The First Jesus Story

May 13, 2018

Susan Adams

Easter 7     Mark 1:1-14

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I’m departing from the lectionary today in a way that is uncharacteristic for me as I undertook, many years ago, to preach the lections (the list of readings set for each day in the church year and for each festival) for the day as given and not to pick and choose so as to avoid awkward readings I didn’t like! But today I feel justified in departing from the list as without the Gospel of Mark, about which I want to speak and from which we heard the introductory verses read, it is unlikely you would be sitting there or I would be standing here. And what is more, even if we were, the shape of our liturgical year may well have been very different.

What am sharing this morning are some introductory comments about the gospel of Mark preliminary to the conversation that we will have after church – if you wish to stay and participate in delving a little deeper. Today will be the first of two such conversations John Salmon and I are looking forward to.

The gospel of Mark is foundational to our understanding of the story of our Christian faith. It was the first of the gospels to be written, about 40 years after Jesus death. It is unlikely to have been written by a man named Mark – like most of the other gospels no one knows who wrote it. We do know that the way in which it is written – that is its attempt to make a story out of the collection of remembered ‘sayings’ and aphorisms that were circulating and attributed to Jesus – set the model for the other three gospels. Mark, (let’s follow tradition and call him Mark), in many ways created the Jesus and his life that we are so familiar with. ‘Jesus’, I emphasise, not the post-crucifixion Christ that Paul and his earlier writings is more interested in.

There is some suggestion, however, that another purpose lies beneath the telling of the story of Jesus of Nazareth – the peasant artisan who became an itinerant preacher and leader of a revolutionary reform movement within Judaism – and that is the shaping of a lectionary of readings for festivals for Jesus-followers within the Jewish synagogues, and that parallels the Jewish festivals of the synagogue. We need to remember that in Mark's region, in the early stages in the development of what became ‘Christianity’, the followers were members of the local synagogue – they were adherents of Judaism.

It might be curious to note that, although the gospel of Mark is the gospel for the year, you have not heard much of it yet this year! If you think about that you might wonder why, then you might recall that there are no birth stories in Marks’s gospel, and that most of our favourite familiar parables are missing, nor are there any stories of post-Easter resurrection appearances – which is bit of problem for the church in this season of Easter!

There seem to be some obvious gaps in the story! It is very difficult for us to read this gospel without the additional infill stories provided by Matthew, Luke and John that have coloured the way we ‘remember’ the story. But, just because these three gospels were written later that does not make them more historically accurate, nor proof they had recourse to a greater number of reliable documents. Each of the four gospels were written in a different context and addressed a different set of contextual issues.

I’ve already noted that there is some exploration these days into the development of a parallel lectionary for Jesus followers to the synagogue lectionary and festival readings. Mark uses a structure that reflects the shape of the Jewish year, tracing

•  Jesus' baptism and stories that indicate the emergence and purpose of his ministry.

•  The teaching period in which he instructs his disciples on the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, using the healing stories to point towards social change and salvation.

•  The Passion, Passover and Crucifixion (which some would argue is the beginning).

More commonly it has been thought that as the second coming, that Jesus followers were expecting, had not happened it was important to organise the available oral tradition in a way that gave gravitas to the intentions of those who had committed themselves to the way of Jesus. The writer therefore makes extensive use of references to the First Testament especially Isaiah and Deuteronomy. These references would have been familiar to Jewish people and added credibility to Mark’s Jesus as he takes shape. Mark was writing for his Jewish community living under Roman occupation on the edge of Galilee or Southern Syria.

His style of writing would have been familiar to his hearers. By that I mean he was not recording the truth of history as we understand it today, verifiable by external documents or eyewitness reports, but rather pointing us to a deeper truth relating to the human condition and desires that is available to us through myth and story, through the actions of our heroes and the aspirations of our community. He was linking Jesus with the First Testament prophets with the stories about them and the hope and challenge they presented to his Jewish contemporaries. When we read Marks Gospel with our post-enlightenment eyes we need to take care that we do not find ourselves in the place of ‘category confusion’, in which we read metaphors as descriptions and myths as history. This is an action-packed, rapidly-moving story, aiming to help adherents, and others with an interest, to locate the significance of Jesus. To help them find the courage to live the ‘Jesus way’: the way leading to change in social ordering and in priorities and in religious practices. It invites committed discipleship from us all – not just those fishermen whom the story tells us were the first to be called.

To this end, Mark’s Gospel holds the key for us to unlock the complexities of our Christian faith.

It tells, in narrative form, the ‘story of Jesus’ without recourse to rearranging the matter of the universe, or the Christmas card and Christmas carol images we have pasted onto our eyeballs!

•  It re-presents the metaphors and myths that surround First Testament prophets and heroes, and attaches them to Jesus to underscore his place in Jewish expectation and to reassure followers

•  It calls for those followers to be courageous in the face of oppression and persecution and to hold fast to the vision of mutual care and concern among people; to hope and to courage

•  It uses everyday life-examples to ‘teach’ The Way, encouraging us to be ‘awake and aware’ of what is going on in our world, and to act toward each other with compassion, bringing healing and wellness.

•  It reminds us that in Jesus we can glimpse the God of justice beloved by Jews, as well as the love and concern the God as we Christians proclaim.

So, echoing Jesus' invitation according to Mark: "Repent", that is turn away from all that is unkind and divisive and have courage "and believe in the good news".