Lectionary Reflection: Lent 4 - 2013

The Lectionary Readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent:

Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Again, my reflection comes from Ched Myers' Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (20th Anniversary Edition) Orbis Books, 1988, 2008.

Again, 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.

There is no parallel for Luke's parable of the "Prodigal Son" within any of the other gospels. This parable remains a Lukan masterpiece.

That said, I thought it would be helpful to look at Mark's parable of the "Strong Man." Myers insists that this parable shed's light on the mission of Jesus as Mark sees it, and the title of Myers' book is taken from this parable.

In Mark 3:1-6,  Jesus heals a man with a withered hand, doing so on the Sabbath, at the synagogue, in full-view of the "they" who had come to catch Jesus out. After a bit of a confrontation, and the healing, Jesus leaves, and the Pharisees and Herodians plot how to destroy Jesus. This plot element stays throughout Mark's Gospel - at times in the background, at times in the forefront.

In Mark 3:7-12 Jesus and the disciples go to the Sea of Galilee where the crowd presses in and Jesus cures many. Jesus then goes up a mountain and calls the leadership (twelve disciples representing the twelve tribes of Israel) to start a "new confederacy" (Mark 3:13-19a).

v. 19b finds Jesus and the disciples going home, where the crowd again presses in on them, "so that they could not even eat." It is here that his family shows up saying "He's gone out of his mind" and the scribes claim he has Beelzebul, which leads to Jesus parable about the strong man's house. Following this parable, we are again told that his family is outside, and Jesus' gives a new definition of family. The "family concerns" become the bread of the "Beelzebul" sandwich, as it were.

As you read Myers comments (below) think about how we unconsciously participate in keeping the Strong Man's House ruling over ourselves? How are we participating in resisting the "Strong Man"? Who might the "Strong Man" be in our day and age?

Blessed Be

Joel

From Myers:

Jesus has formed his "confederacy," and the scribes are commencing their "counterinsurgency," leading with the charge that Jesus is himself possessed (3:22). I. Lewis's anthropological study of demon possession in traditional societies notes that it is common for those in power to impugn exorcists who assume "a positive, active, and above all, militant role":

Witchcraft accusations represent a distancing strategy which seeks to discredit, sever, and deny links. ... These upstart controllers of spirits are, by their power over the spirits, suspected of causing what they cure [Hollenbach, 1981:577].

To put it in terms of the political war of myths, when the ruling class feels its hegemony threatened, it tries to neutralize challengers by identifying them with the mythic cultural arch-demon. The logic of the scribes was simple: because they believed themselves to be God's representatives, Jesus' "secession" necessarily put him in allegiance to Satan. To borrow from the symbolic canon of our modern cold war dualism, Jesus is being labeled a "communist."

The scribes use a double euphemism for Satan. The first is "Beelzebul," an obscure name probably derived from a Hebrew idiom connoting " 'height,' 'abode,' 'dwelling' ... the name means 'Lord of the dwelling,' with reference either to the air or to the possessed in whom he dwells' (Taylor, 1963:239); cf. Mt 10:25). The second is "prince of the demons" (en to archonti ton daimonion), echoing the "principalities and powers" language found throughout the New Testament (e.g., 1 Cor 2:6; Eph 2:2). The semantic field is obviously that of apocalyptic, and the discourse is therefore specifically political:

We may understand that kingdom of Satan as a symbolic accentuation of the negative experiences of earthly rule. According to the apocalypse of the shepherds is Ethiopic Enoch 85-90, when Israel lost its political independence, God relegated rule over it to the fallen angels, the subjects of Satan. The mythological events here reflect political ones [Theissen, 1977:76].

Here the apocalyptic combat myth deepens significantly. From the wilderness (1:12f.) the struggle has moved steadily into the heart of the political geography of Roman Palestine, first in the synagogue exorcism and then in the Human One's challenge to the symbolic order (2:10, 28). Now Jesus goes nose to nose with his opponents in the war of myths.

By introducing the discourse of parables at this point (3:23), Mark is preparing us for the first sermon (4:3ff.), which must also be understood in an apocalyptic context. Conversely, the sermon's demand that we attend to parables with "ears to hear" (4:9) applies here: Jesus is about to articulate something that must not be missed, despite the fact that it is somewhat cryptic. Demonstrating a style of verbal riposte that he will pursue masterfully in his later temple debates (11:27ff.), Jesus' defense becomes offense by turning his antagonists' words back upon them as a question and a riddle:

"How can Satan exorcise (eskballein) Satan?

