October 9 - Jesus and Money

October 9 – Jesus and Money

10:17 As he was setting out on a journey, someone came running up and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to share in everlasting life?” 18 Jesus answered, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You know the commandments: No killing. No committing adultery. No stealing. No bearing false witness. No defrauding. Honor your mother and your father.” 20 The other replied, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my childhood.” 21 Then Jesus looked at the person with love and said, “There is one thing more that you must do. Go and sell what you have and give it to those in need; you will then have treasure in heaven. After that, come and follow me.” 22 At these words, the inquirer, who owned much property, became crestfallen and went away sadly. 23 Jesus looked around and said to the disciples, “How hard it is for rich people to enter the kin-dom of God!” 24 The disciples could only marvel at these words. So Jesus repeated what he had said: “My children, how hard it is to enter the realm of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to pass through the Needle’s Eye gate than for a rich person to enter the kin-dom of God!” 26 The disciples were amazed at this and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible—but not for God. With God all things are possible.” 28 Peter was moved to say to Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you!” 29 Jesus answered, “The truth is, there is no one who has left home, sisters or brothers, mother or father, children or fields for me and for the sake of the Gospel 30 who won’t receive a hundred times as much in this present age—as many homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children and property, though not without persecution—and, in the age to come, everlasting life. 31 “Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

12: 13 Some Pharisees and Herodians were sent after Jesus to catch him in his speech. 14 The two groups approached Jesus and said, “Teacher, we know you are truthful and unconcerned about the opinion of others. It is evident you aren’t swayed by another’s rank, but teach God’s way of life sincerely. So: is it lawful to pay tax to the emperor or not? 15 Are we to pay or not to pay?” Knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you trying to trick me? Let me see a coin.” 16 When they handed him one, he said to them, “Whose image and inscription do you see here?” “Caesar’s,” they answered. 17 Then Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.” This reply took them completely by surprise.

12: 38 In his teaching, Jesus said, “Beware of the religious scholars who like to walk about in long robes, be greeted obsequiously in the market squares, 39 and take the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 40 These are the ones who swallow the property of widows and offer lengthy prayers for the sake of appearance. They will be judged all the more severely.” 41 Jesus sat down opposite the collection box and watched the people putting money in it, and many of the rich put in a great deal. 42 A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. 43 Then Jesus called out to the disciples and said to them, “The truth is, this woman has put in more than all who have contributed to the treasury; 44 for they have put in money from their surplus, but she has put in everything she possessed from the little she had—all she had to live on.”

                Money is a topic for which Christians catch a lot of flak. Either we get accused of talking about money all the time (mostly asking for more of it), or that we place a higher concern on a person’s money than on the person in the first place. Let me be clear about my understanding about money: if the Christian journey is about making our lives more transparent to the desire and presence of God then that means our whole lives. That includes our money.

                While the scripture passages above have some pretty negative things to say about amassing money, Marcus Borg nails the pertinent question underlying the whole conversation: “A personal comment: don’t feel guilty if your life has turned out well financially. Be grateful—it is something to be thankful for. But do ponder what it might mean to take seriously God’s passion for a transformed world—the kingdom of God—as seen in Jesus. The question for those of us who have some wealth then becomes: how do we use the wealth we have been given to further God’s passion for a different kind of world?” (Conversations with Scripture, p.85)

                Yes, I have intentionally chosen this topic for the middle of our stewardship campaign (the following Sunday will be when we make our commitments for the coming year). But my intent is not to guilt people into giving. Rather, I want to join Borg is asking the question, “How are we helping build the Kin-dom of God?” How are we using our resources to reconstruct the hope of the world?

                I do believe that Jesus thought that wealth was problematic. The wealthy person in the first story could not quite enter the kin-dom of God because of the grip wealth had on him. This is not presented as a moral failing—he is presented as doing all that was required to be an upstanding person in that society. Nor is this a pronouncement that rich people cannot get in to heaven. Remember that in Mark’s Gospel, the kin-dom of God is about the here and now and this world, not an afterlife. It seems that Jesus is stating that wealth keeps this person from “getting it.” Lots of commentary has been written about Jesus’ statement about camels and needles. Honestly, there is no explaining away the image. Jesus chose it because it is ludicrous. A camel cannot and never will thread a needle. Wealth is a huge impediment to “getting it.” When our priorities are making money and keeping money, we cannot focus on “God’s passion for a transformed world.” A huge impediment for us, but nothing is impossible with God.

                The second story also asks where our priorities lay. This is not a story about whether or not Americans should pay taxes to the government. Jesus’ opponents are trying to make him say something they can use against him. If he says, go ahead and pay the tax money to the Romans then he will alienate himself from his peasant base. If he says no, don’t pay the tax, then they can accuse him of sedition. Instead, Jesus forces them into an action which betrays their allegiance. Jesus asks to see a Roman coin. When the Jewish leaders produce one, Jesus asks whose picture is on it. Two things have happened here. One, how come the Jewish leaders have such ready access to Roman coinage? The implication is that they are paid by the Romans. They have already sold out. This is reinforced by realization number two: the coin has Caesar’s picture one. Caesar has declared himself Son of God, and a God himself. The Pharisees are holding a graven image, an idol. They are breaking the most basic of the commandments: to hold no other gods before God. When Jesus says to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s but to give to God what is God’s it is clear that he understands that he whole of Creation is already God’s.

