NuancesMK 2.1-3.6 PDF

2:1-4 Breaking through the roof As chapter 1 concludes with the description of a crowd coming to Jesus even in “deserted places,” so chapter 2 opens with so many people gathered in Jesus’ home that “there was no longer room for them, not even around the door” (2:2). As a consequence, Mark tells us,...

2:1-4 Breaking through the roof As chapter 1 concludes with the description of a crowd coming to Jesus even in “deserted places,” so chapter 2 opens with so many people gathered in Jesus’ home that “there was no longer room for them, not even around the door” (2:2). As a consequence, Mark tells us, the four friends bringing a paralytic to Jesus resort to opening up the roof above him (2:2-4). Although the vocabulary is not identical, there is an interesting parallel here to the heavens opening up at Jesus’ baptism; it is typical of Mark’s theological slant to suggest that Jesus continually opens things up. In the rest of this chapter, Mark shows Jesus opening up new meanings in sinfulness and forgiveness. 2:5-7 “Your sins are released” It is in keeping with this view that Mark shows Jesus telling the paralytic that his sins are “released”* or “let go.”* The word is not translated that way because it is not idiomatic English, but it is literally correct and more accurately reflects Mark’s view that evil binds but God sets free. The same verb is used by Mark to describe John’s baptism “for the release* of sins” (1:4), the action of Simon and Andrew in letting go of their nets (1:18), and the fever letting go of Simon’s mother-in-law when Jesus raises her up (1:31). 2:6-7 “Who but God alone can forgive sins?” This reflection of the scribes is sometimes taken as Markan irony—that is, it is suggested that by phrasing it the way he does, Mark makes the challenge of the scribes unwittingly point to Jesus’ special and divine powers. but another possible interpretation is that Mark is making the scribes raise an old theological question so that he can then show Jesus answering it in an unconventional way. When we read the Gospels as eye- witness accounts, we often miss the carefully constructed rhetorical patterns common in the ancient world. It is worth reflecting that from Plato on, it was a common teaching technique to construct a dialogue between a master teacher and an obtuse listener; the questions of the obtuse listener serve to draw out the thought of the master teacher. So here, the question of the scribes serves as a catalyst for Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness. And Jesus teaches more than once in Mark’s Gospel that human beings are called to forgive one another in imitation of God’s forgiveness of them. If one argues to the contrary that only God can forgive, one could use this idea to dodge the obligation to forgive others. 2:9 “Which is easier to say... ?” In typical Jewish fashion, Jesus often answers a question with a question. The question he raises here is something of a riddle, for while forgiving sins is clearly the harder thing to do, it is by far the easier thing to say because it requires no visible proof. (No one can check on whether or not sins have been forgiven, but the cure of paralyzed limbs is either seen or not seen.) By means of quoting this riddle, Mark also suggests that Jesus equates the act of forgiveness with the act of healing—that is, he shows that Jesus taught that to forgive someone is to heal them. Mark thus implies that all of Jesus’ acts of healing are theological symbols of God’s desire to forgive us and make us whole. The miracles of healing have a theological dimension. In the ancient world, moreover, people often believed (as indeed, some people still do) that illness or injury was a punishment inflicted by God for some sin. By coupling forgiveness with healing, Mark shows how Jesus taught that it is God’s will to forgive rather than to punish, to heal rather than to hurt. 2:10 “The son of man” What does Jesus mean by saying that “the son of man has authority to forgive sins on earth”? Many scholars have noted that in Mark, “the son of man” is the way Jesus most often refers to himself; they have then interpreted this phrase as a special title. But recent scholarship has pointed out that in Hebrew and Aramaic the phrase simply means “human being,” as in Psalm 8:5: What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him? It has also been noted that in Aramaic the phrase was often used as a form of self-reference. Still others note that in Hebrew the phrase literally equals “son of Adam.” All these facts suggest that in using it, Mark was not giving Jesus a special title but rather emphasizing his common humanity. If he attaches any special role to it, it is not that of apocalyptic agent but rather that of second Adam, a representative of humanity giving us all a fresh start. When Mark quotes Jesus saying that “the son of man has authority to forgive sins on earth,” he seems to be suggesting that all human beings have the power to forgive and that Jesus as the second Adam is modeling this role for all of us. This function of the phrase “son of man” needs to be kept in mind when we see it again at the end of this chapter (2:27). 