Should a kingdom be divided against itself,

that kingdom cannot stand;

Should a house be divided against itself,

that house cannot stand;

Thus if Satan has revolted against himself and is divided,

he cannot stand and is coming to an end" [3:23-26]

The intricate parallelism and cross-referencing of images in this series of rhetorical statements is clear, but what does it mean?

The famous hermeneutics of Abraham Lincoln notwithstanding, these are not placative platitudes about civil war weakening the body politic, as if Jesus seeks to assure the scribes that he is really their ally against a common enemy, Satan. No, Jesus is short-circuiting their self-serving ideological dualism by unmasking its contradictions and collapsing it in upon itself:

Encountering the [structure of] presuppositions of the opponents ... requires the awakening of a counter-vision with sufficient imaginative force to crack the hard shell of this structure. This is what these words attempt through their surprising adoption of the perspective of the accusation. ... It wishes to drive a wedge deeply into the foundations on which the opponents have built their world" [Tannehill, 1975:179, 184].

The carefully chosen images of the domain of "Satan" (3:23, 26) bear remarkable correspondence to the ideological foundations of scribal Judaism: the centralized politics of the Davidic state ("kingdom," 3:24) and its symbolic center, the temple ("house," 3:25). That these foundations are in crisis and "cannot stand" will be articulated later in this story, when Jesus battle these scribal opponents on their home turf in Jerusalem. There Jesus will refuse to identify his "kingdom" with David's (12:35ff.; below ...). When he finally encounters the temple itself, he will "exorcise" (ekballein) those who have "divided" the purpose of the "house of prayer" (11:15-7). Then, in his second sermon, Jesus will prophesy that the temple-state will not be able to stand (13:2), and the true "Lord of the house" will come and reclaim his domain (13:35).

This much of the riddle is solved: Satan cannot "clean out his own house" (3:23); it is up to Jesus to lead the "revolt" against the powers, to bring their rule to an end (3:26). It is Jesus' declaration of ideological war with the scribal establishment. Having laid his opponents bare, Jesus then drops his semantic jousting and spins a thinly veiled political parable in which he likens his mission to criminal breaking and entering:

"No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods (ta skeue) unless the strong man is first bound (dese); then indeed his house may be plundered" [3:27]

This introduces two more important proleptic references. "Goods" refers to "utensils of various materials ... which were employed for the most varied purposes in home and field, in war and peace, in the secular world and the sacred" (Maurer, TDNT, 8:360). The only other appearance of the term in Mark occurs in 11:16 - in reference to the vessels of the temple cult on which Jesus puts a ban! "Binding" appears in another exorcism context - referring to a "demon" whom no one had the "strength" to bind (5:3f.)! It also describes the political imprisonment of John (6:17), Jesus (15:1), and Barabbas (15:7). In other words, the parable illumines the later narrative, and vice versa.

Mark has come clean: Jesus (a.k.a. the "stronger one" heralded by John, 1:8) intends to overthrow the reign of the strong man (a.k.a. the scribal establishment represented by the demon of 1:24). In this parable the oracle of Second Isaiah lives again: Yahweh is making good on the promise to liberate the 'prey of the strong (LXX, ischuontos) and rescue the captives of the tyrants" (Is 49:24f.). Imperial hermeneutics, ever on the side of law and order, will of course find this interpretation of the strong man parable strained, offensive, shocking. Yet Mark drew the image of breaking and entering from the most enduring of the primitive Christian eschatological traditions: the Lord's advent as a thief in the night (Mt. 24:43 par; 1 Thes 5:2, 4; 1 Pt 3:10; Rv 3:3, 16:15).