                The third story has the clearest connection to the question about using wealth to build the Kin-dom and reconstruct hope. Again in this story I find the traditional interpretation inadequate. Jesus is not praising the impoverished widow for giving all she had to the Temple. She is not a paragon of generosity. Her pittance would likely not have fed her even for that day, much less support her for any other needs. By giving away her last money, she admits that she is destitute. She now has none to help her but God. And that is exactly the problem that Jesus sees. Around this poor woman there were “many of the rich (who) put in a great deal.” Jesus makes the point that they give from their surplus – what they don’t need. In contrast, Jesus says that the widow “has put in everything she possessed from the little she had—all she had to live on.” Aye, there’s the rub. Widows have a special place of protection in Jewish law. Widows, orphans, and strangers in the land are to be cared for. In Deuteronomy 10:18 God is described as the one who “brings justice to the orphan and the widowed, and who befriends the foreigner among you with food and clothing.” Jesus raises the question why the rich are contributing out of their surplus but allowing the widow to further impoverish herself. Why aren’t they caring for her needs? This is not building the Kin-dom. Jesus already said it in verse 40:  These are the ones who swallow the property of widows and offer lengthy prayers for the sake of appearance. The Temple treasury gives us a vivid example. So this is not a story about giving until it hurts. This is a story about using what we have to take care of each other.

                For Jesus, the question is not about how much money we have or how much money we give. For Jesus, the issue is how we are participating in the construction of a new and equitable reality based on God’s desire and dream for us. The present reality has broken the dreams and hopes of billions of people in this world (not to mention the destruction of the non-human world). How will we use everything we have to transform this reality and reconstruct the Hope of God?

Good News: God’s passion (seen in Christ) is for a reality where everyone is valued equally

Subject: Our money is one means given to us to help transform our world into God’s dream

Igniting Desire: The desire to make a difference, that our gifts mean something, can mean a great deal for those in need and for the world in dire need of transformation

October 3 (World Communion Sunday)

8:13 And leaving the crowds again and getting back into the boat, he went away to the opposite shore. 14 The disciples had forgotten to bring bread along, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 Then Jesus gave them this warning: “Keep your eyes open. Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” 16 And they said to one another, “It’s because we forgot the bread.”17 Aware of this, Jesus reprimanded them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Don’t you see or understand yet? Are your minds closed? 18 Have you ‘eyes that don’t see, ears that don’t hear’? Don’t you remember 19 when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand? How many baskets of fragments did you collect?”  They answered, “Twelve.” 20 “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many baskets of scraps did you collect?” “Seven,” they replied.  21 Then he said to them, “And you still don’t understand?”

This continues the theme of “what Jesus did,” and portrays one of the most theologically significant of Jesus’ activities. Jesus feeds people. In this fast food, eating on the run culture we almost cannot grasp the deep radicality of this part of Jesus’ life.

                I don’t know if it is a result of the “melting pot” ideal of the United States (whether or not we ever achieve that ideal), but most of us have no compunction about sharing food with perfect strangers. In a busy lunch hour it is not unusual to sit down at an unwashed table in a fast food establishment that has been used by previous diners of possibly any race, culture, gender, or class. It is not even in our mentality to ask, “what kind of person sat here?” We wolf our food and dump our trash and move on, making room for the next hurried diner after us. If the food is popular and the dining room crowded to capacity, we may even share that table strangers.

                 It is sobering to recall that in this land where anyone can sit down and eat at just about any establishment that there are those who go hungry. We live in the richest nation that has ever existed in human history and yet we have not eradicated poverty. We have distributed food so inequitably that healthy food is too often unavailable in the poorest urban neighborhoods. Rural counties, where much of the food consumed in the cities is grown, are among the poorest in the nation.

                Beyond physical hunger, our age of affluence has created more mysterious kinds of starvation. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are symptoms of different but just as life-threatening kind of hunger. They are diseases of the psyche, of a wracking lack of self-esteem or a distorted self-image. In a culture where there is more than enough food, eating disorders cause people to starve themselves to death. On the other extreme, the epidemic of obesity itself asks the question, if we have so much food why do we keep eating? What are we really hungry for?

                Eating was a completely different occasion in Jesus’ time than ours. It was a private event, a closed circle. You ate with family. It was a high compliment and a social coup to be invited to the home of someone higher on the cultural ladder than you. To eat with someone was to see them as family. It was unheard of  to dine with foreigners or Gentiles because they were seen as outsiders and you only sat at table with the insiders.When the Pharisees complained that Jesus was eating with Levi and the other taxcollectors and “notorious sinners,”, they were scandalized that Jesus would flaunt the social convention of only eating with the acceptable (and equal) people.