2:11-12a “Rise, pick up your mat, and go home” Once again Mark chooses the same verb for “rise up” in a healing miracle that he will use to describe the raising up of Jesus. The immediate response of the paralytic is intensified in Mark’s text by the additional word “straightway”; the straightening of the man’s limbs is presented as one more instance of “making straight the way of the Lord.” 2:12b “They were all astounded... ” The word translated here as “astounded” is literally “out of their minds”* or ecstatic. This response of the crowd is echoed in the later response of those who witness the raising up of a little girl (5:42) and, at the very end of the Gospel, in the response of the three women who come to realize the implications of the empty tomb (16:8). The experience of being ecstatic thus forms a pattern in Mark. Its implications need further exploring. 2:13-17 The calling of tax collectors and sinners This is the second time in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus calls disciples to himself; there will be a third calling in chapter 3. The calling of disciples is thus a Markan triad, and knowing the pattern, we can anticipate that the middle incident—which is this one—will be key, shedding light on the meaning of the other two. We have seen that in the first, the disciples respond in ideal fashion (“straightway”). In the third calling (3:13-19), Jesus not only calls disciples to himself but sends them out “to preach and to drive out demons” (3:14-15). We are also given the names of the twelve apostles, including that of Jesus’ betrayer. In this middle incident, Mark dramatizes the fact that Jesus calls not saints but sinners. 2:13-14 Levi The first to be called is Levi, “sitting at the customs post.” To understand the implications of this call and why Levi would have been regarded as a public sinner, it is necessary to know something of the history of the Jerusalem Temple and the Jewish priesthood in the time of Jesus and of Mark. From the eighth century before the time of Jesus until the time of the Gospels, every major power in the Mediterranean world conquered the Jews and occupied Jerusalem: Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Babylon destroyed Solomon’s Temple in the sixth century. Under the Persian King Cyrus, the Jews were allowed to rebuild it. In the first century, Herod expanded it, but the Romans destroyed it again in the year 70. Both the Greeks and the Romans were especially hostile to the Jewish faith because they felt that it detracted from their secular power. The Greeks under Alexander III began to undermine the power of the Temple by appointing the high priests. No longer was the priesthood the sacred legacy of Aaron, no longer was it handed down to the special tribe of Levi. It became a political appointment, a job up for sale like any other appointment in the world of power and money. The most anti-Jewish of the Greek rulers was a man named Antiochus IV. His attempt to wipe out Judaism through the banning of circumcision together with acts of sacrilege in the Temple occasioned the revolt of the Maccabees (whose victory and purification of the Temple is still celebrated each year at Hanukkah). At the time of Jesus and of Mark, the Romans had taken up where the Greeks left off. They continued the practice of appointing the high priests, and they also attempted to desecrate the Temple in other ways. In this context, tax collectors were hated, not just because they took money but because they took it from the Jewish people for the benefit of Rome. Levi, “sitting at his customs post,” is an apt symbol of the Roman corruption of the Jewish priesthood. Instead of being a religious leader as Levites had originally been destined, this Levi has sold out to the enemy and collects taxes for them. 2:15-28 Three questions of Wisdom 1) “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (2:15-17). Modern readers sometimes regard this question as one that reveals the Pharisees’ legalism and rigidity, but we should recognize it instead as one that is not unnatural for any pious member of a religious community. We might ask ourselves: How readily would today’s churchgoers welcome an enemy collaborator into their midst? It also helps our understanding to realize that because the dietary laws were well defined in Judaism, eating with non-Jews was complicated and potentially an occasion for religious backsliding. The question, then, does not reflect so badly on the Pharisees; yet Jesus’ response does emphasize his radical inclusiveness. Jesus’ response (“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do,” 2:17) is designed by Mark to reveal more of his identity. His reply here is the kind of pithy aphorism that one finds in the book of Proverbs and other Wisdom writings. By showing Jesus speaking in this style, Mark is dramatizing Jesus as a teacher of Wisdom. even more, when he quotes Jesus as saying, “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners,” he is placing Jesus in the role of Wisdom herself, who seeks out all those who have need of her, especially the unwise or the sinner. Modern readers sometimes interpret Jesus’ statement by saying that he really meant the “self righteous.” How, they think, could he possibly exclude the righteous? But their thinking betrays a certain literalism. If we realize that Mark is intent upon presenting Jesus to us as God’s Wisdom incarnate, then we can hear these words, not as those of an ordinary religious leader, but as the speech of Wisdom herself—Wisdom seeking out the foolish sinner. 