Mark 2:1-12 how are we saved?

Ignoring for a moment* what “being saved” even means, are we saved by what we do** for others, how we love, how sorry we are for the things we did wrong? What else can save us? In this story, it is your friends. You are paralyzed: lets go for metaphor a minute. You have messed up your life so much, so deeply, you are frozen. Your friends lift you up. Your friends get you to Jesus. (That could even be another metaphor: Your friends give you a “come to Jesus” moment like “no ‘retirement’ doesn’t mean life won’t have anymore trouble for you, silly old bear, just a different type of trouble”.) Your friends took action and in this story Jesus saw their action (verse 5), he forgave you.

Okay you can argue the “their” in verse 5 means both you and your friends who did the work of getting you to Jesus.

But really you are paralyzed and had no choice but to go where your friends took you.

Or did you implore your friends?

Or are they really your friends? For years I thought that verse 3 said “friends”. And it doesn’t actually.

Or in a new interpretation that I am not sure about (The Bible for Normal People, Ep. 266, guest Candida Moss), they could be enslaved men. In the podcast/transcript, this is toward the end. Dr. Moss thinks that a “mat” would not be sturdy enough to lower down a roof, that it would be a “litter,” which were what rich people were carried about on. And a litter would be carried most likely by enslaved people. She is not sure about the interpretation used for the word “people” in verse 3, that “friends” would perhaps not be a valid interpretation even though it is common. Is it even people? Is is more like, “the unseen labor lowered him down on his mat”? However if this is so, then when Jesus thus forgives the paralyzed man, we can imagine how there would be stuff to be forgiven, yes, in this case? And when Jesus then heals him, to show that Jesus has this power of forgiveness, Jesus tells the man to go home and now take care of people too. This was a really fascinating episode of the podcast.

Because I want actions on the behalf of others to matter to God. I want “to be saved” — while mostly a private mystery — to also be somehow, in some cases, a group effort. That friendship and loyalty matter.

Although if Dr. Moss’s interpretation is pressed on, then your prayers and actions on behalf of anyone, even someone you hate, could “count.” Could save them. Could save yourself. Could save the world.

Perhaps I just don’t think as big as Jesus and God who want to free and forgive the whole world, whatever it takes!

Unseen labor, people, friends — Jesus saw their faith — they were not unseen or just people to Jesus. He looked right at them, at the hole in the roof, and brushed the dust created off his robe, and smiled. I bet his eyes twinkled right at these men, seeing them. I bet Jesus was filled with joy at this messy situation that he was going to clean up, a carpenter rolling up his sleeves.

FTGOG

*I’m ignoring defining “to be saved” but I would suggest it means being forgiven for your sins, to be “remembered” that is put back together from all the broken pieces that make us up. Maybe? I’m not talking about “heaven.”

**Yes yes faith by grace not by works. But seriously “doing” is important too, isn’t it? The older I get the more I know I need grace. And more I know I need to try to do something that helps. This just can’t be an either/or, can it?

Mark 2:1-12 and windows and doors

This is a curious coincidence — my husband and I have watched several movies lately that revolve around doors as magical things. And then here is a door in verse 2 of this biblical story (Mark 2:1-12) — “So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door….” It seems as if, from various lectures and a tiny bit of google, that generally houses in Jesus’ time and place did not have windows, and they wouldn’t have had glass like we think of windows. But doors, yes. Doors let in light and air! Doors kept danger out at night. Doors are kind of magical aren’t they? You are one place, then you are another when you open the door and step out (or in).

In this case, for there to not be any more room even in front of the door, that meant there were a lot of people around! It was packed!

And the magical thing really was Jesus “was speaking the word to them.” I like the translation “preaching” better — Jesus was preaching! And I would capitalize “the Word” — he was speaking the Word! Wow! If I had a chance to ride on a time machine, this is where I would go, that hot, packed, aromatic incredible moment where Jesus spoke the word.

