, earthquakes (Judges 5:4f; Psa 18:7f; Isa 24:19) and famines (Jer 15:2; Ezek 5:17) will occur. Such images continue in later Jewish writings. People who do not die in war will die in earthquakes, those who escape that will die in fire, and those who escape that will die in famine (II Baruch 27:7, 70:3,8, later in the second century). There was a famine in the time of Claudius, earthquakes at Laodicea in 61 AD and Pompey in 62. Jesus cautions his disciples not to let events in the natural world receive the false label as portents of an imminent eschaton. God has used such events before in human history. God will use them again.
Amid them all, there is no need for fear. They are like birth pangs. Everything belongs to the divine plan. The insistence upon a plan is characteristic of apocalyptic forecasts. As specific signals of “the end,” however, these events are clear examples of an extended time of pain and suffering that humanity will pass through as it waits for the eschaton to arrive. In the Jewish tradition, suffering “birth pangs” is a symbol of divine judgment. In the same way, childbirth can be a long, drawn‑out torture; this period of pain and suffering may continue for a long time. God continues to work in human history, and divine judgment continues to be a part of that story. However, the eschaton is not yet upon us. The disciples will experience some “birth pangs,” but they must keep themselves ready for those yet‑to‑come events that will genuinely usher in the eschaton. Labor is a process that comes in waves. There are intervals of intense pain and struggle between which there is relative calm as the time of delivery draws gradually nearer. Each contraction may seem like the end, but there are often many hours of labor ahead prior to delivery, and the time varies with every birth. It is unpredictable in its onset and it is unpredictable in length once onset begins. This makes labor a particularly apt metaphor for the upheavals that will transform this flawed earth into the perfected earth of the age to come.
The Greek term, used here for labor pains or birth pangs, was already widely used in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, intertestamental literature, classical Greek literature, and contemporary Jewish teaching to describe a variety of major theological concepts. Plato used it to describe the struggle for knowledge in which the teacher functions as the midwife to deliver the result of learning in the new student. Deut 32:18 compares God’s act in creation to a woman’s labor and delivery. Isa 26:17-18 uses the image of unsuccessful labor to describe Israel’s attempts to save themselves apart from God’s intervention. There are several verbs related to pregnancy and childbirth in Hebrew. Yet, the Greek appears to be used predominantly in the LXX to translate the Hebrew verbs which refer, not to the act of conception, or the physical carrying of a child, but specifically to the physical struggle of labor (Deut 32:18; Psa 28:8-9; 89:2; Prov 8:25; Isa 45:10; Song of Solomon 8:5; Psa 7:14). It is only by intertestamental times, at Qumran, and elsewhere in Jewish teaching that childbirth becomes a metaphor for the cataclysmic events that will precede the coming of the Messiah. Labor and childbirth had become common metaphors for the expected birth of the eschatological age. Paul uses the image quite a lot, either to portray the suddenness of the end time’s coming (1 Thess 5:3), the struggle of creation to transform itself into God’s new creation (Rom 8:22) or to describe his own struggle to “give birth” to the infant church (Gal 4:19). In Gal 4:27, Paul cites Isa 54:1 in his allegory of Hagar and Sarah, which likens the heavenly Jerusalem to Sarah who after years of barrenness God miraculously grants the experience of giving birth. Labor and childbirth also figure prominently in the image of the pregnant woman and the dragon in Revelation 12. Jesus’ use of the image of birth pangs for the coming of the messianic age is one of both warning and promise. Like the sudden onset of labor that inflicts both fear and surprise, a history of various catastrophes lies before the church. Nonetheless, those who resist the doomsday warnings of false messiahs will endure by faith and witness the joy of the true birth of the world to come. [139]
In the year 1000, apocalyptic dreamers watched the skies for the apocalypse. The entire Middle Ages witnessed intense millenarian movements. Followers of Joachim of Fiore even resorted to self-flagellation, blaming themselves for Christ’s failure to return on schedule. In the 1500s, Martin Luther thought the world was in its final days. William Miller, a Vermont pastor with thousands of followers, calculated that the world would end in 1843. J. F. Walvoord’s 1974 book, Armageddon, Oil, and the Middle East Crisis, was a million seller (even its updated and reissued 1990 edition). Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Plant Earth was a multimillion seller through the 1970s and early 1980s.
