Tuesdays with Mark (10: 1-12)

This is a very difficult piece of scripture, one that will pinch or shame or challenge nearly everyone.
It begins: “The Pharisees came, and to test [Jesus] they asked him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’” Whenever we see any group trying to test Jesus it is a Catch-22 situation, a no-win situation, it is a darned it you do and darned if you don’t situation.
The Pharisees knew that it was lawful at this time for a man to divorce his wife. We find the background for this in Deut. 24: 1: “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her…” This scripture was very open ended—all he needs is to find something “objectionable.” What did that include? It could include that the man didn’t like the way that his wife cooked his breakfast or washed his clothes or how she looked on any particular day.
One of the traps that’s embedded in this question is that John the Baptist had already spoken against King Herod’s second marriage (see Mark 6: 14-29) and we can see that he was killed for his words. The Pharisees are hoping that Jesus will fall for their question and that he will follow John’s lead and say something against divorce. They would like nothing more than to see Jesus’ head on a platter.
How does Jesus respond? “But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’” Jesus responds to the Pharisees by quoting two other pieces of scripture, Gen. 1: 26f and Gen. 2: 24. In other words, it appears like Jesus is using two pieces of scripture to trump the words in Deut. 24:1.
As your can imagine, all of these scriptures on divorce were hitting very close to home for many of the guys in the room. I am going to guess that nearly half of them had been divorced and remarried.
So, what are we to think about and how are we to read what Jesus is saying here? I think it is clear that God intends that a marriage between a man and a woman be a lifelong commitment. That is, of course, what we all intend and hope for and pray for when we get married. I have never seen anyone get married with their fingers crossed or looking for a way out or an excuse to end it—at least I don’t believe I have ever seen anyone get married in this way. It is our hope, all of us, that when we go to the altar with someone before God, before our families and friends, before the world, that we are making a commitment for all the rest of our days.
But what happens? What happens all too often? It doesn’t work. The marriage no longer brings life but death, no longer joy but despair, no longer peace but war. This is not to say that every marriage doesn’t go through its seasons and rhythms and challenges—they all do. This is also not to say that some couples do resort to divorce much too quickly. Being married, staying married, making a marriage work, having a thriving marriage—this is some of the hardest work that any of us can do; and it can be some of the best and most satisfying work any of us can do.
I could tell that there was a lot of vulnerability in the room as we talked about these issues—I could feel it myself. The vision is clear: God hopes, we hope, that marriage will be forever. But the reality is that some don’t make it. And the reality is that even if couples do make it and do stay together that there is still sin and brokenness and mess and hurt in every relationship. All of us need grace, whether we have made our marriages work or whether we have gone through a divorce. We all need healing. We all need forgiveness. Even though this scripture is very clear, we must be careful not to beat up anyone with it; in fact, we should never use any piece of scripture as a club.
I shared my hope and prayer at the end of our session that no man was leaving there bloodied or shamed. Walking out I could see many of the men gathered together to talk about their lives and their marriages and relationships. Sometimes scripture is hard, and this is indeed a hard text; but we must always remember that we have a good and gracious and loving God.

Tuesdays with Mark (9: 38-49)

What we have in the beginning of this piece of scripture is “turf.” It is a territorial war. A man is casting out demons in the name of Jesus and the disciples (the 12) come whining to Jesus that he is not one of “us.” Now the “us” they are talking about is themselves, one of the 12; they are not talking about the “us” as Jesus and the 12. They are trying to confine the “Jesus work” to what they do. They don’t want to share. It is a turf war; it is not about what Jesus is doing in and with and through them, but what they are doing.
How does Jesus respond to their complaint? He is not the least bit sympathetic. He says, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Who is not against us is for us.” In other words he is telling them to get over themselves, to learn how to share, to not care who gets the credit just as long as the work gets done.
What do turf battles lead to in the Body of Christ, or even in our lives for that matter? Factions. Confusion. Destruction. How do we move from turf to team?
Jesus then continues to say, “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” By little ones Jesus means all of us; in other words, he is asking us to think about how we get in the way of any child of God living into love and hope and peace and faith. I asked the gentlemen in the Bible study about the stumbling blocks that we can put in someone else’s way. They responded by saying judgment and criticism and gossip and setting someone else up to lose. Are we acting like stumbling blocks or stepping-stones for those around us? Are we hindering or helping? Are we blocking or equipping? Are we disabling or enabling? Jesus is very fierce on this one.
And then he turns that fierceness on us: “If you hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.” What causes us to sin? What doesn’t? If we took Jesus literally here by cutting off our hands or cutting out our eyes or our tongue, we wouldn’t have anything left. So, how are we to interpret these words? Well, we must start by doing an inventory of those things in us, those proclivities and tendencies, those attitudes and prejudices that cause us or anyone else to stumble. In order to make this more concrete I then asked the men what they needed to cut off. Rather than listing their responses—which were all very honest and faithful—I would like you to ask yourself that very same question: What do you need to cut off for your own sake, for the sake of those around you, for the Kingdom’s sake, and for God’s sake, so that you can more fully and completely both follow Jesus yourself, and also help those around you to follow him and to know his love.