As if to underscore the seriousness of what he has just said, Jesus concludes with a solemn "Amen" saying (3:28). He now deals the final blow to the debt code: blanket pardon. But there is one exception: mistaking the work of the Holy Spirit for that of Satan. As Juan Lusi Segundo puts it:

The blasphemy resulting from bad apologetics will always be pardonable. ... What is not pardonable is using theology to turn real human liberation into something odious. The real sin against the Holy Spirit is refusing to recognize, with "theological" joy, some concrete liberation that is taking place before one's very eyes" [1979:254]

This is what the scribal class cannot "see." Thus by the close of his defense, Jesus had turned the tables completely upon his opponents: it is they who are aligned against God's purposes. To be captive to the way things are, to resist criticism and change, to brutally suppress efforts at humanization - is to be bypassed by the grace of God [BtSM, 164-7].

Sustainable Monday - The Bilge & Clyde Ford's "Boat Green"

As the weather has finally turned really nice and "spring fever" is in the air, I thought I'd offer a couple of project tips from Clyde W. Ford's book Boat Green: 50 Steeps Boaters Can Take to Save Our Waters. This week we take on a couple of bilge ideas, next week a couple of maintenance tips. This is a great book, check your library for a copy, in which Ford offers all sorts of advice, tips and information regarding our water, and how boaters can make choices to help keep our waters clean and healthy.

Those of us with inboard engines realize that the bilges in our engine rooms can easily become dirty with oil drips, antifreeze drips, etc. If the engine room bilge pump is an automatic pump and it turns on, we (and the environment) have a problem - we now have an oil slick that must be reported, contained and cleaned up. The best solution is to avoid such a problem in the first place. Ford points out that the best practice is a clean engine room bilge, the use of an oil pan (with an absorbent pad placed on top to catch any drips from the engine.) Keeping the engine in top shape, watching for drips and then tracing them and fixing the problem are all good maintenance and management practices. Keeping a bilge sock in the bilge is also a good idea.

What I hadn't realized was that there were a variety of different bilge socks available. Polymer is the best bilge sock to use. According to the chart Ford provides (see page 143) polymer has "high" initial absorption, "good" overall absorption, "low" swelling and "good" retention (scoring best over all, and the only one not scoring a "poor" or "fails" in the retention category.

When there is a mucky mess in the bilge to clean-up, suggests using "bugs" to clean up the engine room. He writes, "You've probably heard of oil-eating bacteria dispersed over a major oil spill to help with the cleanup. This process is known as bioremediation, and it's now available to the average boater. It's easy to grow a colony of oil-eating bugs in your bilge, and it's good for your bilge and for the water" (Ford:143). Look on-line or at your chandlery. They come as a large dry tablets or in a powder form. Ford mentions that initially it's good to treat the bilge twice, over a two-week period of time.

The other great idea that Ford mentioned was adding a diverter valve to your bilge pump. This would allow the owner (you or me) to either pump the bilge over board (a direct dis-charge) or to pump the bilge (if there is oily water) into an onboard collection container. The container can then be taken to a marina oil-collection facility, or to an oil-collection facility in town.

Definitely things to think about, and add to the "To Do" list we all keep. Some of these are an easy project to add during this spring weather, that is warming up, but may turn rainy and we want to do an "inside" project.

Blessed Be,

Joel

Lectionary Reflection: Lent 3 - 2013

The Lectionary Readings for the Third Sunday in Lent:

Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

Again, my reflection comes from Ched Myers' Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (20th Anniversary Edition) Orbis Books, 1988, 2008.

Again, 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.

This week, there is a direct parallel with Mark 11:12-14 in which Jesus also curses a fig tree. In Mark's account follows Jesus' entry (upon donkey) into Jerusalem, at which point, we are told he "scopes" out the temple, then returns to Bethany.

The following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard it." (Mark 11:12-14 - NRSV).

What follows is a political action in the temple: Jesus (and others?) drive out those selling and those who were buying, over turned the money changers tables, the seats of those who sold doves, and wouldn't let anyone carry anything. In essence, he shut down the temple. He teaches a bit and leaves Jerusalem.

The next day, "In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots." (Mark 11:20 - NRSV).

Now that we have the setting of where the "cursing of the fig tree" occurs within Marks' Gospel, how does Myers respond? What insights do we achieve?

Myers starts by noting that the "cursing" episode is the first of three (a. curing of the fig tree; b. temple action; c. fig tree results and parables about faith moving mountains). Myers draws our attention to the ways in which the fig tree drama "sandwiches" the temple action. As such, Myers posits that the fig tree is an acted parable critiquing the temple system itself.*

[Myers] discussion will draw heavily upon W. Telford's detailed study of the background of Mark's metaphorical imagery here ([Telford. The Barren Temple and the Withered Tree.] 1980).

