Marginal Christianity

Women Rising in the Gospel (If Not Always in the Church) Mid-Week in Holy Week we meet another Markan “sandwich.” This time, however, the two stories are related not as mutually interpreting each other but rather by contrast. A contrast between the uniformly poor performance and negative presentation of Jesus’ male disciples in Mark and his corresponding and contrasting positive presentation of his female followers. The “sandwich” looks like this: Incident A 1                The Need for a Traitor (14:1-2) Incident B             The Unnamed Woman   (14:3-9) Incident A 2                The Appearance of a Traitor (14:10-11)   The Need for a Traitor (14:1-2) The Jewish leaders fear the crowds who are predominantly in favor of Jesus (11:18). This fear prevents them fr...

Jesus Taken to Pilate (Mt.27:1-2) Jewish leadership at this time could not enforce capital punishment, so they took Jesus and handed him off to Pilate for execution. This deed itself was testimony against them and their intentions. The Qumran Temple Scroll says, “If there were to be a spy against his people who betrays his people to a foreign nation or causes evil against his people, you shall hang him from a tree and he will die.” [1] Their judgment is coming. Judas’ Death (Mt.27:3-10) Judas has watched events unfold and Jesus’ fate sealed. Suddenly the enormity of what he has done clobbers him. He changed his mind (v.3; NRSV has “repented” but this is not the verb Jesus uses to call people into his kingdom), returned the blood money (v.4) he negotiated with the Jewish leaders. And hanged himself (v.5). I quoted N. T. Wright in the last chapter on the difference between Peter’s and Judas’ response to their betrayals. Here a bit more: “But the first (Judas) goes do...

“You will all become Deserters” (Mt.26:31-35) However thrilling, if mind-boggling, it might have been for the disciples to hear and see Jesus proclaim and enact their ancient hopes and display his own joy in the face of the grim prospects ahead of him, as they trudged on the way with him those questions they have had about Jesus all along came back in spades. -How can Jesus’ death fulfill their hopes and longings? -How can a suffering and dying figure ever be considered Messiah? Unlike the unnamed woman who lavishly anointed Jesus for his burial they cannot come to terms with his death. Here at the end, as has apparently been clear to Jesus all along, it is necessary for him to make them face the truth of who they are as those who want to follow him. Truth is the condition of healing and freedom, and Jesus gives the disciples a face full of it! “You will all become deserters because of me this night,” adding Zech.13:7 as a fulfilment text. Even this mass des...

Wat do we do with passages like this? Mark tells his story but it’s not what we want to know. Why did Judas betray Jesus? Ark doesn’t tell us. Doesn’t even make him out to be a bad guy. The devil didn’t make him do it. Not according to Mark. Nor are we told that Judas was disappointed by Jesus’ kingdom movement and thus offered to betray him to the chief priests. But maybe what Mark doesn’t tell us points us in the right direction anyway. What might Mark be saying by saying nothing we can claim a “reason” for this event. Eugene Boring claims “that Mark is only interested in the unseen hand of God at work in these events (Boring, Mark :10524-10526). That’s why he offers no “reasons” for it. My hunch is Boring is right on this. The same point holds for the arrangements for Passover. Boring again seems on target: “’The Lord needs it’ . . . This is the key to the Markan understanding of this scene. Historicizing interpretations have attempted to discern in all this some prearr...