                Jesus seemed to practice a completely different kind of table gathering. While he was not opposed to dining with the Pharisees, he seemed to go out of his way to invite and include the outsiders of every stripe. He did so because the family table was Jesus’ frequent parable of the Kin-dom of God. At Christ’s table there was room for everybody.

                There are two stories leading up to the encounter in this week’s scripture: the feeding of the 5000 families and the feeding of the 4000 families. The plot of each episode is almost identical with a few variations of details. In the first there are 5 loaves and 3 fish and 12 basketfuls of bread left over. In the second there are 7 loaves at first and seven baskets left over. Beyond the discussion that has been going on for years about the nature of these “miracle” stories (did Jesus magically produce bread, or did the crowds share out of the stashes they had selfishly hidden?), the radical nature of both these events is seen in the public meal. With crowds of 5000 and 4000 families gathered together these people were almost certainly strangers to each other. they had come from many towns and villages. And yet they sit down and eat together. They are fed (abundantly) on what Jesus gives them. Why does Mark include the telling of almost the same story twice? Though not theologically elegant, I think Mark was making the same point for us as readers as for those thick-headed disciples of Jesus.

                Crossing the water again, the disciples have forgotten to take bread along (even though there were 7 baskets of it available!). Jesus uses the metaphor of bread to warn against “the yeast of the Pharisees…and Herod” and the 12 misunderstand and think that Jesus is complaining because they forgot to bring lunch. I can imagine that Jesus cussed under his breath at their denseness, and then asks them about the two feedings they have just experienced. “How much bread was left when we fed 5000 families?” Twelve baskets. “How many when we fed 4000 families?” Seven. “Duh!”

                Mark is showing us that where Christ is, there is more than enough food to feed us. The deeper question is whether or not we know what we are really hungry for.

                The good news here is that in God’s Kin-dom nobody goes hungry. There are enough resources among us to feed the masses who have empty bellies. And the loaves of hope and wisdom and peace multiply to feed our souls when we gather together as the kin of Creation. These feeding stories are the table practice of Jesus played out on a macrocosmic scale. It is worth noting that Jesus never asks the crowds if they buy what he is teaching, or even asks all of them to follow him. He senses their hunger and he feeds them.

For me, Christianity is not about winning souls. It is about welcoming outcasts to the table and offering food that satisfies.

Good News: There is food enough and room for everyone in God’s Kin-dom

Subject: Christ calls us to radical inclusion in a world that divides, starves, and excludes people

Igniting Desire: We are hungry for the wild love that saves a place for us no matter what, and that we can save place for other hungry travelers

September 25 - What Jesus Does

September 25 – What Jesus Does: Healer,    Wonder-worker, Welcomer of All

Mark 2:1-12

2:1 Jesus came back to Capernaum after several days, and word spread that he was home. 2 People began to gather in such great numbers that there was no longer any room for them, even around the door.  While Jesus was delivering God’s word to them, 3 some people arrived bringing a paralyzed person. The four who carried the invalid 4 were unable to reach Jesus because of the crowd, so they began to open up the roof directly above Jesus. When they had made a hole, they lowered the mat on which the paralyzed one was lying. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the sufferer, “my child, your sins are forgiven.”   6 Now some of the religious scholars were sitting there asking themselves, 7 “Why does Jesus talk in that way? He commits blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”   8 Jesus immediately perceived in his spirit that they reasoned this way among themselves and said to them, “Why do you harbor such thoughts? 9 Which is easier, to say to this paralyzed person, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up, pick up your mat and walk’? 10 But so you all may know that the Promised One has authority on earth to forgive sins—” Jesus then turned to the paralyzed person— 11 "I tell you, stand up! Pick up your mat and go home.” 12 The paralyzed person stood up, picked up the mat and walked outside in the sight of everyone. They were awestruck, and they all gave praise to God and said, “We have never seen anything like this!"

Mark 3:1-12

3:1 Returning to the synagogue, Jesus met someone who had a withered hand. 2 Now the religious authorities were watching to see if Jesus would heal the individual on the Sabbath day, as they were hoping for some evidence to use against Jesus. 3 He said to the afflicted one, “stand and come up front!”   4 Then he turned to them and said, “Is it permitted to do a good deed on the Sabbath—or an evil one? To preserve life or to destroy it?”   At this they remained silent. 5 Jesus looked around at them with anger, for he was deeply grieved that they had closed their hearts so. Then Jesus said to the person, “stretch out your hand.” The other did so, and the hand was perfectly restored.

6 The Pharisees went out and at once began to plot with the herodians, discussing how to destroy Jesus.

  Jesus withdrew with the disciples to the lakeside. A great crowd followed him from Galilee, 8 and an equally great multitude came from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, Transjordan and the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon, because they had heard what he had done.   9 In view of their numbers, Jesus told the disciples to have a fishing boat ready so that he could avoid the pushing of the crowd. 10 Because he had healed many, all who had afflictions kept pressing forward to touch him. 11 Unclean spirits would catch sight of him, fling themselves down at his feet and shout, “You are God’s Own,” 12 while he kept ordering them sternly not to reveal who he was.