Jesus, returning to Jerusalem from Bethany for the start of his ministry of confrontation, curses a fig tree unable to relieve his hunger because it is not the "time" (kairos) for figs (11:13f.). The disciples "hear" this curse (11:14c), and find the next day that the tree has withered (11:20f.). Tleford has demonstrated how the Hebrew Bible as well as contemporaneous Jewish and Christian literature clarify the semantic field of this odd magical tale. He points out that even if it were not narratively juxtaposed with the temple action, the fig tree image would have been recognized as a metaphor for the temple-based nation and its cultus.

Pointing out that the Old Testament literature "on the whole knows very little of nonsymbolical trees," Telford examines five primary (Jer. 8:13; Is 28:3; Hos 9:10,16; Mi 7:1; Jl 1:7,12) and several supplementary texts. He concludes:

The fig tree was an emblem of peace, security, and prosperity and is prominent when descriptions of the Golden Age of Israel's history, past, present, and future, are given - the Garden of Eden, the Exodus, the Wilderness, the Promised Land, the reigns of Solomon and Simon Maccabaeus, and the coming Messianic Age. It figures predominately in the prophetic books and very often in passages with an echatological import. ...

The blossoming of the fig-tree and its giving of its fruits is a descriptive element in passages which depict Yahweh's visiting his people with blessing, while the withering of the fig-tree, the destruction or withholding of its fruit, figures in imagery describing Yahweh's judgement upon his people or their enemies. The theme of judgement is, if anything, more pronounced in the prophetic books. Very often the reason given ... is cultic aberration ... a corrupt Temple cultus and sacrificial system. In some cases, indeed, the fig or fig-tree ... can be used expressly as a symbol for the nation itself. ... Who could doubt, then, the extraordinary impact that Jesus' cursing of the fig-tree would have produced upon the Markan reader, schooled to recognized symbolism wherever it occured [1980:161f., emphasis in the original].

This intertextual evidence is further confirmed in later Jewish material, especially the halakah and haggadah. Again, Telford summerizes his findings:

We have seen how important the fig-tree was in the everyday life of Palestine, and the high esteem with which this, the most fruitful of all the trees, was regarded ... its fruits being among the principal First-fruits to be brought to the sanctuary. ... In the Rabbinic imagery and symbolism ... the good fig is the godly man, or collectively God's righteous people, and the search for figs a picture of Israel's God, seeking out those who are his own. ...

In the Jewish Haggadah ... we found a world of ideation within the context of which the Markan story has its rightful place. Features of the story that are problematic for the modern reader were found to be consonant with the haggadic view of nature and the affairs of mean. In these stories, the world is endowed with human characteristics. The trees are sensitive to the moral dimension. They can be addressed. They can give or withold their fruit in response to human need (whatever the season). Their blossoming or withering has moral and symbolic significance. In the world of the haggadah, the Rabbi's curse has incontrovertible efficacy. ...

We took note, too, of the connection existing in the Jewish mind between the fruitfulness of the trees and the maintenance of the Temple service. According to Rabbis of the first and second centuries, the fruits had lost their savour when the Temple had been destroyed, a state of affairs that was, however, to be reversed in the Messianic Age. ... By placing the story ... in the context of Jesus' visit to the Temple, Mark has dramatically indicated that the expected fruitfulness associated with that institution is not to be true. Its destiny is rather to be withered, and that - ek rhizon [to the roots]! (1980:193-96).

The same semantic field informs Mark at several points, notably the parables (especially the parable of the vineyard, 12:1ff.).

Indeed, the image of "withering to the roots" has already been introduced in the parable of the sower (4:6). thus, the symbolic action of Jesus' cursing of the fig tree is Mark's own little haggadic tale, as well as a midrash on Hosea 9:16 ... . Its narrative function is to begin Jesus' ideological project of subverting the temple-centered social order. The reappearance of the fig tree in the apocalyptic parable (13:28-32) at the conclusion to this section confirms this. In the second sermon, the leafy (i.e. fruitless) fig tree is offered as a sign of the "end time." The world that is coming to an end is the world of the temple-based state .... [BtSM:297-9].

