One Man's Web

Mark's people wonder how the Basileia of God can be real.  Life in Palestine since Jesus' resurrection has been crushed by rampant empire. Jerusalem has been destroyed, the Temple is no more. Worse than this, those who are nearest to us, our family, have handed us over to the courts. Especially bitter here, is the understanding we current readers gain from Chapter 3: The family referred to in Mark 13:9-13 is not (only) people's old blood family, but the new family gathered around Jesus. They have handed some of us over to the oppressors. So Mark's traumatised community asks, "Is the Basileia true, or am I deluding myself?"

Jesus addressed such questions with a series of parables which provide a much deeper and more radical answer than we expect, prompting and inviting us to see beyond the limitations of empire, the kingdom of Caesar. Parables confront us with a reality we do not control. We seek to understand reality, and the word under-stand implies that we seek to stand-under that which is. But, even more than in Mark's time, what we seek to do is put reality under our control. We seek to master it, even though reality is never under our control. We can never "understand" it; infinity is beyond the comprehension of the finite and the contingent, especially when we admit to the reality of more than the narrow purview of reductive materialism. The term Mark and Jesus use to describe reality is mystery. And mystery is undergone, not mastered. ... Read on >>>>

In Mark 3:1-6 it is clear that Jesus will be killed. The Pharisees went out and plotted with the Herodians to destroy him. The remainder of Chapter 3 is of a piece: How do we respond in the fear and violence of the world, where always the holders of power seek to lord it over people? At the centre of this is a short yet profound statement about Satan, who proves not to be the little red man with a tail and pitchfork which modernity imagines.... Read on >>>>

Today, I've been working in Mark 3, looking at the translation of the disciples' names. According to NRSV, Jesus renamed Simon to Peter, but the Greek is uncompromising. He called him Rock. Until Rock, Cephas; that is, Peter,1 was not a proper name in Jesus' society. Names serve two functions in our society, and this applied in the time of Jesus, too. Sometimes, a name is just a label. When you say Andrea it is merely to signify that you are talking to me, or about me, rather than Fred. Andrea had a meaning, once. It meant manly, derived from the Greek aner, which is a bit ironic in my case. But mostly we have forgotten that. Andrea is just an identifier.

But there are also times when a name is loaded with meaning. In our Australian society, this is particularly clear in nicknames. In the generation before mine, to mention Blue was to reference a particular person, but the name always carried within it the fact that their hair was red, and maybe it also had a local hint of racial disparagement, because most red-haired people were of Irish stock... Read on >>>>

The back wall of the toilet proclaimed

FXXX RACISM
FXXX SEXISM
FXXX HOMOPHOBIA
FXXX TRANSPHOBIA.

I'm not sure what the author considered said fxxxing might actually entail, but did appreciate their disavowing of such prejudices. I then noticed the inscription on my left... Read on >>>>