Day 19: Jesus Preaches, Heals, Casts Out Demons....and Prays

You may find much of this section of Luke somewhat familiar, as many of the stories you have heard before, either in Matthew or in Mark, or in both.  But, as you read along, you might notice some additions, some differences, and different things might leap out at you.

As for me, the controversy involved in Jesus healing on the Sabbath becomes more prominent.  Jesus makes the point that it should be valid to save a life, even on the Sabbath (and in fact, the Jewish rabbis speak in favor of this), but the man with the withered hand did not have a life-endangering injury.  So, something else may be going on.  What is it? 

You know what else I noticed?  Jesus goes up the mountain to pray, and he prays all night long.  You may notice references to Jesus praying often in Luke.

Then he chooses his apostles and goes back down the mountain to teach.  That's right:  it's not the Sermon on the Mount.  It's called "The Sermon on the Plain."  There are very many similarities between the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain.  Luke's version is shorter (for example), and instead of simply saying "Blessed are the poor in spirit" for example, Jesus has three "Blesseds" and three "Woes."  And forget about the "Poor in Spirit" -- Jesus says, "Blessed are you who are POOR." Not spiritual.  Literally.

Jesus heals the centurion's servant, a story we might be familiar with.  Then he balances that story with one about Jesus raising a widow's son from the dead.  Luke is careful to include many stories about women in his gospel.

There's also the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus' feet with her tears while he's dining at Simon's house.  She is identified as a "sinner", which leads many people to consider he to be a prostitute.  Really, is prostitution the only sin open to women?  Also, I still wonder about identifying people as "sinners."  To me, it's like saying, that person is a "human being."

Mary Magdalene is named as one of the followers of Jesus at the beginning of Luke 8.  Luke also mentions (without saying much more) that several women travelled with him and supported his ministry.

The next two stories are familiar ones:  the man healed of a legion of demons (notice how the people want Jesus to leave after he does this great miracle?) and the little girl and the woman who are both healed.  Unlike Mark, Luke doesn't portray Jesus' words to her in his native language of Aramaic, "Talitha cum."

Day 18: More Background, and Jesus begins his Ministry

.... in an orderly way, of course.

Chapter three starts off, as you'd expect (by this time, anyway), with the arrival of the adult John the Baptist on the scene.  His presence is announced, almost as if the Court is announcing, "Hear ye!  hear ye!  In the 15th year of the reign of emperor Tiberias....."  Do we expect some royal personage, in purple robes and aristocratic bearing, to enter the scene?  Instead, it is the lowly and humble John, appearing not in the seats of power but in the wilderness, preaching not prosperity but repentance.

But, that's Luke, for you.

Luke also has a geneaology, but notice that Luke works backwards from Joseph and arrives at Adam (instead of at Abraham), and, if you are brave, notice that some of the names are different, too.  What do you suppose the purpose of working backwards and ending at Adam would be for Luke?  what's the point?

In Luke 4, Jesus is tempted.  The content of the temptations is very similar to Matthew, but they are in a different order (an orderly account, remember?)  Afterwards, Jesus begins his ministry by going to his hometown, wowing them all with his preaching, and, within the space of a few minutes, making everyone angry enough to want to kill him.  The theme of Jesus' ministry is set then from the beginning.  The sentence we hear him read in the synagogue, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.  He has sent me to preach Good news to the poor....." is the theme of his ministry.  Large, appreciative crowds, and anger and rejection also appear right here in Luke 4.

In Luke 5, Jesus calls disciples.  John has already been put in prison (see Luke 3), so their ministries do not overlap.  When Jesus calls Simon, the fisherman immediately recognizes that he is in the presence of holiness, "I am a man of unclean lips", he says.  Then, Jesus begins healing and casting out demons. 

Luke 5 ends with the saying (we may recognize) about the new and old wineskins.  May I say that on one level I understand this metaphor (Jesus is the new wine, and the old wineskins will not be able to hold him), but on the other hand, there's more than meets the eye.  So what does the last verse mean:  "No one who drinks a well-aged wine wants new wine, but says, "The well-aged wine is better."  (It's literally true, of course, but otherwise, what does it mean?)  What do you think?

By the way, when I was looking for images, I found this great blog post about the miraculous catch of fish. 

Day 16: Death and Resurrection, short and long endings

Didn't we just start reading Mark?  And today we are coming to the end of this shortest of Gospels.  Jesus didn't "hang around" much, if you read Mark's gospel; he was always on the go, healing people, helping people, celebrating.  His teachings were short and pithy (not like in the Gospel of John, but, I'm getting ahead of myself).