We are left, then, with a direct parable-type action, criticizing the temple as symbolic center for the Judaen social order and oppressor of the people, rather than running as a means of re-distributing the resources of a community/nation/people, the temple had become a power-hungry means of keeping the people poor.
If Lent calls us to look at our-selves closely (not just as individuals, but as a society-at-large), which I think Lent does, then in what ways are we participating in keeping the poor poor? What re-distribution systems are no longer working in our society/culture at large? What would be the symbol Jesus would curse and cause to wither-to-its-roots to get the message across to us?
If we have ears to "hear" and eyes to "see" (unlike the disciples who remain "deaf" and "blind", or at least hard of hearing and seeing), this is a tough lesson to wrestle with.

Blessed Be,

Joel
_____________________
*(See "INTO THE HOLY PLACE: SYMBOLIC DIRECT ACTION (11:11-26)" Binding the Strong Man:297ff.)

Sustainable Monday - Watching Water, Lent 2013

Fresh Water is a marvelous gift - a sustainable necessity to human (and other organic) life on our planet. Yet in some regions of the world, the fresh water is in very short supply and/or what is available isn't fit of drinking. We who live upon the sea can well understand that.

Water water everywhere

Yet not a drop to drink

Fresh water can fall from the sky and collected in our tanks via water catchment systems; be lugged out to our boats via our dinghies from a source on shore: streams or waterfalls or discovered wells and/or springs, or even that marvelous hose. When we are docked in a marina with water right at the tap or staying ashore like the shore dwellers (a.k.a. "landlubbers") we tend to take the water for granted.
When heading back out on a cruise, how do we monitor our usage? Some people use a 5 gallon "day tank" to help keep things in perspective. Others have sight tubes on their water tanks with markings equating to certain gallons in the tank. Foot and hand pumps help, rather than automatic/electric pump systems. No matter what our strategy, it is very helpful to have some system in place to monitor our water consumption, especially on a long ocean passage.
Here's an idea that I ran across in Cutting the Dragon's Tail by Lynda and David Chidell. They built a large junk-rigged yacht for charter work. The question of how to monitor water consumption in a way that guests would understand directly was worked out while installing the pumping. They used a gravity tank to create the pressure needed for all the water needs aboard the boat. This involved using a large day tank. The water was pumped into the day tank via a high capacity (think bilge-type) hand pump. A mark was made upon a chart indicating how many pumps were needed each day to keep the tank topped off. A guest who was using lots of water, could be shown how many more pumps were needed each day since they stepped aboard. The Chidells remark that this system was quite effective.
No matter how you monitor your fresh water, may you find yourself thankful for this gift.
May your use of fresh water remind you of your blessedness.
Blessed Be
Joel

Lectionary Reflection: Lent 2 - 2013

The Lectionary Readings for the Second Sunday in Lent:

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:31-35

Again, my reflection comes from Ched Myers' Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus (20th Anniversary Edition) Orbis Books, 1988, 2008.

Again, 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.

That, said, there really isn't a parallel with Mark this week.  Mark's Jesus does not lament coming into Jerusalem, as does Luke's and Matthew's Jesus. So, I'm going to instead reflect upon the reading for this Sunday in Year B: Mark 8:31-38. Keep in mind that Mark's Jesus is rather antagonistic toward Herod, and the Galilean Aristocracy as a whole, especially for the way in which they are living off of (and to the detriment of) the peasant and artisan classes, forcing many of them into the "un-status" of expendables.

Backing up to verse 27 (Mark 8:27): Jesus and the Disciples travel to Caesarea Philippi - and "on the way" he asks them, "Who do people say that I am?" Notice the "I Am" saying here - remember Moses at the burning bush asking Yahweh "Who shall I tell them sent me?" and Yahweh answers, "I am who I am" (Exodus 3)? Also notice the ties back to Mark 6:14f. in which Mark introduces his interlude concerning the events of the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod:
Mark's Report                                                       Disciple's Report
1. they were saying that John the Baptist        .......... John the Baptist,
     had risen from the dead
2. but others said that it is Elijah,                    .......... and others Elijah,
3. and others said a prophet like any prophet; .......... and others one of the prophets.
Do the disciples draw the same conclusion? No. Peter introduces to the story world for the first time (the reader was told at the beginning) the politically loaded term "Messiah/Christos". Not only is Jesus a great prophet, he "is a royal figure who will restore the political fortunes of Israel. The revolution, Peter is saying, is at hand" (BtSM: 242).

