Gospeling Your Life According to Mark

 

Mark moves his Gospel along at a fast pace in the early chapters.  Mark loves the word, “immediately” ~ try to count/keep track of how many times you encounter that word.  Jesus seems to have gotten the jolt of a Venti expresso from Starbucks.  He is on the move, ready to go, healing people left and right.  And in 3:13, Jesus tells the people he heals not to tell anyone.  Jesus doesn’t want them posting on Facebook or posting selfies with him to Instagram.  Scholars call this the Messianic secret.  Jesus keeps his identity hidden.  This is confusing for us who live on the other side of Easter Sunday.  This is confounding in a world where everyone has a platform, and we count “success” by number of followers on social media.  What do you mean, don’t tell anyone about the amazing healing that is happening?  Maybe Jesus didn’t want to be overwhelmed by bigger crowds.  Maybe Jesus didn’t want people just to come for what was splashy and spectacular or because it was what everyone else was doing.  Part of the Messianic secret is that we don’t know why Jesus said this.  We do know that in Gospel times being a Christian, follower of the Jesus way, wasn’t socially acceptable.  Rome didn’t like anyone besides Caeser being called, “Lord”.  Faithful Jewish people weren’t sure what to make of their siblings who were now following this Jewish peasant preacher who had been crucified and supposedly resurrected.  It wasn’t safe.  And the truth is, that remains today.  Many people keep parts of their identity hidden away.  This is especially true for transgender people in our world today who don’t feel safe in the world.  This can be true for people in our church who are not sure if they will say something if we won’t extinguish their torch and send them off the island that the tribe has spoken.  Believing and belonging are still important parts of our life.  We hold certain things about ourselves close to our chest.  There are some things we can’t keep hidden, like race or certain physical disabilities. 

 

Are there parts of yourself you keep hidden from others?  Have you had experiences where your trust was shattered like a glass dropped on a tile floor into a thousand sharp sherds, because your friend shared your secret with others?

 

Chapter 4 launches into parables or stories about life in God’s realm.  Too often we reduce parables to fairy tale-like stories where there is a single message.  Like Goldilocks teaches us that bears can be so inhospitable and that breaking and entering a home unlawfully is sort of okay, just try not to fall asleep there.  That was a joke.  Parables are meant to turn the world upside down.  A farmer who just throws seed anywhere, rather than carefully sowing that seed in good soil, is a bad farmer.  A mustard seed is really an invasive weed that attracted birds to build nests and who would eat your crops.  And putting a light under a basket was wasteful and Smokey the Bear would not approve of that fire danger!  The best part of parables is coming back to them time and time again, finding new details, words hidden in plain sight that surprise you, but where there all along.  Read and re-read these parables with child-like delight who loves to hear Goldilocks and the three bears time and time again.  Amen.