THE JESUS MARK KNEW

Mark begins with the preaching of John the Baptist, a voice announcing Jesus from the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance. The truth comes from the edges of society. Jesus’ reality is affirmed and announced on the margins, where people are ready to understand and to ask new questions. The establishment at the center is seldom ready for the truth because it’s got too much to protect; it has bought into the system. As Walter Brueggeman says, “the home of hope is hurt.”

Remember that John the Baptist’s message of repentance was an invitation to a turned-around life, letting go—downward mobility, as some call it today. John wore a garment of camel hair, and he lived on locusts and wild honey—he identified with the poor and marginalized, as we see Jesus doing. John is so free from his own agenda, religious and cultural system, and ego. He’s able to point beyond himself. He’s not trying to gather people to himself—which is why he becomes the proto-evangelist—pointing beyond himself and his own ministry.

One can only conclude that Mark began in this way, not just because it was historically true, but because it mirrored his own journey. Some scholars today, especially with new information from the Gnostic Gospels, think that the anonymous man who “runs away naked” in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:50-52) is very likely Mark himself. He is quietly admitting that he also “deserted him” (verse 50) and ran from suffering and humiliation. His “nakedness” is not just his but ours too.

Adapted from The Four Gospels (CD, MP3)

Prayer: Teach me the way to live and die.

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THE JESUS MARK KNEW

Mark’s is a gospel of action. Of the Four Gospels, his includes the least teaching. Jesus is constantly on the move from place to place preaching and healing, preaching and healing. Jesus symbolizes the breaking in of the Big Picture into this world, and He does it much more than He talks about it. We have to look at Jesus’ actions, and how His action rearranges relationships—with self-image, with others, with God.

Jesus doesn’t do all these good deeds for a reward, to achieve “a higher place in Heaven.” In general, you can see all rewards and punishments are inherent, now, today—but today becomes forever. All healings are not primarily about medical cures, which just prompt us to say “Wow! Jesus must really be God!” I am not denying that Jesus could and undoubtedly did physical healing. It still happens, and I have seen it, but the healings and exorcisms in Mark’s Gospel are primarily to make statements about power, abuse, relationships, class, addiction, money, the state of women and the poor, and the connections between soul and body—the exact same issues that we face today.

Adapted from The Four Gospels (CD, MP3)

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The Gospel of Mark (and all of the other gospels) leads up to Jesus finally standing alone, without anyone really comprehending what He’s talking about when He teaches on the “Reign of God.” Jesus realizes that He has to do it in His flesh. He’s got to stop talking about it. He’s got to let it happen. Maybe you’ve had the experience that it’s not until someone dies that we ask the ultimate questions, and that’s what we mean when we say Jesus had to die for us. It’s not that He had to literally pay God some price (unfortunately, many Christians understand it that way, as if the Father is standing up there in heaven with a big bill, saying, “Until I get some blood, I’m not going to change my mind about the human race.”). That puts us in a terrible position in relation to God, and it can’t be true. As if God could not forgive without payment. It pulled God into our way of loving and forgiving which is always mercenary and tit for tat.

Quite simply, until someone dies, we don’t ask the big questions. We don’t understand in a new way. We don’t break through. The only price that Jesus was paying was to the human soul, so that we could break through to what is real and lasting.

Adapted from The Four Gospels (CD, MP3)

The Gospel of Mark is the shortest gospel, and likely the oldest. In many ways it is the simplest and clearest, and it cuts the hardest because it is so utterly undecorated. Yet the more the commentators study this gospel, the more they find that the way in which Mark put events together in fact says an awful lot, especially about suffering and the cross.

The theme of suffering recurs constantly within Mark, as if the entire gospel is an extended introduction to the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Mark is telling us that this is how a life of truth and faith culminates in this world. You’re going to get nailed for it because it’s not what the world wants, and not what the world understands. This life of authenticity leads to crucifixion. The author constantly brings us back to the experience of suffering and death. There’s no other way we’re going to break through to the ultimate reality that we call resurrection without going through the mystery of transformation that is the cross.

Adapted from The Four Gospels (CD, MP3)

Prayer: Teach me the way to live and die.