Tuesdays with Mark (9:30-37)

“They [the disciples and Jesus] went on from there and passed through Galilee. He [Jesus] did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’” (9: 30-31)
Jesus is now back home in Galilee; this is where he spent most of his time. This is now a private moment with his disciples. This is retreat time. He had already told them (see 8: 34f) that he is going to Jerusalem to suffer, be persecuted, and be killed, and he can tell that they don’t really understand, much less like, what he has said to them. They are clueless. They are resistant. They think that Jesus has “gone off his rocker.”
Jesus says that he is to be betrayed into human hands, that he is to die by human hands—now, what does that mean? It means, most obviously, that certain people will indeed kill him, but it also means so much more. It means that we participated in his death; it means that he died for us; it means that we were there when they crucified our Lord; it means that his blood is on our hands; it means that we cannot blame the Romans or the Jews or anyone for his death; it means that we must look in the mirror, into our souls, into our motives, into our words, into our actions, and see and know and accept that he died for us, that we need his blood to wash away our sins, that we need his mercy, that we need him to rescue us.
The scripture next says, “But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” Who could blame them? Jesus has already told them some very challenging things, things that they didn’t want to hear, things that didn’t make any sense to them, and every time they ask him to clarify, every time they challenge him, he “ups the ante,” he makes his demands even higher, he compels them to give up even more. So, who can blame them? They don’t want to ask any more questions because they don’t want to hear what he has to say.
While Jesus was saying that he must die they drifted behind him and began to argue who is the greatest among them, who is next going to lead, who is the most powerful. What an odd moment. What a mismatch. What cross (no pun intended) purposes. Jesus is taking about humility and sacrifice and they are fighting over power and prestige. Funny how some things never really change. Funny how Jesus is still asking for us to hear him, understand him, follow him, and we are still fighting over who is in charge, in control, the most powerful or popular.
When Jesus asked them what they were taking about behind his back “they were silent.” Well, at least they had the good sense to be embarrassed. They had been caught. They knew that they were off; that they had missed his message.
In order to illustrate his point about who is the “greatest,” Jesus took a child and put his arms around him or her and told them that whoever welcomes one such child welcomes him. The disciples were astounded, and appalled. Children didn’t count for much in those days. Children were considered among the least, the lowest. And now Jesus is identifying with one of them. When we humble ourselves, when we let go of ego-games, power-plays, when we come alongside the least, the lowest, the lost, there and then, says Jesus, we will know greatness. This is more bad news for the disciples. This news just turns their world upside down. And then Jesus said to them, “If you want to be one of my disciples, then you must see the world as I do and treat others as I do and sacrifice as I do and love like I do.” It is no wonder that Jesus got himself into so much trouble.