Mark 5:21-43

21 When Jesus had crossed again to the other shore in the boat, a large crowd gathered, and he stayed by the lakeside.   22 Then one of the synagogue officials—Jairus by name— came up and, seeing Jesus, fell down 23 and pleaded earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is desperately sick. come and lay your hands on her to make her better and save her life.” 24 Jesus went with him and a large crowd followed, pressing from all sides.  25 Now there was a woman who had suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years; 26 after long and painful treatment from various doctors, she had spent all she had without getting better—in fact, she was getting worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. 28 “If I can touch even the hem,” she had told herself, “I will be well again.” 29 Immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.  30 Immediately aware that healing power had gone out from him, Jesus turned to the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”   31 The disciples said, “You see how the crowd is pressing you and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” 32 But Jesus continued to look around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman came forward, frightened and trembling because she knew what had happened to her, and she fell at Jesus’ feet and told him the whole truth.   34 “My daughter,” Jesus said, “your faith has saved you; go in peace and be free of your affliction.”  35 While Jesus was still speaking, some people arrived from the house of the synagogue official to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why put the Teacher to any further trouble?”   36 But Jesus overheard the remark and said to the official: “Don’t be afraid. Just believe.” 37 Jesus allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and James’ brother John.  38 They came to the official’s house and Jesus noticed all the commotion, with people weeping and wailing unrestrainedly. 39 Jesus went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and crying? The child is not dead, but asleep.” 40 At this, they began to ridicule him, and he told everyone to leave. Jesus took the child’s mother and father and his own companions and entered the room where the child lay. 41 Taking her hand, he said to her, “Talitha, koum!” which means, “Little girl, get up!” 42 Immediately the girl, who was twelve years old, got up and began to walk about.  At this they were overcome with astonishment. 43 Jesus gave the family strict orders not to let anyone know about it, and told them to give the little girl something to eat.

                The heart of this week’s topic is, “what did Jesus spend his time doing?” and “what was Jesus best known for?” Borg tells us that there are more healing stories about Jesus than any other figure in Jewish history. Jesus was known for healing, miracles, prayer, teaching, and eating (especially with those who were less than acceptable). In coming weeks, we will deal with the table practices, and the parables and other teachings of Jesus. This week, we focus on the things that made Jesus popular with the people.

There are lots of other stories in Mark that lend themselves to this Sunday’s theme. Jesus calms a storm, Jesus is transfigured by light, Jesus feeds thousands (we will deal with story in a few weeks), and Jesus opening blind eyes all point both to the confidence that God wants people to be healthy and whole and to Jesus’ great desire for all people to be welcomed home.

                Jesus caught the attention of the crowds because of his ability to heal. In the first chapter, just after Jesus begins his ministry he goes to Simon’s house and heals Simon’s mother-in-law. Then a person with leprosy, too, gets cleansed. This early in the story, Mark tells us “32 After sunset, as evening drew on, they brought to Jesus all who were ill and possessed by demons. 33 Everyone in the town crowded around the door. 34 Jesus healed many who were sick with different diseases, and cast out many demons.” (Mk 1:32-34) I’m sure that Jesus must have been charismatic, but the fact of the matter is that the people sought him out because he could relieve them of their suffering.

                In the first story included here, Jesus is so popular that the house is crowded to capacity and then some. In order to get their friend to Jesus for healing they tear open a hole in the roof. This healing story becomes a confrontation with eh Pharisees when instead of simply pronouncing the person healed, Jesus says that this person’s sins are forgiven. This is not a case of believing that sickness is a punishment for sin. Rather, it is speaking about what effect Jesus’ healings had on the recipients. Illness, sickness, infirmity, and disease made one unacceptable in their society. In the extreme (like leprosy) it might even exile them from family and the community at large. To a great extent, physical problems  marginalized the people who suffered from them. They not only had to deal with bodily ramifications of illness or disease but also with the societal effects as well. Jesus was not claiming particular priestly authority in pronouncing sins forgiven. He was embodying the truth that nothing stands between ordinary people and God. He was welcoming the paralyzed person back to a full relationship with God, family, and community.

                Likewise the story of the two women that Jesus healed plays much the same kind of drama. The woman with the menstrual flow would have been ritually unclean for 12 years (the whole lifetime of the other young woman in the story!).  Jesus himself would have been made unclean simply because she touched him. Jairus’ daughter was dead, and corpses were unclean. Jesus healed and gave life back to both women, one who had lived a lifetime on the margins, and the other whose life had ended just as it had begun.

                The middle story above illustrates again Jesus’ great popularity, and his ongoing conflict with those who were trying to keep things from changing. Jesus performs a very “in your face” kind of healing on the Sabbath, which clearly shows where his passions and priorities lay. In response, the crowds are do demanding of Jesus’ healing power that they crush in upon him and the disciples. It is worth noting that unclean spirits see Jesus for who is when the crowds of people do not. Jesus even instructs those spirits not to spread the word.