Three times in the Gospel of Mark Jesus prophesies of His Passion. The first time Jesus tells the disciples that “The Human One”—as He calls Himself—will suffer grievously and be rejected and put to death, and after three days be raised up (Mark 8:30). Peter argues with Him, and Jesus rebukes him—this is the only time that Jesus calls someone a devil (Mark 8:33)–saying that man’s way is not God’s way. Jesus is insistent that the way to God is the way of the cross. It’s not the prosperity Gospel of “The American Dream” with a little icing of Christ over the top.

In faith, there is no possibility of an uninterrupted success story. The only way you’re going to face your wild beasts and your shadows is by failure and rejection, by people not loving you, by having to learn how to love your wife and your children and those who hurt you—the enemies—those who make you aware of your own incapacity to love.

Adapted from The Four Gospels (CD, MP3)

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In case the disciples miss the point, Jesus talks about necessary suffering again (Mark 9:30). He tells them that “The Human One” must be delivered into the hands of the people. They will put Him to death and three days later He will be raised up. But the disciples do not understand what He says, and this time they are afraid to ask Him. Maybe they don’t want to get bawled out a second time. And yet, they now mutter amongst themselves about who is the greatest.

So Jesus sits down. He calls the crowd to him. You can just feel his exasperation. He says, “Now listen, if anyone wants to be first, he’s got to make himself last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:34). Jesus redefines authority in this new community. He takes a little child in His arms and says, “Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in My name welcomes Me” (9:37). He’s turning the social order upside down. But they still miss it! So Jesus speaks of necessary suffering a third time (10:32). It is hard to believe but the disciples respond by asking “to be seated at Jesus’ right and left hand when He comes in glory” (10:35).

It might be laughable, if it were not so tragic, and if it had not become a prediction of so much of church leadership down to our own time. In Mark’s Gospel, and you can check it out for yourself, the disciples basically miss the point till the very end. Mary Magdalene is the only named believer.

Adapted from The Four Gospels (CD, MP3)

Jesus practically begs for a profession of faith from his disciples, even after they’ve witnessed His miracles and heard His profound teaching. Jesus put this question to them: “Who do you say that I am?” Don’t give me your theologies. Who is the Jesus you know? That’s the only Jesus that can really touch you and liberate you. Finally, Peter responds: “You are the Christ!” (Mark 8:29). “And Jesus gave him strict orders not to tell anyone” (8:30). Why? Because each one of us has to walk the same journey of death and doubt for ourselves—and come out the other side “enlarged by love.” No one can do this homework for you.

The murdered body of Jesus is forever an image of what the world does to love—it fears it and kills it, far too often. And yet God will have the last word: This Jesus that you’ve killed and hated, I raise Him up and hold Him now before all the nations. Until the end of time, He is the sign of how love will win, for love is always stronger than death.

Jesus’ love of the unbelieving disciples in Mark’s Gospel even through the final verses is an eternal promise of His love of all unbelieving disciples, like you and me.

Adapted from The Four Gospels (CD, MP3)

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THE SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE

Traditional Catholic moral teaching says there are three sources of evil—the world, the flesh and the devil. Dom Helder Camara, who was the holy and wise archbishop of Recife, Brazil, taught this in terms of “a spiral of violence” spiraling from the bottom up. “The world” (systemic evil) is at the root a lie, in the middle is “the flesh” (personal evil), and at the top is “the devil” (evil disguised as “good power” to enforce the first two).

Up to now in human history most people’s moral thinking has been overwhelmingly oriented around the personal evils of “the flesh.” There was not too much knowledge of the social foundations of evil behavior until very recently.

The Biblical Prophets of Judaism were the unique and inspired group who exposed all three sources of evil and it’s also why they have been largely ignored, as was Jesus, the greatest of the Jewish Prophets. They didn’t concentrate on the flesh, but on “the world” and what we will describe this week as “the devil,” which very often passes as good and necessary “evil.” You see what we are up against, and why evil continues to control so much of the human show.

Adapted from Spiral of Violence (CD/MP3)

Prayer:

Open my mind to discern good and evil.

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THE SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE

If you cannot recognize evil on the level of what I call the world—then the flesh and the devil are the inevitable consequences. They will soon be out of control, and everything is just trying to put out brush fires on already parched fields. The world or “the system” is the most hidden, the most disguised, and the most denied—but foundational—level of evil. It’s the way cultures, groups, institutions, and nations organize themselves to survive.