Tuesdays with Mark (9: 2-8)

If you look at the stained-glass window above the altar at Palmer Church, you will see a depiction of the scene from today’s scripture lesson. The light through that window of the Transfiguration of Jesus has shined down upon all the people who have prayed here, worshipped here, been baptized and married and memorialized here.
The story begins: “Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves.” We are not exactly sure what the time reference is here, but I would guess that this is six days after Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ. If that is the case, then I imagine that these six days had been a pretty challenging time for the disciples. Peter had been rebuked by Jesus for rebuking him. It was a very awkward and painful moment, not just for Peter, but for all of them. The picture that Jesus has painted for them about what it means to be his disciple— to pick up your cross and follow me—is one that they had not counted upon and one they don’t really understand.
Jesus takes them up the mountain and there he is completely changed and transformed. We are to remember Moses here, when he went up the mountain (see Exodus 24, 34) to listen to God and to receive the 10 commandments. There, on the mountain, Moses was filled with light.
While Jesus and the three are on the mountain in Mark’s Gospel, two other figures show up: Moses and Elijah. Moses was emblematic of the law; Elijah was emblematic of the prophets. It was understood that Moses and Elijah would come again when the Kingdom of God would come in its fullness (see Malachi 4: 4-5). So, when Moses and Elijah appear the three (we might surmise) would think that this was a Kingdom moment, a moment when God was breaking through, a moment when they were given such a clear vision that their doubts and struggles would be put aside. Maybe this happened.
Impetuous Peter suggests that they should build “three dwellings,” or three booths. This reminds us of the Jewish feast of Booths, a fall festival when the Jews would build little huts to remind them of how God had protected them during their sojourn through the wilderness. Maybe Peter wants to make camp; perhaps he just wants to freeze the moment, like in a painting; or perhaps he just doesn’t have any idea what he is saying—he just speaks out of his fear and awe.
A voice then breaks forth: “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” These are almost the exact words that God gave to Jesus when he was baptized (see Mark 1: 11f). There is, though, one addition: “listen.” God gives this message because the disciples weren’t listening to Jesus, and they weren’t listening because Jesus said some things that they didn’t want to hear.
And then the whole moment is gone—Jesus looks normal, Moses and Elijah are gone, all is quiet.
What happens then? Jesus and the rest of the disciples go down the mountain starting with 9: 9. But before we proceed, let me add one more piece of scripture from Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth: “All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as through reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another… (3:18f)
In this passage Paul is referring to Jesus at the Transfiguration. When Moses came down the mountaintop (Exodus) people had to turn away their faces because his face was so bright that it blinded them. But with Jesus, Paul says not to turn away, but to turn towards; and when we do we will be transformed by his light radiating on us.
At the bible study this morning I gave the men a spiritual principle: we become what we look at. Think about that. If we look at things that are light, that are about life and joy and hope and kindness and faith, all of our peering will impact and affect our minds and hearts and souls. But we if look at things that are not about light, that tend towards or even indulge in the darkness, then this, too, will impact and affect who we are and think and live. So, what are we looking at, reading, and studying?
In this passage from 2 Corinthians, Paul is saying that when we look at the face of Jesus we will be transfigured like him. How do we look into the face of Jesus? If we look intently and faithfully enough, we may just see him in…well… everyone’s face.
Think about that. Pray about that. Ponder all that when you next look at our window of the Transfiguration above the altar.

Tuesdays with Mark (8:31-9:1)