The story of Jesus' crucifixion is told simply as well.  Though to me, it seems as if time does finally slow down.   The Jesus who has been on the go, going from place to place "immediately", now walks slowly, dragging a cross.

So Jesus is handed over to Pilate, who tries to hand him back.  The shouts of "crucify him!"  Ring in the air.

It's the small things that I notice:  There's Simon of Cyrene, forced to carry Jesus' cross.  It is only in Mark's gospel that Simon is named as the "father of Rufus and Alexander":  a small detail not carried over to the later gospels of Luke and Matthew.  Even though we don't know anything about Rufus and Alexander, it's interesting that Mark includes their names, as if he is saying to his readers, "You know, Simon:  Rufus and Alexander's dad!"  Possibly these two men were well-known to Mark's community.

As in Matthew, Jesus' only words from the cross are of abandonment:  "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"   

And a roman centurion sees Jesus hanging dead from a cross and says, "Surely this was God's Son."  He tells the truth.  But is he speaking sincerely?  Or derisively? 

In Mark, chapter 16, we have the shorter ending (most certainly the genuine one) and the longer ending.  Both present problems.  If we end with verse 8, we have no appearnce of Jesus after the resurrection, and the women run away, afraid, saying nothing to anyone.  (Although this does beg the question, if they really didn't say anything, how do we know?) 

In the longer ending, Jesus does appear, but one of the things he does is scold the disciples for their lack of belief.  (In the longer ending, Mary Magdalene does spread the news, but  the other disciples don't believe her.)  In the longer ending you have all these weird signs associated with the disciples:  drinking poision, snake handling, as well as speaking in new languages and healing people.

And oh, in the last two verses of the longer ending, there are these lovely words, "But they went out and proclaimed the message everywhere.  The Lord worked with them.."

I don't know how your translation puts it, but I love these words, "the Lord worked with them..."

I hope it still is true today.  "The Lord works with us."

What strikes you most in these last two chapters of Mark?  And what is your overall impression of this gospel?  What do you think of Jesus after reading the Gospel of Mark?

Day 15: Jesus' Holy Week Activities

Jesus spends the early part of "Holy Week" arguing with various religious leaders:  The Saducees ask about the resurrection, the Pharisees about taxes, with a legal expert about the greatest commandment (well, that isn't exactly an argument: the legal expert thinks Jesus does very well, by saying that the first commandment is to Love God, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.) 

However, I'm getting ahead of myself.  First, we have another parable, the last parable in Mark, and it's about some tenant farmers who work in a vineyard and don't want to give up the harvest to the master when he comes.  The religious leaders (the people Jesus has been arguing with, mostly) know that this parable means something to do with them.  What do you think?

I'm having an interesting thought about the little story of the widow and her one coin.  It comes right after Jesus warning about the Pharisees taking advantage of widows, "devouring their houses."  I'm getting pictures in my mind of widows writing checks to televangelists from their fixed incomes.  What do you think this story is about?

After the arguing, Jesus warns about the coming times of  destruction, persecution.  Families will be torn apart, everyone ratting out everyone else. Believers will be put on trial, but they should rely on the Holy Spirit to put the words in their mouths.

It won't be long before Jesus is put on trial, both before Herod and before the religious court.  Everything is set in motion, beginning with the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus for burial.  She is the beginning of the story of Jesus'death.  

I do find it ironic that Jesus tells the disciples that everyone will remember this woman and her actions, because actually, when we usually tell the passion story, we don't start here:  we start with the last supper.  Then there is the prayer in the garden, where the disciples can't stay awake, there is the betrayal and arrest, the trials and Peter's denial.

But the real beginning, which we never remember, is the anointing by the unnamed woman.

Day 14: A Moment of Tranfigurement -- and then On to Jerusalem

So, just as soon as Jesus gets done predicting his own death and resurrection, and telling people that they will need to take up their own cross and follow him, there comes a scene of great glory.  Jesus takes three of his disciples and goes up a mountain (who knows where) where suddenly, it becomes (briefly) clear who is he.  Moses and Elijah are there as well, but just for a moment, before they come back down the mountain. 

At the bottom of the mountain, the real world slaps them in the face, in the form of a demon-possessed boy.

So, may I just say a couple of things? 

1.  The talk about taking up a cross would have sounded a lot different to Jesus' disciples and the people who first read Mark's gospel than it does to us.  They knew the reality of crosses, the humiliating and excruciating means of execution in a way that we don't.  Take up your cross.  We've sort of domesticated this image, but it couldn't have been a big selling point of the church.  I suspect that it started out as a description of what disciples of Jesus were actually experiencing, rather than a call.  Jesus' disciples were taking up crosses.  And somehow, something else that was happening in them and to them made that worth it (it seems.)

