Marginal Christianity

Isaiah 43:1-7 Psalm 29 Acts 8:14-17 Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Artist  Ray Bartkus  has crafted an extraordinary work of art in the painting reproduced above. He wanted to use Lithuania’s Šešupė River as an integral part of his mural. In the objects in the actual world Bartkus painted upside-down. When one looks at the dark river magic happens. Reflected in its waters, the upside-down figures on the actual objects appear right-side up frolicking in the water ( https://mymodernmet.com/ray-bartkus-water-reflective-mural/?fbclid=IwAR2mcsQxZ90OnxqTxfUU1x2h8FwTNWGCdRMguq4EMW91uHLSy1q3XTx-zBg ). Using this creative piece as a springboard I want to offer a reflection for Baptism of the Lord Sunday, January 13, 2019. Everything in the world into which Jesus is born is upside-down. Religion, politics, social life, morality, economics, etc., everything is upside-down. I am reminded of the story of the thief who broke into to a...

“Advent creates people, new people.” ( Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas ) Zephaniah 3:14-20/Isaiah 12:2-6/Philippians 4:4-7/Luke 3:7-18 Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Advent The “waiting which hastens” is a key scriptural text for Advent we have discovered. Bonhoeffer helps us better understand this when he says, “ Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot. But all too often the greedy eyes are only deceived; the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the inside, and disrespected hands ungratefully toss aside what has so disappointed them ( God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas ). Waiting (for the fruit of Advent to ripen) hastens the coming of the day of the Lord (because it matures us) to practice Christmas as we should. And how is that? Bonhoeffer again: “Who among us will celebrate Christmas correc...

     (I depend here on Myers’ Say to this Mountain , 72-73) We are in the middle of another Markan “sandwich” here. 6:7-13 narrates the sending out of the disciples. 6:14-30 tells the gruesome story of John the Baptist’s death. 6:31-44 returns to the conclusion of the disciples’ mission.   Josephus, the 1 st century Jewish historian, tells us that Herod had John killed because he was fomenting an insurrection. And he was. Gathering the people in the wilderness under the aegis of a New Exodus against both established Roman and Jewish authorities could hardly be otherwise construed. Mark has already clued us into to that aspect of the story. Here he unveils another related aspect of it. Herod Antipas (ruled Galilee from 4 b.c. to 39 a.d.). After he had John killed, the ruler had dreams that John was coming back from the dead to haunt him in the person of Jesus (6:14-16). Guilty conscience no doubt. But true as well. The movement he started was conti...

Now that we have gotten a fix in the last post on what Mark thinks the “good news,” the gospel is: an account and announcement of how Jesus of Nazareth has brought God’s plans for Israel and humanity, his eternal purpose, to its culmination and successful climax. That’s the story he tells in all its peculiarity and grandeur. Let me posit an analogy that can help us keep both the peculiarity and the grandeur of that story in mind. Remember the three parts of The Lord of the Rings trilogy? The Fellowship of the Ring (FR), The Two Towers (TT), and The Return of the King (RK). -FR shows the formation of an implausible community tasked with an impossible deed. -TT dramatizes the perils and the possibilities of the struggle to finish their task. -RK pictures the “impossible possibility” of the task completed and the afterlife of the community. I suggest these three categories map pretty well on to the way Mark composed his story of Jesus. -chs.1-7: Jesus gathers an imp...