How much is enough? We live in a society where we want to super size everything. So we should supersize faith right? We should have a supersized demonstration of proof that God is and that God is what we think, before we believe. It’s not asking the impossible. It’s just asking for a little more, not that hard to get. It only costs like another quarter to get it at McDonald’s, so God should be able to do it – easy!
Today marks the beginning of Lent: the season of 40 days (not counting Sundays, roughly 6 weeks) that precede Easter Sunday. In the ancient and early Church it was a time for catechism: learning about what it meant to be a follower of Jesus (sort of like a membership class sort of thing). Catechets, or faith students, would be baptized as the sun rose on Easter Sunday, thus joining the community of faith.
Today’s passage is rather shocking and potentially embarrassing for it shows Jesus mouthing prejudice.His comments in verse 28 seem to affirm that God loves the Jews more than the Gentiles; that he has come not for everyone but only for his people.It’s embarrassing because it seems so –un-Jesus and also flies in the face of other scriptures and historic church affirmation about Jesus coming for all peoples, nations and languages.Does this racist Jesus change his mind?Is he won over by the theological argument of the woman?; convinced by her great faith?; or merely using her as a rhetorical device in order to expound upon his version of good news?
This peculiar story, recorded only here in Mark among the four gospels, points to the reality we face today.How do we interact with others?How do we approach not only racial and social class diversity in our faith communities, but how do we encounter those among us who have a different faith story, spiritual practice, or theological viewpoint?How are we as the church called to live in our world of today, but not of it?What is great faith?What does it look like?
After several striking demonstrations of miraculous healing power in the Jewish west bank of the Sea of Galilee, Mark turns to a narrative of an argument between Jesus and the Pharisees and the Scribes.Today’s sections contain 5 teachings all organized around a common theme of ritual purity.They start in 7:1, 7:9; 7:14, 7:17, and 7:20.We divide them up in a literary fashion because of the change of location, or the use of transitional words such as “and he said….”; or “Again Jesus….”
Before we study the text we need some historical reminders of things that we may have forgotten or never known.In Jesus’ day there were several principal sects (or denominations or schools of thoughts) among the Jewish believers: the Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees, Essenes, and the Zealots (or Siccari).
This is a curious story. The second miracles on the water – of the sea of Galilee.It echoes what we’ve already experienced in Mark 4:35-41 when Jesus calms the storm, and goes beyond it.Are they the same story edited because it’s such a good one?Or is this wonder on the water moving the disciples – and thus us: the current readers, by extension – to deeper faith?
After feeding the 5,000 Jesus does something even more radical: he defies gravity.
This pericope (section of the gospel) seems to be perfect for us as we gather today for worship and our shared ministry work of discernment, discipleship and rededication as a community of faith at our annual congregational meeting. Mark tells this story in juxtaposition with the story of the horrific feast at which the 1% of ancient Palestine gorge themselves at the table of Herod Antipas and punctuate the debauchery with the beheading of John the Baptizer all for a king to avoid shame and his mistress to exact revenge on a too courageous prophet. (Mark 6:14-29)
In the larger scheme of Mark’s retelling of the Jesus story, we see that these two contrasted stories about feasts follow Jesus sending out the twelve disciples to do ministry (Mark 6:6-13). On one hand it’s remarkable that he would dare to do so: the disciples seem so clueless: They were terrified by Jesus’ calming of the story (Mark 5:35-41). They don’t seem to get the parables and basic teachings of Jesus about the Kingdom of God (Mark 4:10). And yet on the other hand, Jesus has redefined family – the principal thing in terms of identity in the ancient world. Family isn’t about your family name, your gender, your tribe; but rather it’s about who you follow and how you follow them in your life. For Jesus, anyone who follows God, seeking to do God’s will in the world, is part of his family. So in the end the disciples might not be 100% clear on what’s going on, but they get the big picture (even if not very clearly). They too seek to know God, to follow God, and to do God’s will in the world. Maybe we ourselves are not all that different than the disciples today?
As I read this pericope (section of the gospel) it seems to be about authenticity and boldness. How far are we called to go in standing for what we believe to be right? How bold are we in proclaiming what we believe to be true, right, gospel-good-news? Do we proclaim it with just words, or do we do so with all of our lives and livelihoods? In a world that often is toxically tainted by hypocrisy, polished messages, photoshopped images and smooth talkers who promise everything, I’ve been told to not lose my head. No one expects you to go that far in doing what you think, or what the Bible says. And yet in a world that’s bankrupt of belief in promises made – whether that be by politicians, bankers, bosses, union leaders or clergy – aren’t we all looking for some sort of authenticity that’s organically earned by doing what is preached and promised? In my life, I first had a transformational faith experience as an adolescent when I encountered and dialogued with people – principally adults who weren’t in my nuclear DNA based family – who actually did what they believed and what Jesus taught. It was experiencing that radicalness that shaped and reshaped me.
We return to the Gospel of Mark after a Christmas hiatus to a challenge of Jesus’ identity and legitimacy. The texts begins with several linguistic cues that things are going to change. Whenever there is a geographical switch in the gospels, that’s to say a movement from one place to another, it’s not just topography that’s in view.