This is one of the most important passages in Mark’s gospel. In the previous section (see last week), Jesus has been traveling with his disciples and he asks them who people say that he is. After giving him several answers, Jesus pointedly asks them who they say that he is. Peter says what they have been thinking for some time: “You are the Christ.” And yes, Peter is right—Jesus is indeed the “anointed” one. When Jesus next tells them what it will mean for him to be the Christ—that he must suffer, be rejected, and die—Peter rebukes him because what Jesus is describing doesn’t make any sense to him. The Christ, for Peter, is called to lead and conquer, not suffer and die.
That is the scene that we are in the middle of right now. Jesus next proceeds to move from telling them what being the Christ will mean for him to telling them what it will mean for them: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” We spent the rest of the hour this morning dealing with this one sentence. What does it mean?
If we want to become a follower of Jesus, a disciple of Jesus, then we must deny our egos, our plans, our control, out desire to be in charge, our notions of perfection. If we hold onto any of these we cannot follow Jesus. I asked the fellows this morning if any of them wrestled with this piece of scripture and they all had the good sense and honesty to raise their hands. We all struggle with denying ourselves.
“Take up their cross…” Jesus then says. By picking up your cross Jesus is not talking about the daily grievances or challenges that we all have. He is not talking about the in-laws coming for a visit. He is not talking about putting up with a boss that tries your patience. By taking up your cross Jesus is talking about two things. First, we must, if we are to follow him, be willing to die for him—die to self, die to control, die to being judgmental, die to playing God. Second, Jesus is talking about picking up our cross to do redemptive work, just like he did when he picked up his own cross. I asked the fellows this morning what redemptive work looks like and they said, “rescue,” and “reconciliation,” and “forgiveness,” and “love.” Jesus didn’t go to the cross to simply suffer for sufferings sake. He was not a masochist. He suffered for a reason, he picked up his cross for a reason, and that was to make us right with God, with each other, and with ourselves. In all the places that sin infects and separates, Jesus came to bring his sacrificial and redemptive blood. When Jesus tells us to take up our cross he is asking us to join him in redemptive work, rescue work, reconciling work.
One of the themes that kept coming up this morning was that the men talked about having to come to terms with their own imperfections. They seemed reluctant to do so, but there they were—their imperfections and mistakes and messes—and there was nothing else to do but to admit them and accept them. I asked them to think about their imperfections in another way. “O happy sin. O happy fault.” I quoted a medieval mystic (Dame Julian) who said the above. Why “happy” sin? Why “happy” fault? Without our flawed humanity, our sins and imperfections and messes, we would never really turn to God and admit our need for God. Without coming to our knees we will never really know grace. It is when we have hit the wall, made a hash of things, wondered what our life is all about, faced into our own culpability, that we give room in our hearts for the grace of God to touch us and forgive us and heal us. Until then we are all too likely to play God. At this moment a man got up and just started to cry—cry because he had received grace in that group; cry because he felt God’s healing and forgiving presence. He thanked the others with tears rolling down his cheeks. All we could then do—I felt—was to sing the first verse of “Amazing Grace.”
I commend this one sentence to your own reflections and prayers. It is at the very heart of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Tuesdays with Mark (8:22-25)

We dealt with two stories yesterday, two stories that I didn’t see were connected until yesterday. Funny how you can look at scripture for so many years and not see things.

Anyway, the first story is about Jesus healing a man who was blind (see verses 22-25). What is interesting about this particular healing is that Jesus needs to lay his hands on the man twice. The first time he does so that man only receives partial sight. Jesus needs to repeat the laying on of hands in order for the man to see clearly. Hold onto to that “double touch.”

Jesus moves from this healing to Caesarea Philippi. As he is walking along with his disciples he asks them who do people say that he is. After they give him several answers he turns the question on them and asks, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter responds with “You are the Messiah.” Peter has it right; Peter has it wrong.
Before we proceeded to talk about how Peter had it both right and wrong, I began to call out individual men by asking them who Jesus was for them. If you are reading these words right now, I would ask you to pause and ask yourself that question: Who is Jesus for you? How do you think about him, talk about him, visualize him, feel him? As three men shared the room became very quiet and this was a tender and personal time. As you ponder who Jesus is for you, I would also ask you to think and pray about who you are for Jesus.
Back to Peter. He had the title “Messiah” right; but he was wrong about what he thought the Messiah was going to do. Peter thought that Jesus was going to be a second David, a warrior king, a savior to defeat the Romans and to vanquish all other enemies. (Please note that before savior was a theological term it was a military one.) But this is not what Jesus came to do—he didn’t come to fight, to conquer, to pick up arms, to lead people into battle. He came to give his life. He came to show us how to live. He came to help us not to fight; to befriend and not conquer, to embrace and not to pick up arms, to join in the battle for—for justice, for peace, for love, and not against. With Jesus there are no foes—or to be a bit more precise, all people are God’s children and he came for one and all, and his way to conquer sin and death—that was his battle, those were his foes—was through giving his life. Not by picking up arms, but by laying his arms down on the cross—that was Jesus’ way.

Peter is not pleased when Jesus tells him that he has to be persecuted and suffer and be rejected and die. Peter is not pleased because Jesus is not living into the script. So he rebukes Jesus. He is here not acting like a disciple, but a patron; not like a follower, but like a boss. Jesus, though, will not be bossed or patronized. Instead he rebukes Peter with the strongest language possible: “Get behind me, Satan!” Who is Satan? He is the betrayer, the accuser, the adversary, the liar, the bully, the imposter, the tempter, the “rebuker.” Many of us know the voice of Satan in our own lives.