I imagine that Jesus would speak the truth, wiser than anyone else. I imagine he used stories from the Torah and so on. But the Gospel of Mark doesn’t say! At all. This is not a story about what Jesus said. This is a story about what Jesus does.

So there was no more room, but — then more people came! What is going to happen next? Stay tuned!

FTGOG

Back to Mark 2:1-12

It seems that I haven’t written about my favorite bible story on the blog! I am shocked! I’m delighted. I’ve been at a loss about what to write about. Let’s dive into Mark 2:1-12! In fact look at the first verse. He — that is Jesus — returned to Capernaum and after a few days of quiet, people found out that he was at home.

Jesus was at home. How amazing is that! We think of Jesus as being on the road and dusty and miserable and homeless. But here, at the beginning, he was at home — he had a home maybe, or maybe he felt at home. Relaxed? Energized? What was Jesus like when he was at home? Isn’t that curious to wonder about?

Verse 1 has more to wonder about. Capernaum is by the sea of Galilee and it was (if I see the map properly) “toward the top” but definitely in the ancient days it was Judean, but under Roman control.

Here’s a map.

Here’s a picture.

I have been told that Capernaum was bustling — but not perhaps by our modern standards.

So Jesus has returned (we’ll look at this in the future, where did he return from?), he’s “at home” and he has been found out to be at home. This starts with quiet. But the quiet is already about to end.

FTGOG

Exodus 2:1-10 and seeing

My “word of the year” is attentiveness, and the women in Exodus 2:1-10 were quite attentive and changed the world. All these women see. The Mother saw a fine baby (verse 2). The thing is, I am pretty sure, that as a mother her baby was completely beautiful to her; he grabbed her heart. The love you feel holding your newborn is indescribable. I’m sure, besides that, he was quite a fine baby! But it wouldn’t have mattered objectively. Next up, the sister (Surprise! This wasn’t a first-born baby, but the first born after Pharaoh’s decree that male babies should be killed.) After the Mother floated the baby in the basket into the reeds at the bank of the river, the sister went “to see what would happen” (verse 4).

What happened next was a big surprise — Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bath in the river, this particular part of the river. Or the Mother and Sister knew Pharaoh’s daughter always bathed at that particular part of the river, and they planned or perhaps merely hoped that as part of daily routine, Pharaoh’s daughter would fine the basket and care.

Pharaoh’s daughter did see the basket, whether by chance or design. And then she saw the baby and cared, suddenly and deeply (verse 6).

Perhaps she was blind to her father’s actions before or helpless. Perhaps suddenly none of the politics mattered, just the welfare of this crying infant.

These women paid attention and saw. And took action to save at least this baby, but eventually this baby grew up and saved the Hebrew people.

Perhaps God, too, already saw even though it is later in chapter 2 (verse 25) when we are told that “God looked upon the Israelites.”

FTGOG

Exodus 2:1-10 and sadness

There is so much sadness in Exodus 2:1-10 and somehow it also a joyful story of God making a way out of no way. I won’t go into too much right now because I am too tired. I worked hard on learning this by heart and the telling went well. What surprised me was the amazing thing my pastor pointed out in the sermon, the ending part of verse 6. Pharaoh’s daughter knew exactly why the baby was in the basket. She knew the evil her father was doing.

“This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. 

I was so pleased with her “yes”, with her rescue of the baby, that I didn’t even think to wonder about her immediate understanding of the full situation.

It is dreadfully easy to not wonder about terrible things, things that you feel helpless to change or fix.

This sad story is so breathtakingly human.

FTGOG

John 8:1-11 and Jesus’ movement

It is interesting to me, especially from a storytelling point of view, all the movement in the story. Jesus sits down to teach, then in verse 6, Jesus “bent down” — so between verses 2 and 6, he stood up. I imagine that when angry righteous men bear down on you, with a victim, to test you, then you stand up. Then he straightens up, and talks, and then bent down again. And Jesus and the woman are standing face to face — it is a little confusing because verse 9b, “Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.” But he must be bent over? Or sitting or something? Because verse 10 starts “Jesus straightened up….”

