Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13
While I was sick this past month, I was able to catch up on some reading. One of the books I've been wanting to read for some time, now, is Ched Myers' Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (20th Anniversary Edition) Orbis Books, 1988, 2008.
I know that we are in the midst of Year B (which has Luke as the dominate Gospel text), but I think that Myers' reading of Mark's Gospel might shed some light on - or at least conversation with - Luke's account. Where possible, I will be referring to the parallel Markan accounts of Luke's passages.
A word about bias: as a Christian activist, Myers reading shows the political nature of Mark's story of Jesus. Of course this is not the only way to read Mark (or the gospels in general) but I think it is a story that often times becomes neglected. Myers also points out something that I have often taken for granted, but that I think we forget, too. In the the world of antiquity, it is rare (are the gospel's the only accounts?) that a story coming from the populous is written; usually stories/history come from those in power. Myers attempts to keep this in mind throughout his commentary.
Myers' perspective is that Mark wrote his/her Gospel during the Jewish Wars (66-70) from the Galilee. During a period of time in which only two options are presented (pro-Jewish Temple or pro-Roman), Mark offers a critique of both, and a third way - a Messianic Community. To do so, Mark does something never before done, writes a Gospel. To do so, s/he uses influences from apocalyptic and prophetic literature but keeps the action here on the earthly realm, rather than portraying what is happening in the heavens. Mark is not writing a biography: a good reminder.
Now, to take a look at Mark's account of Jesus' Baptism and Wilderness experience (of course, we see parallels with our 40 days of Lent and the 40 years Israel wondered in the Wilderness after leaving Egypt).
Mark 1:9-20
A quick side note: The beginning of Mark's Gospel starts with a reference to Genesis: implying a new beginning: a story about a new heaven and a new earth. And via Mark's title for Jesus ("Messiah") s/he is calling into question the very nature of Roman imperial propagation: Jesus is the true ruler of the world, this is the good news about him - not about the Empire or about the a god-man emperor. Also, by quoting Isaiah and the wilderness, Mark critiques the power structure in Jerusalem by focusing upon the periphery, rather than the Temple/Jerusalem "center." So in the introduction, Mark has set up a critique of both power structures: Roman and Temple/Jerusalem.
John-as-Elijah (notice what John is wearing and in the limited words of this Gospel, how focused Mark is on telling us) comes onto the scene to announce the kingdom's mission (repentance) and the kingdom's envoy (Jesus). The people (especially readers) might notice the tension: is this the beginning or the end?
"Elijah and his prophetic disciples are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible as:
Bringing the pronouncement of judgement on king and court and sentence for faithless violation of the covenant with Yahweh, often as a result of strong foreign culture influence ... the prophets also performed one of the traditional functions of the judge (shophet) in communicating Yahweh's redemptive action, his protection of his people against foreign invasion and domination. ... Against the oppression ... the prophets Elijah and Elisha and their followers, the "sons of prophets," fomented a popular rebellion [against] the house of Ahab [Horsley and Hanson, Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus. 1985:139, 141] (Binding the Strong Man:126-7).But John reveals that the "day of the Lord" is waiting for "someone stronger" (BtSM: 127): that person, the reader knows, is Jesus. Notice that this scene of Jesus' baptism starts with Jesus coming from the Galilee (1:9a) and the next scene starts with Jesus' returning or coming back into the Galilee (1:14b).
Galilee ... was notorious; the northern border of Palestine, it was regarded with contempt and suspicion by most southern Jews. ... Galilee was surrounded by Hellenistic cities, populated heavily by gentiles, predominately poor, and geopolitically cut off from Judea by Samaria. Mark has, in other words, confirmed the spatial tension between center and periphery implied in the Jerusalem/wilderness opposition of 1:5 (BtSM:128).And into the mundane, terrestrial narrative comes a moment of apocalyptic imagery: the heavens are torn open and a voice proclaims blessing. (Such apocalyptic imagery occurs only three times in Mark's Gospel). But the reader is left with the mundane and terrestrial: Jesus retreats into the wilderness (or "forced" into the wilderness by the Spirit). Myers wonders if the readers ask themselves: "Has Mark reduced the apocalyptic hope of a new heaven and earth to hallucination?" (BtSM:129).
Using K. Burridge's concept of redemption as the discharge of social obligation, Waetjen argues that the symbolic act of Jesus' baptism must be seen in specifically social terms:
It is a genuine act of repentance. As such it ends his participation in the structures and values of society. It concludes his involvement in the moral order into which he was born. ... The entire redemptive process of Jewish society as it is maintained by the institutions through which power is ordered ... the totality of the Jewish-Roman social construction of reality, has been terminated. All the debts that have been incurred under this elitist ordering of power and its community life have been cancelled. The death experience of repentance has redeemed Jesus from his comprehensives indebtedness and the prescribed ways and means of discharging his obligations. He has become wholly unobliged [Waetjen, "The Construction of the Way into a Reordering of Power: An Inquiry into the Generic Conception of the Gospel According to Mark," unpublished, 1982: 6f.] (BtSM: 129).Myers concludes that Jesus' baptism marks Jesus as a subversive player whose role is now to challenge the oppressive structures of law and order around himself. Baptism-as-declaration-of-resistance, then, is analogous to the USA draft card burning during the Indochina conflict.
Mark sends - "forces" - this "new-human-being" out into the wilderness where Jesus is shaped and tempted to compromise himself (which later occurs in 8:11; 10:12 and 12:15) and to which Jesus warns the disciples against (14:38). And borrowing from Daniel, these "wild beasts" take on the symbolic power of kingdoms. This experience, then, puts a mythic power behind the principalities and powers (Satan and the "wild beasts") of the "world." As a Spirit-human, Jesus is then at odds with the Satan-humans (their oppressive power structures, actually).
Points for pondering:
- I think it is worth pointing out the mythic use of the "wild beasts" (also ties to the Roman Games and the persecutions?) in Daniel rather than the wild creatures we see around ourselves.
- Also, if baptism is "act-as-declaration-of-resistance," how do we need the forty days of Lent to become "new-humans" that are Spirit-led in our confrontations of unjust power structures?
- If this is not the way we saw ourselves at our own baptisms (for instance, I was baptized as an infant) how does this call us into discipleship?
- How do we serve unjust power structures?
- What would the world look like if we didn't?
Blessed Be,
Joel
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