I asked the guys why Jesus reacted so strongly, and one fellow said, “Because Jesus was indeed tempted to walk away from the cross.” I think there is something for us to think about in this fellow’s reflection. Jesus was human—yes, he was divine, too; but, again, let us not forget his humanity. Even at the very end of his life at the Garden of Gethsamane Jesus is asking, pleading, praying for another way, another way to be the Messiah, another way to live into his mission.

In this scripture Jesus is talking about what it means for him to be the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. From his understanding he will then tell us what it means to follow him as his disciples.

More on all this next week. Again, though, please think and pray about who Jesus is for you. The question that he asked those disciples he asks us.

Tuesdays with Mark (7: 24-37)

“From there he [Jesus] set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.” (7: 24)
Have you ever felt like you didn’t want people to know where you are? Have you ever been glad to be in a place where your cell phone doesn’t work anymore? Have you ever looked at your computer and breathed a sigh of relief when you saw that you didn’t have any messages?
I imagine that this is where Jesus was at that moment that he didn’t want anyone to know where he was. He was tired, spent, exhausted.
But that was not going to happen for him. “Yet he could not escape notice,” the scripture tells us. He wanted a break, but no break was to be had for a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit came to him and asked him to cast it out. This is a woman, a Gentile of Syrophoenician origin—in other words she was someone who was pretty far removed from Jesus’ background and origins. She knelt before him and begged him to heal her daughter and Jesus said, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” The children he is talking about are the Jews; the dogs he is talking about are the Gentiles.
This is, for me, a very challenging piece of scripture. It would seem that Jesus dismisses her, that he ignores her plea, that he insults her, that he doesn’t really see her or the little girl’s need.
When I pointed all this out to the folks this morning in bible study, one person said that he had heard from a biblical scholar that when Jesus is using the word “dogs” here that he is not referring to mongrel dogs, but to pet dogs, lap dogs, so that his words to this woman were really not quite as derogatory or dismissive as may seem. I then asked all of the gentlemen how the women in their lives would respond to being called any kind of dog. That seemed to end that part of our conversation.
One way into this piece of scripture is to know that there is indeed some evidence that Jesus did see that his mission was first to the Jews so that he could then remind them and reignite them to embrace and live into their mission to the world. (See more on this in Matthew 10:5.)
I think another way into this piece of scripture is to ask whether or not Jesus was just having a bad day, and that this interchange was displaying his humanity. Now, this may seem a little controversial or challenging. We believe, we proclaim, that Jesus was “truly God and truly man” in the Chalcedonian Definition (see the Book of Common Prayer, p. 864). Since New Testament times it has been a challenge for the church, for all of us, to hold together both truths—that Jesus was both totally God and totally a human being. Most often in the last two thousand years the church has leaned more towards his divinity than his humanity. When we do that, though, we are denying one important aspect of the doctrine of the Incarnation, that Jesus became flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone. There was an understanding in the early church that went this way: Jesus could only save what he became, what he took on, what he assumed. Which means that if he were not fully one with us he would not be able to fully and completely redeem and forgive and save us.
For me this is a very important piece of scripture. I do think that Jesus was tired, that he didn’t see this woman, that this was not one of his finest moments, and that the woman changed his mind. When Jesus denied her request, she said, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Jesus then healed the little girl.
I think that this woman is one of the most important and influential characters/persons in scripture. She bested Jesus in the debate, and she called forth the universal mission that we see Jesus live into from this moment forward.
Seeing what I would call Jesus’ humanity gives me more hope with my own. If he can change, if he can have a bad day, if he can turn on folks and not “get it” the first time around, then he will understand and have mercy when I don’t.
This woman had moxie. Jesus liked that. You can almost see him wryly smile by the end of this interchange. She is a model of faith for us. Look and see what she does and ask yourself how it might speak to you and your faith.
Little theological caveat: by emphasizing the humanity of Jesus in this passage, please don’t hear or think that I am for one moment denying his divinity or that he is the Son of God. I do, though, think that holding both his humanity and his divinity together in tension is important for us.