2) Feasting or fasting? (2:18-22). The second question asked of Jesus here comes not from the Pharisees but from the people. The question is typical of all people who have made a religious commitment, because it is natural for pious folk to assume that there is a right way and a wrong way of doing things. If they see two religious leaders whom they respect doing things differently, they naturally want to know which one is right. Jesus’ indirect reply (again a question answered by a question) suggests that there are no absolutes here but simply seasons of appropriateness. His response is again reminiscent of the Wisdom writings—this time, of Ecclesiastes: There is an appointed time for everything....A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance (Eccl 3:1, 4). The point is bolstered by two more Wisdom sayings: “No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak” (2:21) and “No one pours new wine into old wineskins” (2:22). Like so many of the concise truths of Proverbs, these sayings are homey, seeming to arise from close observation in a domestic setting. They are not in themselves profound, but they support the perspective implicit in the reply about fasting or feasting that there are seasons in the spiritual life. This pair of sayings also suggests that there can be a tension if we try to force a new style upon an old one. Many christians have been tempted to read in here a contrast between the “old Testament” and the New Testament or between Judaism and christianity, but such contrasts would have made no sense to Mark. At the time Mark was composing, there was no division between testaments; what we now call the “old” or First Testament constituted all the Scripture there was. There was, moreover, not yet an established christian church that sharply distinguished itself from Judaism. So the tension between “old” and “new” here cannot be taken as a Jewish-Christian conflict; it is simply a wise observation about the unsettling effects of new patterns upon old ones. It is worth noting, moreover, that Jesus suggests here that his disciples will eventually and appropriately return to fasting (2:30). The time of the bridegroom is not here permanently—at least, not yet. The image of the bridegroom suggests the Song of Songs as well as the marriage feast between God and humanity described in Isaiah, some of the other prophets, and some of the psalms. The new clothing and the new wine go along with the image of this feasting. Through this series of aphorisms Mark seems to be suggesting two different time frames—one present and one future. Jesus as “bridegroom” anticipates humanity’s future with God, and to the extent that his followers perceive him as such, they feast in the light of this future promise. but that future has not yet arrived, and the dissonance between that future promise and the present reality is experienced as the tension of new cloth pulling at old or new wine causing familiar containers to burst open. 3) “Why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” (2:23-28). The third question comes like the first from the Pharisees, and also like the first, it expresses moral outrage. This time the outrage comes from Jesus’ direct violation of the Sabbath laws, which forbade all work of any kind, from picking grain to cooking it. Modern Christian readers tend to dismiss these laws as superficial and again condemn the Pharisees as legalists. But the Sabbath laws were designed to foreshadow the end time, when, according to God’s promise, there would be no work, no war, no illness, and no distinctions in authority and power, but all—male and female, slave and free—would sit down together as equals at God’s banquet and share in God’s rest. This “rest” was not conceived of as the mere absence of work but as a joyous sharing in God’s timeless presence. One did not heal on the Sabbath because symbolically the Sabbath was a time without illness. Once again Mark uses a question that gives him the opportunity to set forth Jesus’ teaching on the Sabbath. Jesus’ teaching indirectly reminds the Pharisees that the essential purpose of the Sabbath is to anticipate and celebrate the wholeness for which God originally created human beings. Thus, he implies, satisfying human hunger is more in keeping with the purpose of the Sabbath than all the rules and rituals, even the sacred bread. Jesus’ final saying, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath,” sums up this idea of original humanity as the apex of God’s creation. The final saying, “The son of man is lord even of the Sabbath,” should thus not be taken to mean that only Jesus is lord of the Sabbath; rather, it summarizes Jesus’ role throughout the Gospel of Mark as the second Adam, the representative of humanity restored to its original wholeness. It is saying that God made the Sabbath for human beings as a symbol of their final destiny—a love feast with him and with one another. 