This discourse of Jesus is a reminder that Christianity has a hope for the redemption of creation and human history. Like the Gospels, many New Testament writings, and the New Testament itself, theology tends to put eschatology, as a discussion of the doctrine of last things, as its last chapter. Yet, in another sense, good theology has its eschatology accompanying it along the way to the end. Without the hope contained in the closing chapter, much of what Christianity says about creation, Christology, anthropology, ecclesiology, and Christian life, will make little sense. Eschatology attempts to keep chronos, time that passes by the clock and calendar, and kairos time, the right and fulfilled time, in juxtaposition. It attempts a dimension of realism regarding the calendar. It attempts to sustain the expectation that, despite the incomprehensible nature of the direction of the present, the secret is that God is moving history toward its saving and grace-filled consummation. Such an orientation toward the future helps to realistically see the fallibility of the church, for it is not a finished product today. Christ finished his work on the cross and resurrection. The participation of the church in that work has not finished. The church is a community on the way to its completion. The same is true of our lives.[140]
Science and history would teach us that we are moving toward nothingness. Eschatology tells us that history does not end in a whimper but in redemption. Standing there in glory at the conclusion of all things is Jesus, the one in whom God has turned toward the world and each of us in love and grace. I modestly hope that Jesus and the early church are right, even if the fulfillment of that hope may be in ways we would not expect. We are moving toward creation and history glorifying God.
[1] (See David M. May. "Mark 3:20‑35 From the Perspective of Shame/Honor," Biblical Theology Bulletin 17 [1987], 83‑87.)
[2] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.2] 231.
[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 266.
[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 623.
[5] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV. 2[64.3] 231-2.
[6] (M. Eugene Boring, "The Gospel of Matthew", New Interpreter's Bible Commentary [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 309, Craig Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999], 388; H. L. Ellison, "Matthew" New International Bible Commentary[Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979], 1136).
[7] (Warren Carter, "Matthew", New Interpreter's Study Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2003], 1770).
[8] --Chorus of "Storms of Life," a song written by Troy Harold Seals and Max Duane Barnes, recorded by Randy Travis for his debut album, "Storms of Life" in 1986.
[9] Bernard F. Batto, "The Sleeping God: An Ancient Near Eastern Motif of Divine Sovereignty," Biblica 68 [1987], 153‑177.
[10] Church Dogmatics IV.3 [72.1] 733-4.
[11] The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder. --Augustine of Hippo, Confessions.
[12] —Richard Kearney, “Losing Our Touch,” The New York Times, August 30, 2014.
[13] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3] 227.
[14] Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life, 1992.
[15] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 336.
[16] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), Volume IV.2 [64.3] 216-7.
[17] Theodore Roosevelt: "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."
[18] Cardinal Newman, in the last year of his life, wrote in his journal: "Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.
[19] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991), Volume 3, 270, 367.
[20] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), Volume IV.3 [72.4] 863.
[21] (Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, [New York: Doubleday, 1997], 135-36)
[22] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 2, 357.
[23] Antiquities xviii, 5.2. Herodias was the niece of Herod Antipas, the daughter of Aristobulous, and the granddaughter of Herod the Great and Masiansne, in contrast to Mark’s statement, which cannot be accurate. Herod is defeated in AD 36 by his wife’s father in battle. Salome did not marry Philip until 34 AD, after the death of Jesus. Herodias is like Jezebel in I Kings 21 and seeks to kill John. A Herodian princess would not dance before the court. Mark is influenced by the account in Esther. Normally, Roman citizens and individuals with status were executed by beheading while those of the lower classes were crucified. In this instance, it seems that the beheading of John the Baptist, who was incarcerated in the prison below, along with the request that his head be brought upon a platter, provides a gruesome irony to the dinner taking place.
[24] Numbers 27:17
who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the LORD may not be like sheep without a shepherd."
1 Kings 22:17/II Chronicles 18:16
Then Micaiah said, "I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep that have no shepherd; and the LORD said, 'These have no master; let each one go home in peace.'"
Ezekiel 34:5
So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals.
[26] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [35.4] 482, 499.
[27] Tom Hobson, “What Does Jesus Say About Homosexual Behavior?” Biblical Words & World, May 3, 2018.
[28] Gerd Theissen (The Gospels in Context [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991], 72-80).
[29] Josephus (Jewish War 2.478).
[30] Systematic Theology Volume 2, 310.
[31] True, the story may show the precedence of the Jewish people in the plan of salvation. True, the story may even reflect a tension in the mind of Jesus about the scope of his ministry. Jesus seems as concerned about the success of his mission as this brave and persistent mother is of hers.
[32] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 336.
[33] (Sherman E. Johnson, Matthew; Interpreters Bible [New York: Abington, 1951], 449).
[34] (R.T. France, The Gospel of Mark, [Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002], 327).
[35] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [53.2], 85.
[36] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [35.3] 440-3.
[37] (Ralph P. Martin, Mark [John Knox Press, 1981], 45).
[38] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 336.
[39] —B.A. Gerrish, “What do we mean by faith in Jesus Christ?” The Christian Century, October 6, 1999, referring to Ernst Troeltsch.
[40] N. T. Wright, Who Was Jesus? [Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992].)
[41] J. A. DiNoia, “Jesus and the World Religions,” First Things, June/July 1995.
[42] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 416.
[43] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 438.