In my situation, being at a lectern, I won’t be literally bending and straightening. But if I told it in a more information situation, I think I might. I need to practice a whole lot more because the key thing is to be heard, and bending over could impede projecting my voice.

And in fact, in verse 7, Jesus stands before he speaks. He doesn’t write and speak at the same time. And perhaps this is to be sure his voice carries. Perhaps this is to make eye contact. In fact, the very act of bending and writing, standing and talking, bending and writing — slows things down.

These scribes and Pharisees thought they would “catch Jesus” failing this test. And they are eager, excited — is there anything scarier than a crowd, a mob, trying to “catch” someone? We can a little bit relate even our very different world?

So all this movement slows things down, let’s some of that emotion and hurry boil off. I think. And in the slowness, all of them (“beginning with the elders”) went away and did not stone the woman and did not catch Jesus breaking the law of Moses.

FTGOG

John 8:1-11 and the Mount of Olives

So one of the odd things is that the ancients who set up our scripture with chapters and verse numbers split this sentence.

Chapter 7:53 “Then each of them went home”, Chapter 8:1 “while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.”

I have no story for why this was split up! I haven’t decide yet when I tell it, if I’ll just say the whole sentence or just say “Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and returned to the temple early the next morning…”

The curious thing is why the Mount of Olives? Or where is/was the Mount of Olives? The web helped me there — the Mount of Olives is about a mile east of the Temple. My guess is he went there to safely sleep. The point may be as simple as he was not one the people (like Anna in Luke, a prophtess) who lived in the Temple. He was in danger from the Temple authorities. Or it could be there were friends in that area. (Or both.)

It turns out, but I haven’t gone into this deeply, that the Mount of Olives is prophetically important in the Hebrew scriptures and mentioned in the other gospels. It is a known place, is what I am thinking. If John had written “then he went to Pine street to sleep in the garden there” it would be meaningless, maybe even to people back then.

Olives has me also thinking of food, and this is a long reach, this is from my own bread, but just as Jesus is the bread of life, is life-giving water, supplies fish — maybe Jesus also likes and gives out olives. Olives would be easy to carry around, wouldn’t they? And I’m not sure (let me know if you know) but I think olives not in oil would spoil pretty soon, so he would almost have to share them when he eats. It is a “daily bread” not a “let’s save this for tomorrow” type of food. Jesus seeks rest in a place where he can find food.

The next time you eat an olive, think of Jesus resting and giving and eating an olive.

FTGOG

John 8:1-11 the woman in front

So I’ve been working on learning John 8:1-11 by heart and there’s this little thing that just keeps getting my attention. In verse 3, at the end, they have the woman “stand before all of them.” And in verse 9, at the end, Jesus is left with the woman and she is “standing before him.”

There is so much movement in this story, but the woman is the still center. Different groups of “they” come and go, Jesus is sitting, standing, bending, and so on, but the woman is still and “before” them. In verse 3, like standing in front of a firing squad, I imagine, each of “them” could have picked up a stone and hit her. In the end, in verse 9, one on one with Jesus. He sees her. He speaks to her. He does not condemn her. He sends her on the way — he frees her.

The woman only says three words, but I am pretty sure she has more attention than she ever wanted.

Perhaps it is the injustice of using this “ordinary sinner” to trap Jesus, who is not a sinner. Perhaps it is the mystery of what Jesus wrote. Perhaps it is Jesus bending over, standing up, while she stands.

She thought she was going to die. She was, so to speak, dead center of the scribes and Pharisees and they did not really care about her life at all.

I feel sure she likely was again an “ordinary sinner” because us humans cannot help but to sin. But I also feel sure that each time, she repented and remembered and recentered herself, this time in the memory of Jesus.