It is not “wrong” to survive, but for some reason group egocentricity is never seen as evil when you have only concentrated on individual egocentricity (“the flesh”). That is how our attention has been diverted from the whole spiral of violence. The “devil” then stands for all of the ways we legitimize, enforce, and justify our group egocentricity (most wars; idolization of wealth, power, and show; tyrannical governments; many penal systems; etc.) while not calling it egocentricity!

Once any social system exists it has to maintain and assert itself at all costs. Things we do inside of that system are no longer seen as evil because “everyone is doing it.” That’s why North Koreans can march lockstep to a communist tyranny, and why American consumers can “shop till they drop” and make no moral connections whatsoever. You see now why most evil is hidden and denied, and why Jesus said “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

Adapted from Spiral of Violence (CD/MP3)

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In Paul it is clear that the second level of sin, “the flesh,” is individual sin, personal naughtiness, personal mistakes; and there is no denying that plenty of this evil exists in the world. When we point our finger at the second level of the spiral, blaming individuals, punishing this person or that person, making people feel guilty because they are “bad,” we are mostly wasting our time. History will never change by such a “one shot at a time” approach. The underlying “agreements” are still in place. There is no point in telling a teenage girl she should not be vain, or a young boy he should not be greedy, when we all admire and agree upon these very things as a culture.

Up to now there has been little attention paid to the systems that we uncritically accept—and the evil things they do. One of the great favors John Paul ll did was to introduce into Catholic theology the terms “structural evil,” “institutionalized sin,” and “corporate evil.” In that he was very prophetic, because that is the primary way that the Biblical prophets spoke. Over 90% of their condemnations were of “Israel” itself, of wars, alliances, corrupt business practices, and a greedy priesthood in the temple. They first named systemic evil, and then hoped the individual person could “repent,” and the “devil” would have no way of taking over. Evil must be nipped in the bud, or it is always too late.

Adapted from Spiral of Violence (CD/MP3)
Prayer:  Open my mind to discern good and evil.

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When the first level of the spiral of violence, “the world” (group selfishness), is not exposed for what it is, and the second level, “the flesh,” generates out of control (murder, stealing, rape, lying, adultery, greed), then a third level of fully justified evil always emerges. These are systems like oppressive governments, penal systems, legal systems, military systems, economic systems, and all the other systems we create to control disorder and violence. They ordinarily have a complete life of their own. These can, of course, be good too; but when you worship them, when you let them have total power, when you refuse to critique these systems, they can wreak the greatest havoc in history—and they have. Any system that says “bow down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9) is always diabolical, whether it be church, state, or “the market.”

The devil’s secret is camouflage. The devil’s job is to look very moral! It has to look like we are defending some great purpose or cause, like “making the world safe for democracy” or “keeping the bad people off the streets.” Then you can do many evils without any guilt, without any shame or self-doubt, but actually with a sense of high-minded virtue. Evil must disguise itself as good (Thomas Aquinas), and until Christians start understanding that, their capacity for “discernment of spirits” (1 Corinthians 12:10) remains very minimal. They are easily duped and always misled.

Adapted from Spiral of Violence (CD/MP3)

Prayer: Open my mind to discern good and evil.

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“Be gone from me, Satan; you are to worship and serve God alone!”

~ Matthew 4:10

The third level of the spiral of violence, “the devil,” will become absolutely necessary for survival once you have agreed to worship the foundational system. Devils refuse to be critiqued as devils. For most people, whatever system feeds and protects them, or panders to their superiority, is above criticism and, therefore, “good.” That is all they have. They do not have their citizenship elsewhere, as Paul says (Philippians 3:20), or their heart is not yet resting in the Reign of God.

For most people, their only citizenship is here, and this is the citizenship they are defending. Not “all of God’s people,” but just “it so happens it is my people that God most cares about.” Whatever status quo benefits them is the full and final good. Pollsters know this is the way most people will vote. How foolish and how blind this is. Jesus showed no undue loyalty to his religion or to his country but radically critiqued both of them whenever they demanded to be “worshipped.” I challenge you to find one “patriotic” statement from Jesus (the one that most people wrongly use about “giving to Caesar” (Mark 12:17) is actually a total dismissal of Caesar’s rights in comparison to God’s rights).

Adapted from Spiral of Violence (CD/MP3)

Prayer: Open my mind to discern good and evil.

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