In our time, disease can still push people to the margins: AIDS, cancer, addiction, sexually transmitted diseases (I mention that here not to be flip, but to point out that we likely have the technology to cure or prevent many of these through vaccination if we as a society deemed it a worthy endeavor. Our Puritan roots show through, though, because we seem to believe that a person who gets an STD deserves it because of their promiscuous behavior). Poverty is seen in America as almost a disease unto itself, and another one of those where those who suffer from it are too often blamed for getting it in the first place. As a culture, we don’t deal with physical difference well. We stare at those in wheel chairs, those missing limbs, those with CP and a host of other differing physicalities.  Rather than focus on this ostracizing condition or that in worship, I think the larger question is, “what needs healing in ourselves and our culture to enlarge God’s Kin-dom?” And then, how do we offer and enact that healing to others? We are not our disease, our condition, or our sin. We are beloved citizens of God’s Kin-dom.

Good News: Jesus embodies and enacts God’s healing love.

Subject: The love and touch of Christ heals us and welcomes us home.

Igniting Desire:  We yearn to be loved for who we are, not rejected because of our imcompleteness.

September 18 - The Emissary of God's Kin-dom

September 18 - The Messiah, Emissary of the Kin-dom of God

We had a great conversation in worship team last week as we looked at our series on Mark as a whole. We explored each week and looked for images to capture the essence of each topic. We also landed on the image of Window to look through as our primary image for the whole series. The idea comes from the understanding that the parables which Jesus taught were windows through which look at the world in order to see how God sees life. Likewise, Jesus (his life, his teaching, his death and resurrection, his ongoing presence in the world) can be our window to look through to see the world in a new way. Specifically, we are using the Gospel of Mark in this broken and fearful time as our window of seeing life from a new perspective. Looking through the window of the gospel, we can begin the task of Reconstructing Hope.

Along with the images for each week, I’d like us to also consider naming a contemporary analog for the situations we see in the parts of the Gospel of Mark that we will be using. Sept. 11 was obvious with the destruction of the towers and the attacks on the unspoken American mind-set. What other comparision can we make from today’s society to the ancient stories?

                Let me insert a parenthetical remark about this week’s topic: specifically the use of the term “Kin-dom of God.” The biblical phrase is literally the “Kingdom of God” (or empire, if you prefer). It is a gender-exclusive term (I’ve never heard of a “queen-dom”).  If we speak of the “Kingdom of God” then logically God is the King and thereby reinforce the notion that God is preeminently male. “Kingdom” is also hierarchical. The king rules the princes and dukes and princesses and duchesses who in turn rule the serfs and peasants who have power over the slaves. I am one of those who believes that the presence of the Divine expressed in our world is and will be inclusive of all genders, that it will be empowering among us all and not power over us. Some have tried to translate “Kingdom of God” into a more neutral phrase like the “Realm of God.”  While not bad, there is a sense of the generic in that phrase, somehow to me dissatisfying. I prefer the warmer sense of the “Kin-dom of God.” This is not original to me, and I do not know its source (a quick Google search attributes it to Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz), but I like the creative dropping of the “g” to name that God’s realm is the making kin of us all. We are all of us kin, all creation. Thus, when we attempt to live into the future that God is opening to us, we are making kin again in those places where our relationships have been broken.  And that brings us to this week’s topic, that the Messiah is the emissary of the Kin-dom of God.

Mark 2:18-28; 7:1-23

The Question about Fasting

 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

 ‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’

Pronouncement about the Sabbath

 One sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?’ And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.’ Then he said to them, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.’

The Tradition of the Elders

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

“This people honors me with their lips,

   but their hearts are far from me;

in vain do they worship me,

   teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, “Honor your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God)— then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’

 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’

 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’

I know, I know: this is LOTS of scripture to use on any given Sunday. Yet if we are going to give a good survey of the entire Gospel of Mark we need to not be shy about using it. These are stories where Jesus is shown redefining religious tradition, reshaping life, and reforming the abuses and hypocrisies of the ways he saw faith being peddled and proclaimed.

                In the first section, he and his disciples are accused of not being pious (not fasting). Jesus responds by claiming that the present time is a time to rejoice and not for mourning. Then he says out loud that he is about something new. It cannot be adapted to fit the old ways. New wineskins and new wine. While what Jesus taught and did came out of the stream of Judaism, those who wrote the Gospel of Mark understood that Jesus showed us that God was doing something new.

                Jesus and his ongoing confrontation with the religious authorities, a particularly recurring them in Mark, is crystalized in the question of the Sabbath practices. The Pharisees (Jesus’ primary antagonists in this drama) ask Jesus, none too gently, why he does not instruct his followers to obey the letter of the law regarding abstaining work (including gathering food) on the Sabbath. The assumption is that the law (here read Torah, God’s law) is above human need. Jesus boldly redefines the relationship: the Sabbath is make human life better, not humans to serve the needs of the Sabbath. This is new wine indeed.