Tuesdays with Mark (Mark 7: 1-23)

“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…” (7:1). They then asked Jesus, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (7:5)
This whole passage is about how the Pharisees perceive that Jesus is breaking some of their most hallowed rituals and norms and traditions. I would invite you to read through the whole passage and think about the traditions in your own life and faith.
You could take from this scripture that Jesus is against all traditions—he certainly takes the Pharisees to task in this passage and says, in effect, it doesn’t make any difference how you wash your hands if your heart is corrupt; it doesn’t make any difference what you eat because it is not what goes into you that matters but what comes out of you. You can follow all of your traditions and be very far away from God; in fact, following your traditions can even compromise if not destroy your faith. Jesus is indeed hard on traditions.
But let me return to the question: Is Jesus against all traditions? I don’t think so and I certainly hope not. If our traditions move us more deeply into the heart of God, if they give us more grateful hearts, if they motivate us to love our neighbor, if they prompt us to get our own knees to say sorry and thank you and help me and use me, then I believe that Jesus would be totally supportive of our traditions. But if we think we do our traditions in order to earn God’s favor or in order to think or act like we are better than someone else, then I believe that Jesus would challenge our traditions.
I have given the better part of my life to being a traditionalist; that is, I have led people in traditions in our believing, our acting, our rituals, and our liturgies for many years now. I can see how traditions can bring us closer to God but also how they can allow us to drift. I can see how they can soften our hearts and harden them. I have seen them unite people and divide them. I have seen them awaken some people and deaden others. Traditions are sort of like dynamite. Used properly they can be wonderful; used improperly they can be…well, not so wonderful.
The Jews, the Pharisees most particularly, had a lot of rules and regulations and traditions—613 of them in all. Sometimes they spent so much time arguing over them that they may have forgotten the purpose of tradition, and that is to honor God, praise God, open us up to God, enable us to see God’s presence in each other, and help us to follow God’s desires in our life. Sometimes the way we go about our traditions helps us and sometimes it hinders us. If we replace our traditions for our faith we are in trouble, but if our traditions deepen our faith and make us more loving, more open, more tender, more humble, more courageous disciples, then bring the traditions on—all of them, of course, to the Glory of God.
As you might imagine this morning’s bible study was very lively and challenging. I invite you to be part of it by thinking about—as I asked earlier—your own life with traditions. Are they helping you be more faithful? Or, might they be getting in your way, or more importantly, might they be getting in God’s way to you? Again, traditions can cut either way.

Tuesdays with Mark (6: 45-56)

We have two stories in this piece of scripture. First, Jesus walks on the water. Second, Jesus heals many people on the lakeside of Gennesaret.
I have never been able to get much out of Jesus walking on water, and I said that to the guys this morning. It is not that I don’t believe Jesus could walk on water—I believe that he could; it is that this story has always seemed rather magical to me and removed from my life.
It is until I remember where the disciples were when Jesus came walking on the water towards him. They are alone in a boat. A storm comes up and they are feeling vulnerable and at risk. They are afraid. They are pulling on the oars as hard as they can, but they are not getting anywhere. When I really get into the boat with them I know that I have had such moments in my own life. And like the disciples, I know that I sometimes don’t recognize Jesus when he comes to me. I don’t recognize him because he comes to me in ways that I didn’t expect, or maybe in ways that I didn’t think that I wanted.
Jesus was going to “pass them by,” but instead he gets into the boat with them and the waters calm down and all is well—right? No. It says in scripture, “And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves [this was the previous piece of scripture when Jesus fed the 5,000], but their hearts were hardened.”
This is where the conversation took off. “What does a hardened heart feel like?” I asked. I also asked when they had felt that their hearts were hardened against God, against their spouse or partner, against life itself. When our hearts get hardened our faith shrinks, our loves shrink, our commitments shrink, our joys shrink. It all shrinks, gets small and tight. And with a hardened heart we begin to look for yet more things, more infractions, more transgressions that will justify our hard hearts. And we will—this is a rule of life—see what we look for; we will find what we seek. If we want to have a hard heart with someone, we will be given plenty of evidence to substantiate our position.
But a hard heart is death. The death of all that is important.
I then asked the men how their hard hearts had been broken, how their hard hearts had been softened. Most of them talked about a friend or someone they love coming to them and challenging them to open up, to soften up, to see a bigger picture.
The second part of the story is about the response of the gentiles to Jesus. It says that the “whole region… began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard [Jesus] was.”
Mark wants us to see that the “insiders” had hard hearts and the “outsiders” had open hearts. The disciples had hard hearts because things didn’t go their way, because they were in a storm, because Jesus didn’t always act like they thought that he should, because… The “outsiders” get him and are open to him and receive multiple blessings from him.
Do you hear the warning? It is to the insiders, and that is to people like you and me, people who identify themselves as Christians, as disciples of Jesus. Yes, we may have faith, yes we may have given our lives to Jesus a long time ago; but we, like the disciples from long ago, can sometimes have hard hearts ourselves.
The piece of scripture invites us to look at the condition of our own hearts. Anger, resentment, entitlement, losses, disappointments, things not going our way, according to our plans—there are so many things that can harden our hearts. And with those hard hearts the disciples didn’t even see that Jesus had rescued them and that he was right there in the boat with them.
If all this talk about a hard heart in speaking to you, either in your relationship with God or with someone you love or work with, then I would invite you to go be alone (just like Jesus does in the first part of this story), and to remember all the ways you have been blessed, all the ways that God has come to you. An “attitude of gratitude” can soften your heart, whereas an attitude of hardness can poison you. We do have a choice. Everyday.

