One Man's Web

Memory Lanes - March 202424 March 2024

20240322-Spaldingsunset

On this trip, I was able to ride some of the roads of my youth. It was a bit of an ambitious weekend. given that I hadn't had much road time in January and February, so I was very pleased to pull it off. I left Melrose before dawn on Saturday morning and rode the Survey Road down to Port Germain Gorge. I last used this road 54 years ago, walking with a bunch of school mates on the last day of a bushwalking long weekend. It's no wonder I remember that as a hard day. That whole walk was uphill! ... Read on >>>>

Parables - Mark 4:1-3406 January 2024

Jesus names the parable of the seeds as the key parable. Grasp something of this and you will hear truth in all the other parables. You will find you have been given the mystery of the kingdom. Misunderstand this parable, and your ears will be closed to all the rest. His question, "How will you understand...?" (4:13) is rhetorical in the sense that it demands the answer: "You won't."

At base, the parables of Chapter 4 address the issue of God's power in the world. What is God like? How is God powerful in the world. Does God invite or coerce? Does God "save" all people, or is God unable to invite-persuade some to respond? Can God only save some by destroying others? These questions issue a challenge to God: Is the Creation "very good," or flawed? And yes, these are our questions, not questions asked by Mark. Mark is more likely aching with the lived grief of brother betraying brother, but he has nothing to say to us if we can find no answers to our questions... Read on >>>>

The Die is Cast - Mark 3:6-3501 January 2024

From the text:

This story  of Mark 3:1-6 challenges a psychological undertone which challenges everything about Sabbath, and about us. In the culture of empire, the man deserves his withered hand, and the loss of power and agency which the withering symbolises (and which is very real in a manual culture).  That he deserves it is still our enduring deep emotional suspicion when pushed:  Illness is a punishment, a consequence of bad choices made before God.  Even those of us who do not believe in God tend to blame the illness of others upon their lifestyle. What Jesus does here, and on the Sabbath, that key identifier of being Judean, is to give a sinner power and agency. He upends everything all over again. As he did with Levi (Mark 2:13-17), he has removed our scapegoats from us. When this happens, when those we love to hate suddenly receive the love that God has for them, it overturns our whole way of being, which is that God has favourites; namely, us. This is why they seek to destroy him... Read on >>>>

Reconceiving the Messiah26 December 2023

1. The Sea? of GalileePaul Davidson points out that no one before Mark talks about a Sea of Galilee. It is a relatively small lake. This is an important issue in Mark which the NRSV translation covers over in its effort to be "readable." Davidson says

Mark, then, is giving the lake in Galilee a name that is unattested in any earlier source, and very possibly an invention of his own. And it’s not just the name; ... he treats it in the narrative as a sea rather than the small lake that it is...

Why does he do this? He quotes Elizabeth Malbon, who says.

Mark presupposes the connotation of the sea as chaos, threat, danger, in opposition to the land as order, promise, security… The threatening power of the sea is manifest, but the power of Jesus’ word is portrayed as stronger; Jesus stills the storm and walks on the water, overcoming the threat of the sea; Jesus causes the swine possessed by unclean spirits to rush to their deaths in the sea (5:23a, b), turning the threat of the sea to his own purpose... Read on >>>>

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