Tuesday, 5 Jan 2021, TGBC, Mark 2:13-28

 

Mark 2:13-28 is our reading for this morning. As well as the King James Version, I appreciate this English version's literal word for word translation from Mark's NT Greek, because we can glean from it almost as much about Mark the evangelist as Mark himself tells us about Jesus the Son of God:

Mark 2:13-28 Disciples’ Literal New Testament

13 And He went out again beside the sea. And all the multitude was coming to Him. And He was teaching them. 14 And while passing on He saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax-office. And He says to him “Be following Me!” And having stood-up, he followed Him. 

Hearing Jesus' call "Follow me" is common in the gospels, Jesus inviting people. Here the man is called Levi (in the [canonically] First Gospel, at Matthew 9:9-17 the exact same event, the tax collector is uniquely named Matthew, which some suggest is why that anonymous writing was early titled Matthew). 

Mark shows that Jesus is quite a compelling personality, first Peter and Andrew, James and John immediately leaving their livelihood and family connections to respond to Jesus' call. Now the employee at the tax booth stands up and walks away from a lucrative career as a public servant into a new vocation. 

Like probably most clergy, I identify with these gospel characters, and most people who know me have heard me tell my own call story. What has called you into this One's service?

15 And it comes about that He was reclining [to eat] in his house. And many tax-collectors and sinners were reclining-back-with Jesus and His disciples. For there were many, and they were following Him. 16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, having seen that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, were saying to His disciples “Why is it that He is eating with the tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And having heard, Jesus says to them that “The ones being strong have no need of a physician, but the ones being ill. I did not come to call righteous ones, but sinners”.

Never at a loss for a humiliating put-down of idiots, Jesus, not piously smug but with biting sarcasm, calls on a secular proverb to tell the self-righteous critics that they obviously are so perfect they don't need any help. 

18 And the disciples of John and the Pharisees were fasting. And they come and say to Him, “For what reason are the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fasting, but Your disciples are not fasting?” 19 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of the wedding-hall cannot be fasting while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long a time as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot be fasting. 20 But days will come when the bridegroom is taken-away from them, and then they will fast in that day." 

The disciples of John and the Pharisees must have been taken aback at Jesus' retort, in which he seems to exalt himself as One whose presence is cause for celebration like a wedding feast and himself the bridegroom. Some scholars suggest that the retrospective vision of the sad day when the One will have been taken away was an addition by the Christian church to indicate that Jesus was hinting about his death; but unless there are early manuscripts without this extra (verse 20), I think Mark, writing forty years later (about 70 AD?), would have picked it up as something Jesus said even if it was a post-Easter expansion of the oral tradition. Seriously, I doubt that Jesus was thinking of his crucifixion at this early stage of his ministry.

21 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise the fullness [of the patch] takes from it— the new from the old— and a worse tear takes place. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the wine will burst the wineskins, and the wine is lost, and the wineskins. But one puts new wine into fresh wineskins”.

This is a "say what?" Out of the blue, it doesn't seem to fit except that Mark has bunched several pericopes in a supper and feasting and wedding context, and wine is a feature of celebratory eating. Mark's evident preference for new wine sort of contrasts with Luke 5:36-38 more sophisticated preference for the aged wines. Someone wrote that in theological metaphor for the developing church in 70 AD, Mark here has Jesus dismiss old (Jewish) traditions in favor of new (Christian) values. I think that's a stretch, but decide for yourself.   

23 And it came about that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way while plucking the heads [of grain]. 24 And the Pharisees were saying to Him, “Look! Why are they doing on the Sabbath what is not lawful?” 25 And He says to them, “Did you never read [in 1 Sam 21:1-6] what David did when he had a need and was hungry, he and the ones with him— 26 how he entered into the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high-priest and ate the Bread of Presentation which is not lawful for anyone to eat but the priests, and he gave it also to the ones being with him?” 27 And He was saying to them, “The Sabbath was made for the sake of mankind, and not mankind for the sake of the Sabbath. 28 So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath”.

Here, still in Mark's context of eating and drinking, the Pharisees start harassing Jesus for everything he does on the Sabbath. Even the least bit of exertion, like picking and eating grain, they would have classified as work, forbidden on the Sabbath. Sabbath rules were strict and penalties severe, what dour religionists (in my mother's childhood their preacher regularly preached against going to the local league's Sunday afternoon baseball games). A key message I get out of Jesus' teaching and preaching is that God does not mean us to worship our religion. In this case, God gave us the Sabbath for pleasure, a break from the week's hard work; the Sabbath is ours, a gift, for fun and relaxation; we are not the Sabbath's victims. The SV (Scholars' Version) has Jesus saying

"The sabbath day was created for Adam and Eve, not Adam and Eve for the sabbath day".

Here the Son of Man figure appears again from Daniel 7. Remember, there are several ways of understanding use of the term Son of Man. So, is Jesus saying that human beings are Lord of the sabbath? Is Jesus saying that he Jesus himself is Lord of the sabbath (an outrageous claim to lay on those Pharisees)? Is Jesus saying that when the future Son of Man comes, he will be Lord of the sabbath? Mark wrote this: how does Mark intend for us to understand what he quotes Jesus saying? I think Mark means for us his readers to begin seeing Jesus as that cosmic Son of Man. What do you think?

Watching the mail for two new translations of the New Testament, which I hope will help me during this Epiphany study through Mark. By well known New Testament scholars, one is by N T Wright, one by David Bentley Hart, and those two have been squabbling with each other, a good sign!

T+

Art: I don't like sweetly pious religious art, so this is the best characterization I could find. Jesus is the one in white of course (Bubba likes red: I prefer the African art that always distinguishes Jesus as the one in red), just ignore the arrow over his face. It's Levi's house ant that's Levi and his girlfriend to Jesus' right at table. Other tax collectors and sinners are to the left of Jesus. In the background at our left are the bad guys, disapproving what's none of their business, which to this day is a rampant trait of many people, thinking to enforce their own religious and moral values on everyone else.

In the picture it looks like the dinner is about finished, they're down to fruit and nuts. The servant woman is proudly bringing in a loaf of honey date nut bread, fragrant and warm from the oven.