Tuesdays with Mark (6: 30-44)

The apostles have just returned from their first missionary tour. Jesus had sent them out (see 6: 7-13) to proclaim the gospel and cast out demons and anoint those who were sick.
Were they ready? No. Did they even know who Jesus was and what he came to do? No. Were they in over their heads? Yes. All that is good news. If Jesus waited until we were finally ready before sending us out we would never go out at all.
Anyway, they have just returned to Jesus and they are telling him “all that they had done and taught.” They are filled with excitement, but they are also exhausted. So, Jesus invites them “to a deserted place all by [them] selves [so that they can] rest a while.” Jesus is very aware that ministry has cost them and that they need some quiet time, some retreat time, some time to recharge.
But his plan is foiled. The people see where Jesus and the 12 are headed and they go en masse to see them. Jesus saw the great crowd and had “compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” His concern for the crowd trumped his concern for the 12. Ministry prevailed over retreat time. I imagine that the 12 may have had some resentment about this. I suspect that I would have felt that way if I had been one of them. “No, not more ministry, Jesus. Can’t you give it a rest?” But Jesus doesn’t.
He begins by teaching them. He knows that one of the reasons why they are like lost sheep is that they have not been taught, or at least taught what he has to teach. Maybe the people had no teaching, no instruction; maybe they simply had bad teaching, insufficient instruction. Jesus, though, first feeds and guides their minds and hearts with his words.
At the end of the day the 12 come to him with the practical concern that all these people need to be fed but they don’t have enough provisions for them. They want Jesus to send them away. They might still be looking for that quiet time with Jesus. He sees that the people need to be fed, but instead of sending them away he says, “You give them something to eat.” The disciples are not pleased. They remonstrate with him: “Are we going to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” This amount was about what the usual worker could earn in about 8 months—it was a huge amount. What Jesus is asking them to do doesn’t make any sense. Of course, they don’t have enough. Jesus needs to see this. Does he? No. Instead he asks them what they do have and they tell him 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. In other words, they have 1 loaf for every 1,000 people and maybe a fish bone for every 100th person. Paltry. Not enough. Makes no sense.
But it is enough. Somehow it is. This is also good news for us. How often in our lives do we feel like we don’t have enough—enough love, enough sense, enough time, enough patience, enough experience, enough hope, enough grace. On our own we often don’t. We are limited. We cannot do it all. But then we need to remember and claim that it is not all about us, that we have someone who can help and who can bless us and guide us and lead us to do great and wonderful things.
Jesus took the 5 loaves and 2 fish, he blessed the snack, he broke it, and then he gave it out. This is the same sequence of verbs that we see in the Last Supper where and when Jesus took the bread and wine, and then blessed, broke, and shared it (see Mark 14: 22f). The actions that Jesus does with and 5 loaves and 2 fish, and then with the bread and wine at the Last Supper are the same actions that he desires to do with us. He wants to take us, bless us, break us, and then share us.
Everyone gets fed. The story concludes by telling us that 5,000 men were fed, not to mention how many women and children may have also been fed. There are even some leftovers.
The story invites us right into that moment of feeling like we don’t have enough, just like the disciples. Jesus asks us just to bring what we have, even if it feels rather inadequate. With his blessing our gift will be enough. Trust that. He has great work for us to do, work we can only do with Him. That is called faith.
Jesus first fed the folks his words, and then he fed them real bread. We are here for teaching and feeding, for proclaiming the Word and serving the folks.
Each one of the 12 walked away from this event with a whole basket of leftovers. They didn’t get the retreat time that they wanted, but they did receive what they needed.