2.  I love the little detail, that Jesus' garments were whiter "than any fuller could bleach them."  The description of the brightness of the transfiguration is a little different in every gospel, but there's something homely and ordinary about this one.

At the end of chapter 11, after Jesus rides into Jerusalem (that's right, we're into Holy Week already), Jesus curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit, goes into the temple and throws out the ones who are selling things, and then goes back out, where the disciples see that the fig tree has withered.  (That's another of Mark's sandwiches, by the way.)   When the disciples voice their awe over what has happened, Jesus tells them they could do anything if they had faith.  This leads me to the speculation that if I could wither a fig tree, why wouldn't I rather do something like cure cancer or stop crucifixions?  Just wondering....

In the middle, a couple of things

-- the father of the demon-possessed boy is the man who says, "Lord, I believe!  Help my unbelief."  One of the more often-quoted passages of scripture.  And one of the most truthful.
--I have no idea what Jesus means when he tells his disciples privately (about the difficult-to-exorcise-spirit), "This kind requires prayer." 
-- In Mark's verse of the story of the rich young ruler, there's this little detail, where Jesus looks at the young man and loves him, when he tells him he needs to sell everything.  I love this detail.  What do you think it means?
-- James and John are vying for position in Jesus' kingdom.  they want to sit on his right and left hand.  Jesus tells them they don't know what they are asking.  Think of the image of being on the right and left side of Jesus.  Keep it in your mind.  It may come up later....

Day 13: Jesus Feeds People (including crumbs), Has Hometown Trouble, Heals (twice)

One of my favorite lesser-known stories is in this section of Mark -- but, we'll get to that in a little while.

As you are reading, are you thinking:  Much of this sounds vaguely familiar, but somehow different too?  --I thought so.  Yes, many of these stories you have heard before, in the gospel of Matthew.  But sometimes Mark lifts up his own details and that makes the stories his own.

So, what did you notice in reading Mark, chapters 6 - 8?  I couldn't help noticing the two stories about Jesus feeding large crowds (5,000 people and 4,000 people, respectively), and how, at the end of the second story, his disciples are really confused about bread.  They have forgotten to bring bread with them on the boat, and they take Jesus too literally when he tells them, "Beware the yeast of the Pharisees."  Actually, I am noticing that the disciples misunderstand Jesus a lot of the time.

No parables in this section of scripture, but a teaching about what makes people "unclean" and what does not.  It's not so much what we take into us that makes us unclean, but what comes out (and though Jesus is talking about the evil thoughts and actions that come out of our heart, the comparison he makes to what comes out of us is pretty -ahem- earthy). 

Jesus again has problems in his hometown.  Everywhere else, people are saying, "He does everything well," but in his hometown, where everybody knows his family and can name his brothers, they are skeptical.  "Isn't that the way?" Jesus says (on the one hand).  But on the other hand, he says he's shocked, shocked by their unbelief.  He's powerful, but not so powerful that he can do great things if people don't trust him.

Regarding a couple of healings:
I notice that when Jesus heals a man who is deaf, that hearing and speaking go together.  Both his ears and his tongue are opened.  This may seem obvious to you, or it may make you think:  hearing the gospel, and speaking grace are linked as well.  If we can't hear good news, we can't possibly share it.  And when we do hear good news, we can't NOT share it.

Here's my favorite little-known story:  In chapter 8, Jesus heals a blind man.  What is interesting is that the first time Jesus prays and puts his hands over the man's eyes, he says, "Well, I can see people, but they look like trees walking."  So Jesus' prayer only half healed the man.  (That's such an interesting description of fuzzy sight....)  Then Jesus prays again, and he can see everything clearly.

You will find this story only in Mark. 

The fuzziness is, of course, all over in Mark.  Just after this healing, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah.  He gets it!  but, not quite.  He certainly doesn't get that Jesus should have to suffer in any way.  Right before this story, the disciples are in a boat and Jesus is talking about all the bread he multiplied and all that was left over, while the disciples are worried that they have no bread with them.  His words to them, "And you still don't understand?"  Fuzziness all over.

But here's what I like about this story:  it fits my experience about how I come to "understand" Jesus and who he is.  I don't get it all at once.  Jesus does "something" in my life, but I'm sort of fuzzy about what it is, and it takes awhile for it to become clear.  It reminds me of something I heard about deaf people who have surgery (cochlear implants) to improve their hearing.  After the surgery, they aren't suddenly better.  Their ears have to be trained to interpret the sounds they are hearing.

I realize that there is much more in these three chapters:  the death of John the Baptist, the sending of the disciples, the cost of discipleship, the Syro-phoenician woman.  What did you see and hear as you read today?  What is fuzzy and what is clear?  (And isn't it nice to know that it's all right for some things to be fuzzy?)

