Session 2: Class Notes

I had a great time on Tuesday night.  You all ask great questions.  I love the ideas and insights you share.  Here are my notes from Tuesday night.

Opening

We began with the question, "Why study the Bible?  Why bother with this ancient book?"  It's easy to assume answers to foundational questions, or to answer such a question and never revisit it.  For me, it's important to study the Bible for three reasons:

1. Discovery!  The books of the Bible were written by a particular people in a particular time, yet the ideas, questions, and stories contain truths for all people of all times.  In the pages of the Bible I discover insights about the divine, about myself, about creation and about the relationships that bind us.
2. Making Meaning  The stories of the Bible give me a way to talk about the stories of my life.  So much of life is trying to make sense of it all.  The ideas and questions of the Bible provide me a way to help me connect with others past and present.
3. Comfort the Afflicted and Afflict the Comfortable  At times the Bible offers words of comfort when I am troubled and hurting.  And sometimes the Bible wakes in me a compassion for the troubles and hurts of others.

Before jumping back into Mark we paused to acknowledge our surroundings.  C.I.E.  My professor of Biblical Greek made us repeat the mantra, "Context is Everything".  So we outlined the contexts we'd be playing in as we explored the stories.

• The context of Jesus' day, approximately 30 AD around 70 miles east of Jerusalem
• The context of Mark's day, approximately 60-70 AD, perhaps in a similar area to Jesus or perhaps in Rome.  (Note: This was around the time of the Jewish rebellion and the Roman destruction of the temple. This was also around the time when the community of the followers of Jesus were very much trying to understand their identity)
• The context of historical interpretation of the text which influences the assumptions and questions of modern scholarship.
• Our context as 21st century westerners.

At any given time, one or more of these contextual lenses are influencing our understanding of the story.

In our effort to catch up with the Mark devotion we ran through two chapters in Mark.  We focused on one story in each chapter.

Drop-In Clinic / Mark 2:1-12

This story includes several repeated elements in Mark's story telling.  Each of these elements serve multiple purposes:
--Healing: Gives validity to Jesus teaching; reveals a glimpse of what Jesus means when he says, "The reign of God is at hand" (1:15); confronts/challenges a way of life or a way of viewing God.
--Teaching: Redefines communal identity; redefines image of God and the relationship between God and creation; illutrates the reign of God.
--Opposition: Foreshadows coming conflict; provides foil for Jesus' teaching; provides opportunity for Jesus reveal more of himself.

Staying with the story for a bit, a few details emerge:

The story hints at a connection between faith and healing (and a darker connection between suffering and sin, see Q&O for more on this).

• The paralytic man is healed not because of his own faith but because of the faith of his friends.
• Cyril of Jerusalem, a notable 4th century theologian and pastor, said ,"some have saved others by believing".  This idea is reflected in other places in scripture as well (Genesis 18:16-33)
• This is powerful for me as it speaks of why I like to remain connected to faith communities.  There are times when I am passing through the valley of the shadow of death, or when cynicism assails me, or when despair threatens to overtake me, and it is seeing/feeling the faith of others that heals me, that uplifts me.  Sometimes I get carried (lowered) by my friends, and sometimes I need to the one carrying others to the one who heals.

This story introduces the title, "Son of Man" for Jesus.  Jesus self applies this title more than any other in Mark.  So what does it mean that he calls himself, the Son of Man?  I'm not sure, but here are some possibilities:

• The title can be translated roughly as, human being, or guy.  It could be a way of Jesus referring to himself as a sort of average Joe, just another first century Jewish peasant.  Could Jesus be grounding his humanity?  Or perhaps he is using the term symbolically, as a way of saying that he represents all of humanity?
• This title could be a reference to prophets past.  In the gospels, Jesus often alluded to the prophetic tradition (typically Isaiah).  "Son of Man" is what God calls Ezekiel.  In Ezekiel chapter 2, God calls the "Son of Man" to bring the word of God to the rebellious people of Israel.  Is Jesus identifying his work with Ezekiel's?
• Ezekiel isn't the only prophet to employ this title.  In Daniel 7:13-14, the prophet speaks of a vision wherein the "Son of Man" comes down from heaven from the Ancient One and to him is given dominion over the earth.  Does Jesus see himself as a sort of fulfillment of this vision.

Or perhaps all three, or something else entirely.  What do you think?

The Man with the Withered Hand / Mark 3:1-6

The tension between Jesus and some in the religious establishment was already high by the third chapter of Mark.  This story is the fourth confrontation about Sabbath observance.  Keeping the Sabbath is one of the Big 10. Sabbath observance, like all of the Big 10 had a number of rules built around it to ensure that the people of Israel would not break a commandment.  Jesus, busted through these barriers with grace and life.  By this point the religious establishment had enough.  A couple of interesting details:

• Jesus didn't actually break the Sabbath in this story.  He actually did nothing against the law.
• Irony of ironies, it was those who accused him of breaking the Sabbath that actually transgress the spirit of the Sabbath by moving to plot his destruction.
• This marks a turning point in the story.  From here on out, Jesus is not just a curiosity, a religious fad, or even a nuisance.  Jesus now becomes a credible threat that must be eliminated.  But a threat to what?

At this point, it'd be good to look a bit more at the Pharisees.  So let's put them in context.  We can speak broadly of 4 Jewish religious groups/movements/ideologies in Jesus' time.  I relate all of these groups to the desired kingdom come.  The Jews of the first century were waiting for the promises of God's deliverance to be fulfilled.  They were waiting for God to show up and make things right (ie, free them from their oppresses, turn their mourning into dancing, good news for the poor, etc).  I usually refer to this as "the party" (I use the image of the party because Jesus often refers to images of a banquet or a feast or a celebration when he refers to the reign of God).  I relate all of these groups to the promised party of God.

• Zealots: Simply stated, they were tired of waiting for God to start the party and they wanted to get it going themselves.  Specifically they wanted Rome out.  They employed insurgent tactics and guerrilla warfare to frustrate the occupying Roman forces.
• Essenes: They wanted to start the party for themselves.  They would go "off the grid" in an effort to reclaim the heart of the Jewish faith.  Through aestheticism, ritual cleansing, a mystical practice of the faith, and an emphasis on peace and charity they created the party within.
• Sadducees: They were living the party.  The Sadducees were the Jewish religious elite who were politically and economically wedded to the Romans and to the status quo.  They benefited from the socio-economic system as it stood.  They rule the temple structure and comprised the upper echelon of religious leadership.  From where they stood, they were living like it was 1999.
• Pharisees: By far the largest religious group of the day.  The Pharisees were a fairly popular sect because they often sought to help people connect to the Jewish faith and live according to the law (however, those firmly entrenched in the margins: tax collectors, gentiles, prostitutes, etc were out of reach).  The Pharisees believed that God was waiting for the Jewish people to get their act together before he would show up.  Once they had all their ducks in a row, once everything was perfect, once everything was prepped for the party, then God would show up.  Given this context, it's easy to see that Jesus was becoming a problem.

The Pharisees remind me that sometimes, in my desire for something good, I can push too hard and miss the good right in front of me.  In this story, this select group of Pharisees are the height of irony.  In their ardent desire to see the reign of God come they completely miss (and seek to destroy) the embodiment of the reign of God right before them.  How often has my desire to control an outcome destroyed the very thing I was seeking to achieve?