Marginal Christianity

“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...

Covenant Renewal (Mark 14:22-23) Despite centuries of reading this story as foundational for the church’s doctrine of the Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper, Mark’s version stays focused on Jesus and discipleship rather than the church. In the middle of the Supper Jesus enacts what is best described as an act of Covenant Renewal. Jesus breaks and shares bread with his disciples. Do they understand about the loaves now? And do they catch the allusions in sharing the cup of wine? We’re not told. But what we can safely assume is that  “By eating the bread, the disciples are to know that they somehow become participants in Jesus’ own destiny, but this saying does not specify how this is to be. Receiving and eating bread that Jesus has somehow identified with his very self may be an enactment of what he had said in 8:34–38” ( Boring, Mark :10671-10673) . The bread reminds us of Jesus who used the leftovers of the two feeding stories to dramatize himself as the provider of cove...

Satan? (8:31-33) As we turn to the “Two Ways” section of Mark on the nuts and bolts of following Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus “sternly orders” (8:30) the disciples not to say anything to anybody about him, you know, the messiah business. Now we find out why. Using his favorite self-designation, the under-defined “Son of Man” (from Dan.7) he fills out Peter’s confession with his own content. He’s already loaded it with his challenging of the debt system and challenging the traditional understanding of the sabbath (ch.2) Now he adds, “I’m going to suffer, be rejected by the powers that be, get killed, and rise from the dead after three days.” Doubtless the disciples all shook their heads as if they understood, mentally filing this saying with all the other strange and unintelligible things Jesus had said to them. Except for Peter. He took Jesus off to the side, surely to spare him the embarrassment of a public rebuke and himself the embarrassment of Jesus having just...

The Book of the Twelve for Lent 2016 Joppa, Anyone? – Jonah (3) Joppa, a city in Israel, places a small but significant role in the biblical drama. It hosted two significant characters at two significant points in their careers. Joppa was a way-station for Jonah as he sought to evade the Lord’s call to preach judgment on Nineveh (Jonah 1:3). And it was also the place where the apostle Peter received vision from the Lord declaring all foods and all peoples were clean (Acts 10). Both men faced the same issue. Neither was prepared to see God’s grace extended to the Gentiles, the pagans, “those” evil people. Jonah was afraid that’s what God was up to and turned tail in the opposite direction as fast as he could go. Peter believed that Judaism was the way to God and turning Jewish was what a Gentile needed to do to find God. One was resistant to extending grace to “them”; the other unaware that it could be done without going through Judaism. Acceptance and welcome of the outsid...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/09/09/peter-as-process/ One of the most stimulating discussions I have had over the years in classes and at churches when I am leading a discussion about conversion or about the Jesus Creed ”emerge” from this question: What about you, when do you think Peter was converted? Let’s look briefly at the evidence. In John 1 Peter’s brother, Andrew, has heard from John Baptist about Jesus. He fetches Peter and tells him to come meet Jesus who is the Messiah. John tells us that Jesus told Peter right then and there that he was to be called Cephas. He gets a “church vocation.” In Luke 5:1-11, Peter fishes all night only to be met by Jesus to tell him that he’s been fishing on the wrong side of the boat; then he does what Jesus says; he catches gobs of fish; Peter then runs to Jesus and says, “I am a sinful man!” In Mark 8:27–9:1, Peter confronts the cross for the first time and rebuffs Jesus and his (silly) idea of dying on a cross. But, ...