Category Archives: Mark

The Red Thread – Find A Voice

Posted on September 13, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 4
• 3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”
• 9 Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

Each morning I spend time reading scripture and writing hoping the “rest” of the story will help me find a voice for my faith today. Here’s what I wrote about this parable at first glance: ‘Jesus is the farmer who went out to sow his seed. The obvious comparisons are the different responses to what Jesus was speaking about the seed he was sowing.’

Good, that’s all true but I’m surprised to to discover I can still be surprised by the Bible. I’d been looking for a thread of connection between the words Jesus spoke about the path, the rocky soil and the thorns when I found this quote from William Temple.

“A parable is not a situation in which every detail stands for something but a situation in which one great idea leaps out and shines like a flash of lightning.”

BOOM…There it was! The truth wasn’t a subtle thread at all. Jesus was speaking! He spoke knowing some of his words would just be wasted, some would be temporary fixes and some would be rejected but this truth made speaking them worth the effort…”Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”

Then Jesus said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
…and if Jesus has given you seeds to sow, find your voice and speak.

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Posted in Mark, The Red Letter Version, Wednesday

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The Red Thread – Ragtag Unity

Posted on September 10, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 3 The Red Thread – Rag Tag Unity

•“Stand up in front of everyone.”
•“Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”
•“Stretch out your hand.”
•“How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27 In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. 28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”
•33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?”
•“Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

ragtag: adjective
1. untidy, disorganized, or incongruously varied in character.
“a ragtag group of idealists”

What an varied assortment of characters there are in this chapter. First and foremost is Jesus, a carpenter turned itinerant minister from an obscure background causing a stir everywhere he went. The ragtag list continues: a man with shriveled hand, the “them” watching to find a way to accuse Jesus, crowds from all over, impure spirits, 12 ragtag men we call disciples, some of Jesus’s own family who are worried about his behavior and teachers of the law who find him both irritating and threatening. It doesn’t sound like the makings of a book that is still the world’s best-selling and most widely distributed according to Guinness World Records.

That’s the story though. God assembling his own ragtag community of people then…and now…for the essential purpose of keeping them close to himself. Essential ragtag people who manage to live together in ragtag unity because of one essential person, Jesus, the son of God, our Savior.

There’s an argument still made today those essentials are fine, “if you need them.” Recently I asked my pastor about how to respond to that. He gave me an answer I’ve never even considered before – embrace the need. I can’t give you proof that God exists or that Jesus can really change you. I can tell you about the need of one woman with a ragtag history who’s heart is being rebuilt with these red letter words of Jesus. It’s a ragtag unity I share with other “untidy, disorganized, or incongruously varied” people who find red letter words filling in the blanks of their lives too.

“In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity” Rupertus Meldenius, author of the 17th century tract in which the quote first appeared.

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Posted in Mark, Sunday, The Red Letter Version

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The Red Thread – Pay Attention

Posted on September 6, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 2
•19 How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
•21 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse.
•22 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins…
•25 Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? 26 In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions. 27 The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.

Jesus doesn’t intend his words to be rules. They’re meant to help you be the very person he’s created you to be. It wasn’t until I re-read these verses several times that I saw a connection between these four red letter verses. They’re all about paying attention to what you’ve been given.

Is Fasting denial or sacrifice? It’s both. Denial of food can be a diet or it can become a sacrifice of worship when it changes your attention from the visible act of eating into hunger for God to act. Hunger is the signal that it’s time to kneel, read scripture and pray instead of eat. Pay attention.

Jesus uses vivid word pictures to get our attention about how to deal with the old and new in our relationship to him. Don’t settle for the unsuccessful results of letting what he’s done for you be only a new patch that dresses up an old habit or try to squeeze a brand new part of your relationship to him into an old lifestyle. Pay attention.

Jesus has the right, power, and authority to declare your denial and sacrifice worship when you’re hungry and in need. Pay attention to him.

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Posted in Mark, Wednesday

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The Red Thread – The Unlikely Choice

Posted on September 3, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 2
14 Follow me…
17 It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners…

Could there be a more unlikely choice than Levi [Matthew] for Jesus to choose as his second object lesson to the crowd as they walked through Capernaum? They’d certainly heard that Jesus had power over physical illness but this was Levi the local tax collector. Levi had been given his power by the king to make his living by squeezing as much of their money from them as he could. What could he possibly deserve, or need, compared to some poor invalid?

This time Jesus sees something invisible in a man it’s likely no one else in that crowd would ever choose. He chooses Levi. Jesus simply said “follow me” and Levi got up and followed him. It was a different kind of miracle that revealed Jesus is a very different kind of King that has the power to make a visible change in the circumstances of a life forever.

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Red Thread Story 1 – Visible and Invisible

Posted on August 30, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 2: The Red Thread Stories – Story 1
2 A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3 Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4 Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, 5 “Son, your sins are forgiven…
…and he [Jesus] said to them, 8 Why are you thinking these things? 9 Which is easier: to say to this paralysed man, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up, take your mat and walk? 10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said to the man, 11 I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home…

I’ve been reading Mark in a “red letter” version of the Bible. Mark seems to be more a journalist than a philosopher. He documents these events about Jesus with concise information. That made me wonder if there’s a connection to be made with that “red” thread throughout the chapter. I think it’s going to be evidence of the power of Jesus over both the visible and the invisible.