FTGOG

The woman caught

This story, John 8:1-11, is well known and actually quite odd. I am thinking of learning it, and I am thinking to share it at this year’s Festival Gathering of the Network of Biblical Storytellers. That is in the summer so I have a lot of time. Maybe other occasions will pop up?

Here’s some of the things to mull over:

This story historically has not always been here in the Gospel of John, it has an odd history. Does that matter in telling it?

Why did Jesus go to the Mount of Olives?

The woman says one sentence, three words. What do I think of this?

Is the mystery of what Jesus wrote important? Or is it just the act of writing?

Who was the original audience and how would they hear this?

Who is “they” in the story, and how does it shift?

And envision the latter part of verse 2: “…he sat down and taught them.” If we had a time machine and could be there, what might Jesus have been teaching?

What is sin?

What is this tricking thing that is going on — catching a woman committing adultery? catching Jesus “going against God”?

With all the sitting, standing, bending, etc. — how to move and use space when telling this story? Without being annoying or acting?

I’m sure more questions and thoughts will arise! 

Luke 8:22-25 and divinity

It is quite curious that I am so in a puzzle with this small passage, this small story, and in the class I am taking right now we are thinking about “Christology”. I suddenly realized that the disciples are puzzling that out too! Who can command the wind and waves and they obey? Yep, God. How can Jesus be God? They were really (rightly) quite confused. After all you don’t want to believe that any random person is God, you don’t want to be tricked. Yet if someone is as much divine as human (he had just been asleep! he’s also human!), well you’d want to … respect that.

In class we’ve discussed or touched on “high” and “low” Christology. If I understand…. with “high” you start like the Gospel of John: In the beginning was the Word of God and now the Word is here. You start with the mystery of God. With “low” Christology, you start sequentially: he was born, he grew, he did miracles/signs, he told stories and so on. He lived. And then he was killed. And then surprise (spoiler alert!): he came back! Either way — you end up with the diety! Yet how does this “fully human fully God” thing actually work? What might it actually mean?

This is just my thought but Jesus being also “fully God” might mean He is and was and will be part of a mystery of divine love and justice.

And if Jesus is also “fully human” then he actually suffered and ate and slept and was angry and was sad… he knows what it is to face this embodied life!

To thus know God, writes Karl Barth, who was much smarter than I’ll ever be and on the “high” Christology side of things: We need “only to read the truth about [God and Jesus] where it resides, namely, in the fullness of their togetherness, their covenant which proclaims itself in Jesus Christ” (p. 47, The Humanity of God, 1956 John Knox press). And Barth goes on to add: “On the basis of the eternal will of God we have to think of every human being, even the oddest, most villainous or miserable, as one to whom Jesus Christ is Brother and God is Father; and we have to deal with him on this assumption” (p. 53, italics original). Barth writes so much in this dense chapter that every time I read it, I get something else. But this is … shocking! It is the foolishness of the Cross come back to shame us again. This love of God’s to each one of us is “God’s grace alone,” writes Barth. We can do nothing to earn it or be worthy of it. Can we think of the worst of us as also being beloved by God? But it clearly seems to mean that the worst person deserves food, water, shelter, clothes — a basic respect and decency. Not because of them. But because of Christ and that union of myterious power and love, of divine and human. And thus hope is born, or it feels that way to me.

Our response to this loving relationship should be, perhaps, utter gratefulness and giant huge big hopes of being more like Jesus, filled with the Spirit, and eager to help bring about the Kingdom of Heaven. And I know that feeling of “but she doesn’t deserve this, he did wrong, what about justice too.” Maybe the next time I read more I’ll find out more — how the Cross sorts out justice.

But to go back to where I started today. The disciples were just as awestruck and bewildered as I am! And Jesus knew that. And all he asked them was “Where is your faith?” He wasn’t mad at them, just trying to help them.

I think today at this moment my faith is richly in my heart and hoping to connect with you, even as my heart breaks with the pain of the world.

FTGOG