Not bad for a "blind" guy like Peter, the Reader thinks only then to be shocked when Jesus silences this assertion. "Wait a minute? We were told just this back in Mk 1:1!" Myers points out that Jesus uses the same strong command (epetimesen) that he used to silence the demons (1:25; 3:12); and the wind (4:39). Myers invites us to notice the dialectical interply of this verbal struggle:

Peter: Jesus is Messiah
Jesus silences Peter (8;30)
Jesus: the Human One must suffer (8:31)
Peter silences Jesus (8:32)
Jesus silences Peter (8:33)
Jesus: Peter is Satan.
The series begins with Peter's dramatic confession, but by the end this has been eclipsed by Jesus' still more remarkable double counter-confession: he is not "Messiah" but "Human One," and Peter is the mouthpiece of Satan. This shocking reference brings to mind the polarization in Jesus' war of words with the scribes in 3:22f., and reminds us of the essential war of myths, begun with Satan in the wilderness (1:13) [BtSM:244].

Jesus introduces the first of his three "portents concerning his political fate. With the phrase "Then he began to teach them that it was necessary" (8:31), the entire story is set veering off in a new direction: the long march toward Jerusalem has begun [BtSM: 242-3].

First, Myers draws us into the semantic field of Mark, reminding us that "Mark's audience would clearly have identified as apocalyptic" this portant of Jesus' suffering being "necessary" (BtSM:243). Myers quotes:

It is crucial to understand that this sort of deterministic statement is not made out of a generally fatalistic belief or hope. It belongs specifically to apocalypticism. ... The theological emphasis of this assertion is to strengthen the faithful in times of frightful suffering. This is the way dei is used in Mark 13:7 and also in Revelation. ... The reader is to understand that the sufferings of Jesus were a crucial part of the eschatological drama. So also were the sufferings of John before him and, as chap. 13 should make clear, so are the times of persecution and hardship through which Mark's community was passing [Bennett, W. "The Son of Man Must." NovTest, 1975:128f.]

It is necessary that John/Elijah/Jesus challenge the highest powers and be executed by them, it is part of the "script."

Second, Jesus changes "Messiah" for "Human One" - Mark already shows that the Human One is someone who challenges authority (scribes and Pharisees). Myers, again, mentions that the Human One is from Daniel 7:13f: "I saw in the night visions: behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Human One; and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdoms, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him." (Also appears in 4 Ezra). "This figure ... represents true "human" government as opposed to the brutality of the "beasts" in the visions" (BtSM:243). Mark appeals to Daniel's Human One (written under the Hellenistic oppression two centuries earlier during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes IV), especially the "courtroom myth" during Jesus' second call to discipleship (Mk 8:31-34).

Third, Jesus then predicts his own death at the hands of the new political coalition (the Jerusalem authority structure), "which does in fact engineer Jesus' murder (10:33; 11:18; 14:1; 15:1, 31) [BtSM:243]. Here Mark adds two new "opponents" (the elders and high priests) by linking them to the old ones (scribes). "The word used for their "rejection" (apodokimasthenai) denotes something "thrown out after a test" by an official court" [BtSM:243].

Through this, Jesus is

challenging the accepted bounds of political discourse in the war of myths. According to the understanding of Peter, "Messiah" necessarily means royal triumph and the restoration of Israel's collective honor. Against this, Jesus argues that "Human One" necessarily means suffering. This is so because, as the advocate of true justice, the Human One as critic of the debt code and the Sabbath necessarily comes into conflict with the "elders and chief priests and scribes" (8:31). In other words, this is not the discourse of fate or fatalism, but of the political inevitability. It is in this sense that Jesus addresses his political vocation "openly" (8:32a, parresia, used only here in Mark; meaning frankly or boldly). Peter's fantasies of power must be censured by clear-eyed realism [BtSM:244].

The bitter exchange with Peter ends with a sharp opposition posited between divine and human authority, echoing the earlier conflict with Pharisaic ideology in 7:8f. The phrase "you are not on the side of God, but of men" is difficult to translate. The verb phroneis (occurring only here in Mark, but more than twenty times in Paul's writings) must be understood in terms of making a commitment or holding a conviction. The radical dualism implies that there is no middle ground - a theme indigenous to the political perspective of apocalyptic. ... Mark is serving us notice that we have arrived at the heart of the ideological conflict [BtSM:245].