Story One: Jesus speaks to forgive the sins of the paralyzed man knowing the cultural belief is that sin is responsible for his condition. The Pharisees reaction hasn’t escaped him. They consider the words he’s spoken as blasphemy. The man’s condition is visible for all to see but the first word Jesus speaks address only the invisible sin. Jesus speaks again to prove his authority over the invisible with words that reveal visible power and visible results; pick up your mat and go home.

Watch this space for Story 2.

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Posted in Mark, Wednesday

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Holiness that Defies Humanity

Posted on August 27, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 1:12 The Spirit then compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness, 13 where he was tempted by Satan for forty days. He was out among the wild animals, and angels took care of him. 14 Later on, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee, where he preached God’s Good News. 15 “The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!” [NLT]

I couldn’t avoid the red letters of verse 15 in this very familiar story. This chapter is filled with truths I think I know but I know for sure there are still new kingdom things to ponder. Those things turned out to be the few verses that preceded Jesus’ own words combined with this quote from a commentary on Mark .

“Life would be very different if, instead of yearning for some distant and at present unattainable goal, we did all that we could to bring that goal nearer.” [Barclay]

Forty days of temptation plus a dear friend and cousin who’s been arrested don’t bring to mind a neon GO sign do they? Don’t forget the fact that Jesus was fully human and he’d just endured a long period of Satan making sure he knew that. Jesus was experiencing humanity at it’s lowest point but it became his confirmation that “The time promised by God has come at last!”

There’s another compelling thing to remember: he was fully God. That’s even more important because it’s our evidence that his eyes were wide open to just what his “unattainable” goal was – he would not avoid the cross. That was his painful reality and he still chose to do all he could to bring that goal nearer.

That’s the example Jesus gave us to follow: holiness that defies humanity.

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Posted in Mark, Sunday

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He is Risen Indeed!

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Posted on April 16, 2017 in Easter, Mark, Sunday

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Repentance of Expectations

Posted on April 9, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 11:9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” 10 “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” 11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

This is probably one of the most familiar Biblical stories associated with the week leading up to Easter Sunday. I’m sure you know it. There was the donkey, a prophetic symbol, the ride of choice for a king coming in peace. The cheering crowd confirming that Jesus’s ministry was spreading and the palm branches were the modern-day equivalent of their rolling out the red carpet for him.

The details of this story in the four Gospels vary a bit but the main idea is the same; Jesus’s determination to begin his final confrontation with sin in the city of peace, Jerusalem. “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.’ ” Luke 19

Jesus knew exactly what that triumphal entry was really about. The crowd’s Hosannas weren’t at all shouts of praise as I’ve come to think of them. They were cries of it’s literal meaning; “help” or “save, I pray” from people longing for Jesus to prove himself as the conquering Messiah they expected. That conflict between Jesus’s determination and their expectations explains why a short five days later their cries had changed from Hosanna to “crucify him.”

Thank God for this Palm Sunday reminder…sometimes repentance includes surrendering my expectations of how Jesus should prove himself to me and celebrate that he already has. Hosanna!

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Posted in Lent, Luke, Mark, Palm Sunday, Sunday

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Expanded Thinking

Posted on March 26, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 9:7 Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
8 Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10 They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant.

Peter, James and John were confused. They’d just seen the inexplicably mysterious power of the unseen God. They also knew firsthand Jesus had the power to heal and to restore life where there was none but a dead man can’t bring himself back to life, can he? So what could “rising from the dead” mean?

The unseen, all powerful, all knowing, ever present God had inserted himself into their thinking when he spoke “from the cloud.” Jesus had changed their daily lives and now he’s given them “orders” to wait before they tell anyone what they’ve seen…the caution to wait…because there’s more to come.

It seems like their thinking process is being expanded to include the mystery of the unseen Father, the reality of Jesus who’s the bedrock of that faith and the promise that comes after “the Son of Man [has] risen from the dead;” the Holy Spirit.  Maybe that’s exactly what our focus of Lent is to be; to expand our thinking and help us acknowledge the fullness of God even when life is mysterious and confusing.

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Posted in Lent, Mark, Sunday

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Focus

Posted on March 22, 2017 | Leave a comment

Mark 9:4 And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5 Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 6 (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.). 7 Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” 8 Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

Peter, my dear friend,
I understand exactly why you wanted to build shelters for Elijah and Moses. It was certainly for commemoration AND it was a very human response to deal with the fear and stress of something so beyond your control…the need to do something!!! It reminds me of how alike we are.

I know “doing” IS a good stress reliever and it certainly is a way to feel some sense of control. My friend, I’m writing to thank you for sharing the words you heard first-hand: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” That’s what I need to focus on, not “doing” or control. Looking forward to meeting again soon.

Love, Shirle

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Posted in Lent, Mark, Wednesday