Friday, April 28, 2017

Jesus goes there


The Gerasenes on the other side of the lake take Jesus and his disciples to new territory, gentile territory.  This is the first time Jesus intentionally crosses a boundary.  He has healed in synagogues and among the Jews, but now he extends his healing ministry beyond the borders.  He breaks Jewish holiness laws to do it.  He is found among the pig farmers, among the dead, with a demon-possessed outcast.  This scene would have turned the stomachs of the Jewish leaders in his day.  They would've been horrified that he, a rabbi, would enter this place.  Are there such places in our world?  Unsafe, unclean, dangerous, deadly places?  Places where you wouldn't take your children?  Jesus goes there.
He goes there with a singular mission:  To meet and heal this man.  One man.  Demon-possessed by 'legion'.  Everyone knew what a legion was---about 5,000 Roman soldiers.  As a people experiencing a powerful military occupation, the implications of this healing are more than personal.  It is political, too.  Driving a legion of demons out of the man is to drive a Roman legion out of Israel.  Its as if Mark is calling a legion of Roman soldiers "a bunch of pigs that we wish would fall into the sea and drown!"  Imagine how Roman soldiers would have taken this story!   Jesus' ministry has broader implications.  It calls into question the systems and structures that prevent people from thriving, that kill our bodies and souls.  This reveals that the confrontation Jesus brings goes from the bottom to the top of the food chain!  He's setting individuals free as a sign of God's intention to set all people free.
In our world, healing has become scientific and individual.  And yet, we see communities rally behind causes like breast cancer awareness.  People come together to find a cure, to support people who are suffering, and to encourage health.  Fundraising walks for Lupus, heart disease, cancer, and ALS bring communities together to fight illness.  The Race against Racism fights the disease of prejudice. This is what Jesus is doing when he brings his disciples to Gerasa.  He is exposing them to the dehumanizing effect of illness, mental and physical, and invites them to become part of the healing. 
Jesus is anti-incarceration! Because he sees that it does not work.  When the man is set free, he begins to tell others about Jesus.  A man others gave up on is a changed man because of Jesus.   He is the first evangelist, telling the public about Jesus.  Notice that Jesus encourages him to tell others what God has done for him and he tells others about Jesus?  This man experiences the power and presence of God in Jesus!  For people of faith, the work of Jesus is the activity of God in the world.

The next scene is a Markan sandwich, a writing method Mark employs to tell two stories at once.  The story of the daughter of Jairus and the bleeding woman are connected and must be interpreted together.  After all, the woman has been bleeding for 12 years and the girl is 12 years old. 
This story conjures up concern for sexual abuse of women and girls, human trafficking, child marriage, inadequate women's health care, and the unequal treatment of women.  Neither of these two people were afforded adequate and effective health care.  Doctors couldn't help them.  Rather than provide help, a community gathers to mourn.  Even before the child dies! 
There is empowerment in this story, too!  The woman approaches Jesus and touches him.  Her action immediately draws Jesus' power to heal, without his consent or choice.  He says that her faith has healed or saved her.  Salvation and healing are the same word in Greek! And she initiates it!  Go to Jesus and be healed/saved. Salvation is both physical and spiritual. 
The crowds laugh at Jesus when he suggests that Jairus' daughter, presumed dead, is sleeping.  Laughing mourners?  He is exposing their falseHe encourages Jairus to not doubt but believe.  When Jesus commands the girl to get up, she does!  He does not help her up.  She sits up and Jesus commands them to give her something to eat.  Eating is a sign of life! 
Jesus confronts the enemy, death.  It takes many forms.  Illness, isolation, imprisonment, misogyny, abuse, neglect, suffering, bleeding, dying.  Jesus confronts gender inequality.  In our world, 1 in 4 women experiences sexual abuse in their lifetime.  Jesus brings healing to them.  In so doing, he breaks cultural taboos.  He is touched and touches a woman and a girl---property of another man or household.  This was unlawful and exposes Jesus to public shame. 
In this chapter, Jesus joins a dirty, sick, dying, sinful world by becoming one of us.  He becomes a sinner by breaking cultural taboos, by breaking cleanliness laws, and by defying death itself.  He rejects the Roman military occupation, viewing it like demonic possession.  He goes where he is not supposed to go to bring God's goodness, mercy, and healing.
Notice how little the disciples do at this point.  They are learning by exposure, and likely shocked by his actions. 
If church follows this Jesus, where and to whom would we go?  What message would we send?  Anti-military occupation; pro-women's health, pro-girl; joining those who suffer with mental illness in isolation; anti-incarceration; defying death by providing people access to what they need to free them from their suffering.  He goes where others won't go.  And his disciples go with him.     





  

Monday, April 24, 2017

Gospel of Mark 5

They came to the other side of the lake, to the country of the Gerasenes.* 2And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7and he shouted at the top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.’ 8For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’ 9Then Jesus* asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.’ 10He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12and the unclean spirits* begged him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ 13So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the lake, and were drowned in the lake.
14 The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. 17Then they began to beg Jesus* to leave their neighbourhood. 18As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. 19But Jesus* refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’ 20And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.
21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat* to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. 22Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ 24So he went with him.
And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. 26She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ 29Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ 31And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” 32He looked all round to see who had done it. 33But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’
35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ 36But overhearing* what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ 37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ 40And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ 42And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Questions for reflection:

Jesus pushes boundaries.  Jew/Gentile; male/female; clean/unclean (moral/immoral); dead/alive.
Jesus increases the intensity of his actions---driving out 'legion'; raising the dead.

What is Jesus facing/confronting in this chapter?  What challenges must he overcome?  What are the barriers he has to cross, literally and figuratively?
What are the results, realized and suspected, of Jesus' actions? 
What does Jesus teach about healing and the power of faith?
What do we learn about Jesus' power?