3:1-3 Healing the man with a withered hand The image of something “withered” is a repeated one in Mark; it is part of his creation theme, contrasting the withering of created things with their intended fruitfulness. In chapter 4, for example, the seed sown in shallow soil withers up (4:6); in chapter 9, “withering away” is one of the effects of an unclean spirit (9:18); in chapter 11, it becomes one of the seasons of the cursed fig tree (11:20-21). In curing this man’s withered arm, Jesus is acting out the restorative role of God the creator, a role usually assigned to God’s Wisdom. Jesus’ first act here is to ask the man to “rise up”* (a resurrection word again) and to come forward “into the midst” of the community. The implication is that the withered arm of the man had alienated him (like the leper) from the religious community, or at least put him on the fringes of it. Jesus’ action here thus defies the conventional shunning of the physically disabled; it is doubly restorative. 3:4-5 The purpose of the Sabbath This scene of healing is also used by Mark as an extension of Jesus’ teaching on the sabbath. Mark implies that many who witnessed this healing in the synagogue were once again more concerned about the Sabbath rules than about the purpose of the Sabbath. He shows Jesus challenging them explicitly: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” (3:4) The large and absolute terms Jesus uses here seem to echo the moment in deuteronomy when God sets before his people the large issues of life and death: “I have set before you life and death.... choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live” (deut 30:19). Jesus’ question here, in other words, is framed so as to echo this proclamation of God. His argument is clearly not a small one over specific rules but a large one over the purpose of human worship. Mark goes on to describe Jesus as “looking around them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart” (3:5a). This particular mixture of anger and grief is also reminiscent of God’s feelings as they are frequently portrayed in the Hebrew bible. God is not portrayed there as unmoved and immovable, but as loving, jealous, angry, grieving, and forgiving. “Hardness of heart,” on the other hand—the unmoved and immovable heart—is a common phrase the Hebrew bible uses to express the human condition of sinfulness. Further, when Mark shows Jesus in the actual act of curing the man, he quotes him as saying, “Stretch out your hand” (3:5b), a phrase that echoes the moment in exodus when God tells Moses to stretch forth his hand over the sea to prepare a path for the Israelites’ escape (exod 14:16). The echo here is evocative, suggesting that Jesus not only cures the arm but gives the man new freedom. In all these different ways, Mark describes Jesus as a reflection of God. 3:6 The Pharisees and the Herodians Mark sets up these two groups as particularly in opposition to Jesus. It is a surprising combination. The Pharisees were laypeople and scholars of the bible. In spite of their later christian reputation, they were in fact flexible interpreters of Scripture, believers in resurrection, and devoted to the cause of bringing Temple holiness into the home. The Herodians, on the other hand, were nominally Jews, but, in practice, collaborators with Rome; they were successively appointed by Rome to be tetrarchs of Palestine. The Romans called each tetrarch “the king of the Jews.” The Herodians were obvious opponents of Jesus, but the Pharisees were not. Some scholars have even wondered if Jesus is shown arguing so much with the Pharisees because he belonged generally to their school of thought. It is worth noting that the Pharisees do not show up again in Mark’s description of Jesus’ arrest and death. Judas makes his deal with “the chief priests” (14:10), with whom the Pharisees were not connected. It is true that the Pharisees do reappear with the Herodians here, trying to entrap Jesus by their question about paying taxes to Caesar (12:13). Yet Mark, more than any other evangelist, seems to implicate Rome in Jesus’ death. We know that Matthew’s anger against the Pharisees is directed not to those of Jesus’ time but to those of Matthew’s day who were putting the Jewish followers of Jesus out of the synagogues. It is possible that the same phenomenon accounts for their characterization here. Thematically, of course, the plotting of Jesus’ death signals their negative response to the choice set before them between death and life.