Tuesdays with Mark

Mark 6: 1-6a

I am going to get back into the blog business. I am going to title this series “Tuesdays with Mark,” which is a take off of the book, Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Alborn.
I am going to use the reflections from Tuesday’s Bible study group because I believe that the way these men go about reading scripture is extraordinary (this is not to say that the Wednesday group is not also the same) and I want to invite more of you into our conversation about the gospel according to Mark. I start this week knowing that I will be missing the next two weeks, but I will resume when I return.
So, we begin: “[Jesus] left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.” (v.1) This is the first time that Jesus returned home after he had been baptized by John the Baptist and after he had begun his preaching, teaching, healing, and exorcizing mission. The home town folks must have heard good things about him, and one might guess that they may have even felt some pride about his ministry.
Verse two reads: “On the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded.” I asked the men how this spoke to them and what came out of that discussion is that Jesus is in the synagogue on the Lord’s day, that he was faithful to being in the worshipping community. I then asked the men if they were familiar with any of the studies that show a correlation between the amount of time people spend in worship and in prayer and the difference such activities make to a person’s mental and physical health. Well, be careful what you ask for. At this moment a physician and a hospital chaplain began to reinforce my comments with data and reports and verifications. It is all true: our worship life and prayer life impacts our overall health in many and profound ways.
Everything seemed to have initially gone pretty well with Jesus coming back to teach in his “home church,” but then the people began to question his background and his credentials. They ask, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” (v. 3)
I asked the men what they made of this and one of them said, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” And that is a good way to interpret this piece of scripture. They knew him. They watched him grow up. He didn’t seem to be anything special, nor did any of his brothers or sisters. So, just who does he think that he is? By calling him a “son of Mary” they were intending a slur or slight, if not a downright piece of slander. Boys and men were designated the sons of their fathers. I know that this is not fair, but this is how this culture worked. By calling him a son of Mary they might very well have been casting aspersions on the legitimacy of his birth.
I then asked the men how familiarity has bred contempt in their own lives, especially at home. Now, that is a painful question. Do not treat your spouse like a roommate or like one of the guys. Do not let your comfort with someone lead to being less than a gentleman. To make my point sink in, I asked them to recall when Adam woke up from his nap and Eve was there, standing before him in all of her beauty and
wonder. This is a sacred moment. If we lose this sense of awe and sacredness in our daily relationships something vital and important and precious will be missing. How can we be both comfortable and hold onto the sacredness at the same time?
Proceeding to verse five: “And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” Now I find this to be a frightening and disturbing piece of scripture. One guy said, “You mean I have to do something? I cannot just show up and get fed?” The spiritual climate of this synagogue damped down what Jesus was able to do there. I am not saying that Jesus could not perform any miracles there—he did; but I am saying that the expectations of their hearts and souls did make a difference in what Jesus was able to do.
What was true then is true now. This is where I really started to lean into the men. What kind of climate were they helping to create in their own faith communities? (You need to know that we have men from many churches.) I told them that they were called to be thermostats and not thermometers; that they needed to set the temperature and not just gauge it. One man said that he had been in a church where the people expected the Holy Spirit to show up every time they did something from coffee hour to vestry meetings, from Sunday morning worship to an ECW meeting, from a hospital visit to a bible study. I was very moved to hear his testimony. I also felt very convicted by it. How can we have that kind of community? How can we have that kind of expectation? Churches can get so comfortable with each other, so comfortable with our rituals, that we lose our sense of desire and expectation that something great and stupendous and miraculous is about to happen. Let us not be like the synagogue in Jesus’ hometown.
Welcome to “Tuesdays with Mark.”