Oakland is the infamous ugly step-sister city to the Cinderella post-card perfection of San Francisco. Novella Carpeter, [her blog] one of the most recently famous Oaklanders because of her urban foodie efforts and recent book, coined this fairytalesque metaphor for my favorite city. In 2011 the Town (as opposed to the “City” as we Nor Cal-ers call San Francisco) was made famous by the indecisiveness of our mayor Jean Quan and the destructive thuggery of our non-native majority occupiers confronted with violence by our friendly neighborhood police department. While the Oakland all too often only gets a bad rap, it’s much like Brooklyn is to Manhattan: the place the Cultural Creatives, hipsters and Bobos call home while they do their thing.
10. The YMCA
9. The Weather
8. The Views
7. The Parks
6. It’s a Foodie Shrine
5. It’s an Urban Farming Mecca
4. Failing Successful Public Education
3. Urban Grit: Lake Merritt
2. Urban Graffiti Art & Politics: Oaklandish & The Grand Lake Theater Marquee
I'm working on creating a new blog on a different url. I'll be moving in the next few weeks. As I'm working I'm imagining that I'll blog about the following things:
Oakland
Oakland Public Schools or Raising a child in a Public Urban School
Foodie Things
Urban Gardening
Blogging Towards Sunday through Scripture
Reflections on the Church in the 21st century
Bumperstickers
If you read the blog what do you like? Is there something else that I should include, or maybe something I should eliminate?
The Fourth Sunday of Advent: 3 Women | Prince | God's Radical Love
Jesus and his friends return to Israel after their failed (or was it?) effort to proclaim the gospel good news on the other side of the Sea of Galilee (the Gentile Side, present day Syria and Jordan). As he returns to his land, his people and his culture, he’s met with overwhelming needs, hopes and prayers. Our Mark passage today focuses upon a chiastic story: a story (of the bleeding woman who comes to Jesus) sandwiched within another story (the dead girl, whose father comes to him for help). This was a customary Jewish way of telling stories and writing, a lot like we look for a tight relationship between an introduction and a conclusion. The contrast between these two women in need of healing and wholeness is also paralleled by the Lectionary texts in Luke 1 which lift up the story of Mary, another woman that God seeks out to involve in his company’s radical idea of a Christmas Party: a reversal of the way things are done in the world. Today’s texts invite us to take a closer look at the world at Christmas: God comes into the world not to condemn it, but to heal, liberate and transform it. Are we then called to flee it, conform to it, or engage it?
What’s the rock star Prince got to do with it?
The 80s rock star Prince, often condemned for overtly sexual lyrics and actions, is commonly recognized as a musical composer, albeit in a different style than Bach or Mozart. A song of his “Let’s Get Crazy” lifts up the theme that I see underneath our three scriptures: the incarnation :: God’s radical commitment to our world. Here are the beginning lyrics of that rock song:
Jesus and his friends arrive on the other side (the Gentile Side, present day Syria and Jordan) of the Sea of Galilee after the rapidly arising storm in which the messianic power of Jesus is demonstrated to the disbelief of the disciples (Mark 4:35-41). Arriving in a foreign land, Jesus is surprisingly accosted by a foreign occupying power. The third Sunday of Advent is the “joy” Sunday, focusing on the joy of the reversal of the depressing and destructive power of evil in the world in the light of the birth of the Christ Child. Yet is liberation always good news? Does freedom always bring us joy?
Today’s passage of Mark follows the Jesus’ teaching about how God works in the world with several parables. Beginning with the Sower and the Seed (Mark 4:1-20) the parables portray the mysterious aspect of the dominion of God which starts slow, unexpectedly in ways that we overlook as human beings, yet it grows – despite us – and emerges to completely transform the universe. Mark tells us that Jesus repeatedly told stories in parable form, untying the confusing knots that people seemed to have tied themselves up into as they sought to understand God.
Today’s passage of Mark continues the teaching of Jesus in parables. Undoubtedly, since Mark is a good writer, it is directly connected to the parable of the Sower and the Seed (Mark 4:1-20).In that parable we learn of God’s abundant and amazing grace similar to seeds scattered on diverse and different types of soil.God gives the gift of faith and then grows it as we respond.We’re not just passive observers, but also actively involved.
lamps | measures | seeds oh my!
The first parable of the lamp and the bushel remind me of my childhood and the song we often sang in Sunday School, “hide it under a bushel? No!I’m gonna let it shine!”But that’s from Matthew 5.It’s not what Jesus is talking about here.What is Jesus talking about with the hidden and made manifest?A light is meant to illuminate the room.Why then do we need ears to hear?Isn’t it obvious?Not to me!
Today’s passage of Mark contains the first major teaching passage included in the gospel. Several times Mark has emphasized Jesus’ teaching prowess and the way in which his teaching has an authority that many have never yet witnessed (examples include Mark 1:21-22; 1:39, 2:1-3). Jesus tells a parable in response to the concluding verse (35) of chapter 3. “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” So how do we know what’s God will is?
structure of the text – what’s in a parable?
The first teaching narrative is a parable. It’s a Greek word that has taken on a new meaning because of the gospel and is used in most modern languages. So what is a parable?