                Now Jesus enters into a favorite theme of his: the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They decry Jesus and his teaching for diluting the importance of the cleanliness code. Jesus retorts that they follow the letter of the law, but ignore the heart of it. This encapsulates a theme that Jesus will return to many times: the emphasis on cleanliness or purity as a means of ostracizing people, especially the poor. This Jesus decries as a human tradition, and not what God has decreed at all. Jesus specifically accuses the Pharisees of twisting the Torah to their own ends. What should be an act of dedication and sacrifice (the declaration of wealth as a gift to God – “Corban”) has become a gambit to avoid one’s obligation to care for one’s parents (the meaning of honoring one’s parents).

                Jesus then tackles the purity code head on. That code prescribes all sorts of things that make someone impure: gathering food on the Sabbath, eating with unwashed hands, sickness, touching blood, handling money, menstruation, sexual intimacy, and lots of other things. Jesus sees that all these are external encounters and have nothing to do with the interior life of people. Real impurity, Jesus says, comes from within a person, not from the things they encounter in the world. Jesus radically redefines what makes a person acceptable or not, and it is the entertaining of evil within oneself that is the true impurity. (Two notes: 1. most scholars agree that the comment about Jesus declaring all food clean is a later insertion. 2. The bible does not mention 7 deadly sins, and Jesus hears lists 12.)

                Most people, and especially poor people, in Jesus’ day simply could not keep up with all the demands of the cleanliness code as the Pharisees laid it out. It was a burden to them, and it was used as a means of delineating the good from the bad. Jesus saw things differently. His teaching and actions free people from those burdens and redefines what the religious relationship is. To recognize Jesus as the Messiah is to open ourselves to a bigger picture. When we look at Jesus, and not the Jesus painted in popular media but the one that Mark shows us, we see how God looks at the world. If we believe that Jesus is the one sent by God, then Jesus is God’s emissary to us. Jesus is the window through which we see how God wants the world to be. God does not want a religion that weighs people down and divides them. God wants to people to live freely, and to be gathered in a loving community.

                We still live in a world that burdens people severely: poverty, despair, warfare, preventable disease, classism, sexism, and racism all oppress people every day. That oppression also divides us. Even Christianity itself has become a millstone and a knife. What does Jesus show us about our lives today? Are the 12 interior evils he named still the same ones afflicting us in 2011? Are there others? If we can see a bit of God when we look at Jesus, how would this emissary confront us and our world today?

Good News: Jesus is the new wine who frees us.

Subject: Jesus shows us God’s desire for people to live in right relation to each and the world.

Igniting Desire:  We long for freedom from divisive, burdensome religion. 

September 11 - Week One: Good News in a Broken World

September 11: Week One, Good News in a Broken World

Mark 1:1-20

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

   who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

   “Prepare the way of the Lord,

   make his paths straight” ’,

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

                Marcus Borg reminds us that these opening verses act as a kind of overture to the whole gospel, laying out the themes and direction of the whole story. From the very first sentence, this is good news (“gospel” in Greek means exactly that). In that this opening section kind of frames the whole story in miniature, each phrase is densely packed with meaning.  It names Jesus as the Christ or Messiah, the hoped-for figure who would deliver Israel from oppression and usher in an age of peace and justice for all people. It also names Jesus as the Son of God. More than just claiming an intimate relationship with God, this is also a political statement. Caesar in Rome was proclaimed to be a Son of God, legitimating his rule and claim over the Empire. To say Jesus was the Son of God was to say that Caesar’s claim was false.

                John appears on the scene to remind us that 1, God is already in motion and 2, that Jesus’ was not the only voice calling for a change in people or the culture. John’s baptism was a symbolic action calling the people to go back to the wilderness and re-enter the Promised Land anew, letting God lead them in a new direction. Hence a baptism in the Jordan River, for the forgiveness of sins.  Jesus comes to John for baptism, implying his affinity for John’s message. In Mark’s telling, we as readers are privy to what is an interior experience of Jesus. The sky (the barrier between the human realm and God) is torn open, the Spirit lights on Jesus in dove-form, and he hears a voice that proclaims him as God’s beloved one. Borg describes this as Jesus’ “religious conversion” experience – not convert from a godless to a godly life but a conversion into the role and ministry of his calling.  The Spirit then immediately drives Jesus into the wilderness for a period of discernment and struggle.

Only when John is arrested does Jesus begin his own ministry. Jesus proclaims ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ This, then, is the whole of Mark’s Gospel in one line. Tense in the language of the New Testament is tricky when translating into English. “Has come near” can mean is at hand, close enough to grasp, coming soon, nearby, already happened but also happening still. Jesus tells us that God’s kingdom (as opposed to Caesar’s) is all this. “Repent” does not mean feel bad for our sins. Borg says the root word indicates a turning toward home as from exile. Repentance is a turning from the garbage of our world and heading home to the world God wants it to be. Finally, in a time devastated by the Roman war, believe there is good news. Again in the Greek, “believe” does not mean to give intellectual assent to a proposition. It originally meant to commit one’s whole self to a cause, a teacher, a way of life. To believe the good newss of Jesus is to commit ourselves to live the way that makes it real.