[44] Dietrich Bonhoeffer
[45] Gerhard Ebeling (Word and Faith, p. 424.)
[46] Paul Minear
[47] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 539-40.
[48] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [64.3] 264.
[49] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 282.
[50] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 282.
[51] Inspired by Elie Wiesel.
[52] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [60.2] 421.
[53] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.1 [63.1] 744.
[54] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.3 [71.6] 652.
[55] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 374-5.
[56] Oscar Wilde
[57] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.1 [63.1] 744.
[58] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) IV.2 [64.3] 264.
[59] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [60.2] 421.
[60] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67) III.4 [55.1] 387.
[61] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 249.
[62] Sidney Howard
[63] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 114.
[64] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 614.
[65] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [67.2] 657.
[66] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 398, 328, referring to the emphasis of J. Weiss.
[67] (Moloney, 191).
[68] See Jacob Neusner, “Gittin.”
[69] 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out without debt, without payment of money.
[70] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 361-2.
[71] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [54.1], 203-213.
[72]
[73] John W. Martens, “Jesus’ Teaching on Marriage and Divorce,” The National Catholic Review, November 6, 2015.
[74] In The Mystery of Marriage, Mike Mason
[75] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 54.1.
[76] Anne Morrow Lindbergh in A Gift From the Sea
[77] Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, reflecting on the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine, April 21, 2011, archbishopofcanterbury.org. Retrieved April 11, 2012.
[78] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 263.
[79] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 398.
[80] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 212.
[81] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.4, 180.
[82] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 139.
[83] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 264.
[84] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 263-4.
[85] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 263, 309, 321, 326, 432, Volume 2, 372.
[86] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 542.
[87] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [37.3] 613-23.
[88] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.4] 556.
[89] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 328, referring to Johannes Weiss, and p. 398.
[90] Barth Church Dogmatics II.2 [37.3] 623-27.
[91] (Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996], p. 464.)
[92]Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996, pp. 466-468
[93] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 548.
[94] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 280-3.
[95] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 424-5.
[96] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 418.
[97] Barth, Church Dogmaitcs IV.1 [59.2] 230.
[98] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 416-7.
[99] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [67.4] 690-1.
[100] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 214-5.
[101] Rabindanath Tagore.
[102] —William Cohen, The stuff of heroes: The Eight Universal Laws of Leadership, quoted on the Trinity Western University Web site, twu.ca/Leadership/sl_quotes.asp.
[103] (Stephen C. Barton, The Spirituality of the Gospels [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1992], 63).
[104] Mary Ann Tolbert (Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996], 191).
[105] Lose, David J. “Homiletical Perspective: Matthew 22:34-40.” Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew Vol. 2 (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 203-205.
[106]
[107]
[108]
[109] (Adela Yarboro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia, [Fortress Press, 2007], 573).
[110]
[111] Amy-Jill Levine. If she is right, then we do not need to go down an explanation I have often heard, where people will say that the second half of Jesus' dual commandment meets us where we stand ‑‑ as self‑absorbed sinners. To "love your neighbor as yourself" means extending to one's neighbor the same self‑centered love and concern we all harbor.
[112] —Michael Fitzpatrick, “What Cannot Be Seen,” Journey With Jesus for June 6, 2021.
[113] John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.
[114] John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.
[115] Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love (Doubleday, 1992), 96.
[116] Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith (HarperOne, 2010), 113.
[117] Eric Hoffer
[118] Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov"
[119] John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life.
[120] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, 333.
[121] Pheme Perkins ("The Gospel of Mark," The New Interpreter's Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 679).
[122] Daniel J. Harrington, "The Gospel of Matthew", from the Sacra Pagina Series (The Liturgical Press, 1991),316.
[123]
[124]
[125] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [58.2] 105-107.
[126] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.1] 216-7.
[127] Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2 [18.2] 371-401], [18.3] 401-457.
[128] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, Volume 3, 76-7.
[129]
[130]
[131] Rahner, Theological Investigations, VI, 264ff.
[132]
[133] Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, II, 103ff, 116ff.
[134] Albert Outler, Theology in the Wesleyan Spirit
[135] John Wesley, “Wandering Thoughts.”
[136] John Wesley, “On Perfection;” A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
[137] An interesting parallel to this phrase and concern of Jesus is a comment by Marcus Aurelius(167 AD).
… it is possible for a man to live in a palace without wanting either guards or embroidered dresses, or torches and statues, and such-like show; but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself very near to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner in thought, or more remiss in action, with respect to the things which must be done for the public interest in a manner that befits a ruler. (Meditations, 1.7)
[138] (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, R. H. Fuller and Irmgard Both, trans. [New York: Touchstone Books, Simon and Schuster, 1995], p. 157.)
[139] (George Bertram, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], IX.667-674),
[140] - Douglas John Hall, Confessing the Faith, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996, pp. 49, 476.
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