Ever wonder what happened to Mark’s story telling? He leaves out so many details! He’s like that teenager we try to have a conversation with at the supper table. “How was your day, dear?” “Fine” “How was school?” “The usual”. “How are your friends doing?” “Okay. Can I go now?” And we hear them clomp upstairs to their room then call their friends and have a two-hour conversation about how their day really went, who said what to whom, who talked to the wrong person, or did the funny thing that got the teacher mad or wore the oddest outfit to school. The conversation that doesn’t really happen with us but happens with others.
Mark takes 6 verses to tell a simple story of the first
days of the ministry of Jesus. Contrast
that to Matthew’s 18 verses and Luke’s 15 verses. John stretched Mark’s five verses on the
baptism of Jesus into 8 verses and skipped the temptation altogether. John had a very lofty idea of Jesus, what
professors and theologians call a ‘high Christology’, so high that Jesus would
never have struggled with things like power or fame.
So, Mark did the Coles notes version of the start of the
mission of Jesus, fast and short so he could get to the good stuff. His was also the earliest gospel written, 12
to 14 years after Paul started his letters. Matthew and Luke didn’t write their
gospels for another ten or twenty years later.
It could very well be that Mark was writing things down so briefly more
to jog people’s memories. “Remember that
time when Jesus went and got baptised, then wandered into the wilderness? Peter, remind us of what he told us
happened? James, what can you add?” It may have been his way of encouraging
people to share the memories that they had.
These stories, some of which were collected into the later Gospels,
were stories of great transformation.
They were stories of great courage.
They were also stories of small transformations, the fever healed, the
kindness shown women and children.
Sometimes the transformation was fast, like Jesus getting baptised and
whoosh God shows up and does a happy dance worthy of a Super Bowl
touchdown. Sometimes the transformation
was slow, like 40 days of wilderness wandering where there were no human
witnesses to the temptations Jesus faced.
A good
example of this is a little-known gem of a movie starring Sissy Spacek and
Whoopie Goldberg. It was made in the
1990’s and unlike the Color Purple, Ghost, Jumping Jack Flash, or the many
guest appearances Whoopie did as Guinan on Star Trek the Next Generation, this
movie was not a comedy hit for her. It did
not win Oscar nominations or huge profits.
It is a movie that falls between the lines.
It's
also a movie about ordinary women living ordinary lives according to the norms
of the1950’s Alabama society they lived in.
An ordinary housewife married to a successful city leader and her
ordinary housekeeper who took care of the children, cooked the food and cleaned
the house. Until the housekeeper started
showing up late for work, soaked from the rain, and one day, so footsore that
the blood soaked through her shoes. Many
of us know about Rosa Parks, who became famous for refusing to move to the back
of the bus. We don’t know about the
quiet folks like Whoopie’s character who boycotted the busses after Rosa’s
resistance. Many people chose to walk to
work from the poorer areas of town to the richer parts where their jobs
were. They organized carpools and rode
horses or bicycles to work. Other
communities rallied to support the boycotters by sending financial aid or pairs
of shoes to replace the worn out shoes
of the boycotters. This frustrated many
townsfolks, from bus drivers driving empty buses, to politicians and business
people. Vigilante acts of violence tried
to intimidate folks into once again riding the buses, but people had enough of
the disrespect, the racism, the discrimination and the hardship imposed by
segregation. They boycotted the busses
for a whole year until the segregation stopped.
A whole year!
They risked
everything because they had a clear vision.
They risked losing their jobs because they wanted a better world for
their children and grandchildren. They
risked being attacked because they had nothing to lose. They risked because they realized that they
had strength in numbers and deserved to be treated with dignity. They risked because they knew that if they
didn’t, nothing would change for the better.
Jesus
risked everything for the sake of his vision and because he loved people. He knew that the discrimination, poverty and
oppression they were experiencing was not what God wanted for the world. Our province is also struggling with poverty
and discrimination. Trans people are
targeted, people are living in tents, friends are dying because they can’t get
medical care quickly enough. Can we risk
speaking out, writing letters, making calls, signing petitions? Just like the housewives and housekeepers, it’s
those little risks we take together that can change the world. When we work together with deep spirituality,
bold discipleship and daring justice, we can help God change the world once
again. May we have the courage to take
risks to stand with all who need to know God loves them. Amen.
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