Jesus knows this is a task he cannot undertake by himself and here he begins by inviting others to join him. Something about his good news was so compelling that the first four followers drop the obligations of their daily lives and they “immediately” follow Jesus. The question hanging in the air for readers of the Gospel is, will we act so immediately as well and follow?

The authors of Mark begin their story to their war-torn world by announcing that there is indeed “good news.” In the face of the terror and violence and oppression in our own day, what good news do we have to proclaim? One part, I believe, is that the way the world is today is not the way God wants it to be. We need to know that there is one, one named and claimed by God, to bring us the good news that things can change, that we can change. Neither the destruction of the Temple or the attack on the towers signaled the end of things. Rather, we live in a time when something new is emerging. Like the community of the faithful who presented the Gospel of Mark as a compass for their day, our community of the faithful can use the story and teaching of Jesus as our compass on our journey forward. “The time is now. God’s dream for the world is happening now. Change direction, and believe that there is good news.”

Good News: Jesus is God’s chosen one who can help us change the pain of the world.

Subject: In the face of the tragedy of Sept. 11, we know that the powers of fear do not have the last word.

Igniting Desire:  We long for a different kind of world, a world of love, justice and peace.

Framework for "Reconstructing Hope" a series on the Gospel of Mark

                On September 11 we will embark on a long journey, at least thematically. “Reconstructing Hope” is our series exploring the Gospel of Mark and its meaning for our day and time. We will begin at the start, and end at the ending but the rest of the series will not be strictly chronological. Instead, we will examine some of the broad themes that the Gospel uses to tell the story. Forgive me for being a little long winded here but we need to frame our journey. We begin with wondering why the Gospel was written and how it concerns us now.

Ten years ago, terrorists hijacked several civilian airliners. One was retaken by its passengers and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. One crashed into the Pentagon. Two hit the World Trade Center, resulting in the implosion of both towers.  American lives were lost in the thousands, but possibly more devastating was the loss of the illusion that we were impervious to the violence of the world (and I say illusion because as a nation we willfully repressed the memories of the thousands who have died in riots, race conflicts, and domestic terrorism in the last generation or two). The attacks of September 11, 2001 changed the way we function as a nation, and the way we treat each other. There was a brief outpouring of goodwill. But the tragedy facilitated a policy shift that bent toward paranoia and xenophobia. The Patriot Act encoded into law behavior that treated American citizens as suspects and severely curtailed civil rights in the name of “national security.” We sent our military into Afghanistan in search of the perpetrators, but soon began a separate war in Iraq using the justification of pre-emptive action. Two unfunded wars strained both our military capability and our economic resilience, not to mention our national conscience. Today’s depression has its roots reaching back these ten years. Millions of dollars have been lost in rollercoaster markets, hopes have been dashed in rampant unemployment and the outsourcing of jobs. The American Dream seems to be a lie, a myth, or a nightmare. More than the two towers came crashing down on that day ten years ago.

                What of relevance does the christen message have to contribute to this situation? Christian voices have too often been complicit in furthering fear, hatred, and misunderstanding. Church attendance and membership has been declining in North America at such rates as to cause anything but outright panic in the denominations. Historians like Phyllis Tickle tell us that we are in the midst of a great cultural transition, the likes of which is seen only every 500 years. It is no metaphor to say that we live in times when Christianity is being reinvented. The old adages of the Faith may not be up to addressing today’s questions. We need to explore new ways of being faithful and new messages of hope for our time.

                Which brings us, oddly enough, to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark is almost 2000 years old, the first time the story of Jesus of Nazareth was written down. Those who wrote this story did so in the midst of an age which has striking similarity to ours. Israel had been in revolt against Roman Empire for a number of years. Israeli resistance fighters had beleaguered the vast Roman military machine until Rome had had enough. In the year 70 C.E. the Roman army marched into Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.

                The temple was the center of the spiritual and national identity for Israel. It was the center of religious life, the place where required sacrifices were made, and where atonement for the nation’s sins was made. Moreover, it was seen as the place where God resided, God’s home so to speak. It was seen as the embodiment of all God’s promises regarding the dynasty of David, the promises to protect and prosper the people, the promises that god would guide and protect the people forever. And Rome just walked in and tore all of that to the ground, stone by stone. The people could no longer be Jewish in the way they had always been. They would have to invent a new way of being faithful.

                In the midst of this horrific time of change, the followers of Jesus thought they had something to contribute to the conversation. Stories and memories of Jesus had been told and remembered for 40 years. Anger at Rome was unabated. The oppression of Rome was unrelenting. Poverty was pervasive. Hope was rare and lean. In the middle of this milieu, the Gospel of Mark begins with these words: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The church, the community of followers who wrote the Gospel of Mark felt that their story about Jesus of Nazareth was good news for their age.