Day 12: Preaching parables, stilling storms, and healing

The first thing I noticed when I started reading today is that Jesus is preaching these parables from a boat.  Why have I never noticed this before?  And why do I think it's sort of cool?  So here Jesus is, telling the story of the sower and the seeds, and he's speaking from a boat, to all the people gathered on shore.

I know that there's a parable and then there's Jesus secret allegorical explanation of it, but may I say that I think the original parable is way more interesting?  The focus in the original is on the sower and the fantastic yield at the end, despite all of the obstacles in the way.  In the later explanation, all of a sudden the focus becomes on the different types of soil.  That's okay, but for good endings, an 100-fold yield can't be beat.  (and is impossible to believe, by the way....)

Though I am liking Jesus in Mark, mostly, there's a little verse I'm going to have to wrestle with a bit more, in Mark 4:24  "Those who have will receive more, but as for those who don't have, even what they don't have will be taken away from them."  This seems to be extremely harsh, and I'm not quite sure what the point of it is.  I'll let you know after I've wrestled a bit more.

There are two storms stilled next:  the first, the storm on the sea, the chaos that threatens the disciples, and the second, the storm inside the Geresene demoniac.  The storms are Legion, inside and outside, then and now, and Jesus kicks them out.  So, Jesus is Lord over the storms, the chaos, the demons, whatever you care to call it.  But, how does it matter to us now? 

Finally, the stories of the bleeding woman and the twelve year old girl intertwine in Mark.  The woman has been suffering for twelve years, the whole time this girl has been alive.  In Mark (who is known for spare language, but also for the telling detail) the woman has spent everything trying to get relief from many doctors, and instead of getting better, she has gotten worse.  I can imagine the second, the third, the fourth opinions, and the money taken from her by people who didn't help her.

By the way, Mark employs a "sandwich" approach to storytelling often.  Here the story begins with Jairus' asking Jesus to heal his daughter.  The bleeding woman is the middle of the sandwich.  After that story is resolved, Jesus goes on to raise the 12 year old girl from the dead.  But, always pay attention to the middle of the sandwich.  That's where the meat is.

Day 11: Off and Running with Mark, the Evangelist

There is no introduction to the gospel of Mark.  There is no geneaology, no birth story, nothing to pad the entrance of Jesus onto the scene.  Well, that's not exactly true.  There is that one sentence, "the beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God's Son", and the prophecy (a mix of Isaiah and Malachi) about the messenger who will prepare the way.  But that's it. 

John the Baptist blows in, baptizes, and blows out.  Everything is happening very quickly.  When Jesus is baptized, the heavens don't just open, they are split open.  And the Spirit doesn't just lead Jesus into the wilderness, s/he drives Jesus into the wilderness.  In Mark, Jesus is tempted by Satan, but we don't get to know the content of the temptations (which I kind of like, by the way, more room for the imagination.)   With such a spare description, I notice that out in the wilderness, Jesus is among the wild animals.  This sort of reminds me of "The Peaceable Kingdom." hmmmm.

Also, it is apparent in these first three chapter that Jesus' first claim to fame is as an exorcist.  Now, my "Common English Bible" doesn't say exorcist, but what else is "throwing demons out"?  I ask you.  How do we modern people want to think about that?  Do we still need someone to "throw the demons out?" (I say yes, but of course, there needs to be some conversation about this.)

What I like about the little story about Jesus' healing Simon's mother-in-law is this appears to be one of the few times he actually heals someone he knows.  Almost all of Jesus' healings are strangers.

Jesus is popular (except with the religious leaders).  Right away, even before chapter 2, there are large crowds following him.  And he teaches some, but his teachings are shorter, interspersed with exorcisms (there, I said it again), and healings.  LOTS of healings, too. 

Jesus is popular with the tax collectors and sinners.  I have to wonder just who the "sinners" are, since, in my way of thinking, we're all sinners.  So, who does Mark mean by "sinnners"?  Enquiring minds want to know. 

One of the problems with Jesus (according to Mark) is that he's not fasting like John and his disciples.  He appears to be having too much fun (or something).

The end of chapter three was our gospel reading today.  In only three chapters, people have already become convinced that Jesus is crazy, casting out demons and healing by the power of  Satan.  Jesus confronts them with the absurdity of this argument.  If Satan is casting out demons, isn't he working against his own interests? 

And why would you consider healing fevers, withered hands, and making people whole to be an act of evil? 

And yet -- there's something dangerous about Jesus.  Admit it. 

What is the most intriguing aspect or detail of Mark's gospel so far?
And -- for extra credit -- why do you think the symbol for Mark's gospel is a lion?