Then with the words: "deny yourself"; "take up your cross"; "follow me" Jesus offers a second call to discipleship, not just to the disciples but openly, inclusively, to the entire community. Here "Mark's subversive narrative bursts into the open. There can be no equivocation concerning the political semantics of this invitation. The "cross" had only one connotation in the Roman empire: upon it dissidents were executed" (BtSM:245). Mark may have been borrowing a recruiting phrase from Jewish insurgents (who, of course, would have been regularly crucified). Regardless, there is no way to read this but as a political invitation to face the consequences of daring to challenge the ultimate hegemony of imperial Rome.

Myers continues:

The true antecedent to "taking up the cross" is "self-denial." Is this, as often argued by bourgeois exegesis, indication of a spiritualizing tendency already within the text, as if Mark defines the cross as personal asceticism? Emphatically not; as has been carefully argued by [B.] van Iersel, the semantic context is one of the courtroom:

We are faced with an appeal to Christians who are taken to court in a situation of persecution similar to the one described in 13:9-13. They have to opt between either professing Jesus or denying him. The former requires self-denial, i.e., the risk of one's own life ["The Gospel According to Mark: Written for a Persecuted Community?" NedTehoTijd, 1980:25f.].[BtSM:246]

The paradox of saving one's life only to loose it has similar rhetoric in Hellenistic military officer speeches before a battle: those who fight well, even though they die, die nobly and live on, whereas those who try to keep their own life by fleeing, end up dieing at the hands of their enemies. "But Mark is not goading the disciples to military heroism; he is introducing the central paradox of the Gospel. The threat to punish by death is the bottom line of the power of the state; fear of this threat keeps the dominant order intact. By resisting this fear and pursuing kingdom practice even at the cost of death, the disciple contributes to shattering the powers' reign of death in history. To concede the state's sovereignty in death is to refuse its authority in life (BtSM:247).

There is a double-jeopardy going on here. Not only is this about the "legal court" but also "economics" (the language switches from juridical to economic at 8:36). It is a "bad investment" to try to "bail out" of the legal-confessional bind at a political trial. Even if it showed a "return" there is not "profit" but rather a "dead loss." "Fidelity to Jesus simply has no price" [BtSM:247].

This section then ends with a twist: who's on trial? Not only is this a matter of honor/shame (to be "ashamed" of Jesus words brings reciprocal "shame" as in all honor/shame cultures, and with it a loss of status). With all the judicial language "it is no surprise that Mark should again allude to Daniel's mythical courtroom scene. The "judgement" of the Human One is pitted against the "judgement" of earthly courts and the tyrants who enforce them. To be acquitted by one is to be found guilty in the other. ... [This is not about future triumphalism - bear the cross to wear the crown.] ... In the story world of Mark, the "relations of power" in the myth appear to be reversed. It is the Human One in 8:31 who, in his inevitable conflict with the powers, becomes a defendant in their court, where he is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. In this sense, Mark's Human One has more affinity with the persecuted saints ... But in the saying of 8:38f., the Human One again appears as true judge, who comes "with the angels" ... to receive the kingdom. In all of this, Mark has reproduced the "bifurcation" of reality effected by Daniel's myth. In Daniel, the prophet "sees" (Dn 7:2) oppressive rulers who appear to be prevailing in the historical moment. But if the prophet looks more deeply ("as I looked again," Dn 7:9), he sees the Human One establishing justice. Thus in Mark, the Human One represents at once both defendant and prosecutor - depending upon which court, "earthly" or "heavenly," is being considered" [BtSM:247-9].

Myers insists that his discourse is not just historical (Daniel or Jesus) but illuminates present reality whatever Christians experience. This story/myth empowers us "to choose to stand with the Human One, a choice that will in reality overthrow the highest and deepest powers (13:26f.)" [BtSM:249].

May we all have such courage.

Blessed Be

Joel

Sustainable Monday - Bio-Regional Education, Lent 2013

My Uncle suggested that I check out Liz Clark's blog/web-page about her voyages on Swell, her Cal-40. Clark is currently sailing through French Polynesia, surfing when she gets the chance. Her reflections are inspiring. You might like to check them out yourself: Liz Clark and the Voyage of Swell.