                Knowing that Gospel of Mark was written as good news for a tumultuous time, it makes sense for us to come to it with a fresh approach. It is no understatement to say that we live in a tumultuous time ourselves. What will the story of the teaching, actions, and life of Jesus of Nazareth tell us about our world, about how God is working today, and how we can find hope and meaning for today and tomorrow? We will explore the Gospel of Mark to find ways of Reconstructing Hope.

Series Outline:

September 11 – Good News in a Broken World

                Mark 1:1-20

September 18 – The Messiah, Emissary of the Kin-dom of God

                Mark 2:18-28; 7:1-23

September 25 – What Jesus Does: Healer, Wonder-worker, Welcomer of All

                Mark chapters 2-3; 5:21-43

October 2 – Feeding Hungry People

                Mark 6:30-44; 8:1-21

October 9 – Jesus and Money

                Mark 10:17-31; 12:13-17, 38-44

October 16 – Follow Me, the Path of Jesus

                Mark 1:16-20; 2:13-17; 10:46-52

October 23 – Teaching in parables, Jesus is a Parable

                Mark 4:1-34

October 30 – In the Cross is Freedom

                mark 10:32-45

November 6 – Take Up Your Cross, the Way of New Life

                Mark 8:27-38; 15:21-41

November 13 – The Theater of Peace

                Mark 11:1-11; 12:28-34

November 20 – Resurrection: Back on the Way

                Mark 16:1-8

August 28 Thoughts

August 28 – Entanglements of Love and Life

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means ‘son of encouragement’). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

Acts 4:32-37

As we talked about at worship team last week, scientists surmise that the oldest currently living organism on earth is a grove of aspen trees somewhere in Utah. Tree rings show that the oldest trunks now standing are about 130 years old. But the trunks we see are but the newest generation. These aspen trees have not grown from seeds. They are clonal shoots from an immense and almost unimaginably old system of roots. This root system has been sending up new shoots as old trees age and die, producing new generations season after season but continuing one unbroken line of life for better than 80, 000 years. Yes, eighty-thousand years. When this colony plant began its life, humans were still developing language. It grew for 60-70 millennia before we began planting seeds or harvesting crops. (Ray, you might be able to give us a better anthropological picture of who our ancestors were when this plant was young.) This colony of aspens, known as “Pando”, has survived this long because of its interwoven root system underground. Fires have raged above ground, razing the grove but again and again the roots send up new shoots. Older generations die off, but the life of the grove continues because all these trees do not exist individually. They exist together. Only in an integrated community has this aspen grove survived longer than any other living thing on earth. (I could not find a proper citation, but there are a few scientists who speculate that in the lesser explored regions there may be older groves, some possibly as old as a million years! For our purposes, 80,000 will do just fine.)

Along similar lines, but with somewhat less impressive numbers, a friend of mine encountered an example of how Christian community has survived the generations. She was touring in England when they entered an old church. Not old in aspen terms, but old in terms of human buildings, well over a 1000 years. It was obvious that this ancient building had been remodeled and rebuilt many times in its life. On one wall was a little unassuming plaque that simply said, “Christians have worshipped in this place for over 1300 years.” In that time, many kinds of Christians worshipped there, and the forms, languages, and content of that worship must certainly have varied greatly. But Christians are still worshipping there to this day. Something about the love of Christ has continued to draw people to that site, to join together still to love and sing and pray.

It was community that the first Christians were known for. For the most part they were poor, undistinguished, of low stature. There was no real reason for any society to notice this non-descript gathering of people. What got them noticed was the way they cared for each other and for the poor. This and a few other passages in the Book of Acts fly in the face of those who today want to say that the followers of Jesus were thoroughgoing capitalists. “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” They held their property and treasure in common for one purpose: “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.” It was to care for the poor. As best as we can piece together, it was a community of radical equality. Female and male, poor and rich, high class and untouchable all were equals in Christ. And like the aspen trees they survived and a hostile world and flourished precisely because they did it together, in community. Singly and individually there were vulnerable and frail. Together they changed the world.

We live in a culture (and under a government) that wants to isolate us and weaken our connection with each other. We are easier to control when we are isolated. It is more difficult to dream of a new order when we have to do it alone. I believe that as much as people today long for meaning and significance we also long for real community, real connection with our own grove of life. If our time at Mingus is about anything, it is about community. We gather weekly to worship in community. It is community that makes us Christian and not just isolated spiritualists. Surely, Christians are not the only ones who gather in community but that is the name of the specific community of which we all are a part. And as shoots of that community our roots reach back 2000 years and more. Unlike the aspens, we cannot sprout genetically identical clones as the old trunks wither and die. We continue the line and we refresh and grow only as we invite new people into this community. Christian community stands in opposition to the isolation and compartmentalism of popular culture. No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.

Igniting Desire: When we are alone and afraid, we long for a place to truly belong.

Good News: The community of love leaves no one in need.

Subject: The entangled roots of our community give us life and a cosmic support system.