For our first posting in Lent regarding sustainability, I am going to re-post something Clark wrote regarding our Bio-regional Educations (or, rather, how we have forgotten what our ancestors took thousands of years to learn). She concludes with a quote from Thor Heyerdahl. Thought provoking way to start Lent, and good questions to ponder as we strive to live gently upon this earth - this home - our ours.

Blessed Be.

Joel

Food Foraging and Our Forgotten Bioregional Educations: What we don’t even know we don’t know

May 19, 2012 By Captain lizzy in Blog 11 Comments Tags: back to nature, bioregionalism, fatu hiva, food foraging, Marquesas Islands, nature, thor heyerdahl

In the spirit of Thor and Liv Heyerdahl’s ‘Back to Nature’ adventure almost a hundred years earlier, I embraced my time in Marquesas as a chance to live a little closer to the Source. The relatively low populations and highly fertile soil make for lots of nature’s edibles to be foraged with permission from the local people. So Raiarii and I spent much of our time in the hills and valleys and sea gathering food, cooking over a fire, and combing the terrain for nature’s treasures. We learned from Mami Faatiarau and other friends that with some knowledge of the local plants, we could also make bark rope, palm frond baskets, natural remedies, seats, shelter, hats, you name it… We witnessed that those who were motivated and educated in the flora and fauna, could live heartily and almost wholly off Mother Nature’s provisions.
A few things struck me. Regional plant and animal knowledge must have taken generations upon generations of learning to accumulate. Modern ways make it so easy to let go, homogenize, and forget what our ancestors spent lifetimes figuring out! It can go extinct as easily as a species without a habitat, like it has in so many places where native peoples were killed, disrespected, and paved over. Where I grew up, we don’t even know that we almost all of human history would laugh at us for not knowing our plants!? That itself is a measure of our alienation from nature  and our ‘bioregions’…

There were multiple varieties of mangos, loads of starfruit, lichee, papayas, bananas of all sorts, avocados,  local oranges and grapefruit, limes, and breadfruit just to start! Edible roots included taro, tarua, manioc, and sweet potatoes. And even delicious leafy greens that grew in the streams and slowly flowing tributaries!

It never hurts to get a higher perspective on things!

Can anyone identify these delicious leafy greens?

Mami F's lovely palm frond basket.

New foraging techniques were developed...

We learned how to crack bamboo into flat lengths and weave together to make walls or flooring!

Getting to know palm fronds a little better these days.

“We like to think of progress as modern man’s struggle to secure better food for more people, warmer clothing and finer dwellings for the poor, more medicine and hospitals for the sick, increased security against war, less corruption and crime, a happier life for young and old. But, as it has turned out, progress involves much more. It is progress when weapons are improved to kill more people at a longer range. It is progress when a little man becomes a giant because he can push a button and blow up the world. It is progress when the man in the street can stop thinking and creating because all his problems are solved by others who show him what happens if he turns on a switch. It is progress when people become so specialized that they know almost everything about almost nothing. It is also progress when reality gets so damned dull that we all survive by sitting staring at entertainment radiating from a box, or when one pill is invented to cure the harm done by another, or when hospitals grow up like mushrooms because our heads are overworked and our bodies underdeveloped, because our hearts are empty and our intestines filled with anything cleverly advertised. It is progress when a farmer leaves his hoe and a fisherman his net to step onto an assembly line the day the cornfield is leased to industry, which needs the salmon river as its sewer. It is progress when cities grow bigger and fields and forests smaller, until ever more men spend ever more time in subways and bumper-to-bumper car queues, until neon lights are needed in daytime because buildings grope for the sky and dwarf men and women in canyons where they roll along with klaxons screaming and blow exhaust all over their babies. When children get a sidewalk in exchange for a meadow, when the fragrance of flowers and the view of hills and forests are replaced by air conditioning and a view across the street. It is progress when a centuries-old oak is cut down to give space for a road sign.” –Thor Heyerdahl, Fatu Hiva

Lectionary Reflection: Lent 1 - 2013

Here are the Lectionary Readings for the 1st Sunday in Lent (February 7, 2013):

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