Tax Collectors and Sinners Mark 2: 11-17

         So the passage for our worship service next Sunday is Mark 2: 11-17. What we have here are some reflections of parts of that passage, to clarify, to illustrate, or simply to develop. The first one this week is a consideration of people Mark refers to collectively as "tax collectors and sinners". 

          The gospel writers are often very deliberate about identifying groups of people when they interact with Jesus. We know this chiefly among the leadership of the Jews, the scribes of the Pharisees, the lawyers, the Sadducees, the high priests, the Pharisees in particular. We have come to know them generally as the opponents of Jesus, but there are subtle distinctions that can fulfill our understanding of the gospel when we take time to sort them out.

          But on the other side, there are our ‘tax collectors and sinners’, a group of individuals that Jesus has chosen to sit down to dinner with at the house of his latest disciple, the tax collector Levi. What do we know about these people? We know that they are segmented out of polite society by the scribes of the Pharisees. They ask how Jesus could be eating with them.

          Understanding the ‘tax collector’ is more straightforward. These were local individuals employed by the Romans to collect taxes. To my understanding, the Roman system of taxation was not complicated. A census would be taken, enumerating a certain population level. Taxes were based on the headcount. That is what Rome collected. Easiest to find those who wanted to get rich quick to collect it for them, for a percentage.

          Tax collectors were the ‘face of the government’ to the people, a place where Jew and Roman approximately intersected. It was the position of a turncoat, someone more interested in money than loyalty to their people subjected to Roman tyranny.

          But what about ‘sinners’? It is a named, therefore more precise category. We can surmise that their presence is also unwelcome to the scribes of the Pharisees, that they see Jesus as wrong in daring to eat with them, that they are, in Jesus’ words, in need of the physician.

          So, there is another passage where Jesus heals a blind man. The leadership, hoping to disprove the miracle, call not only upon the man but also upon his parents. And his parents, for fear of being put out of the synagogue, deflect the questions back onto their son.

          I am taking a leap, I recognize that, but I hope it is an educated one. In the Jewish community, there is the leadership, scribes and so on, there are those who go to synagogue, those whom Jesus has been preaching to on the Sabbaths, and those put out of the synagogue. I think tax collectors and other ‘unsavory’ types branded generally as ‘sinners’.

People know who those excluded from the synagogues are. They are not related to by ‘polite’ company. There is a list kept by the leadership, formally or informally. But it is known that Jesus should not be sharing time or a meal with them.

But that’s not who Jesus is. These are the people whom he has precisely come to.

Dr. Strange and the Choices Jesus Makes

           The opening to Dr. Strange is a powerful one. We meet a gifted and arrogant surgeon who can save lives where others fail. If you have not seen the movie or heard of the origin story of the character, SPOILERS.

          Dr. Stephen Strange, in his arrogance, gets into a terrible car accident, his hands are crushed, all fine motor skills lost, and his ability to perform surgery is terminated. So he goes on a quest. He blows all his money and, from the movie, chases every fantasy, goes after every possible treatment that could help, insulting anyone he sees fit along the way, all to get his hands back, which will give him his life back (in his own mind).

          He gets so desperate, he even pursues a fairy tale of miraculous healing out to Nepal.

          He is willing to stake everything on getting healed.

          That’s my point of connection.

          Jesus was out preaching and teaching and healing and casting out demons. In Mark 1:40, a leper comes to him with a rather unique challenge.

          “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Another version puts it “If you choose…” Jesus’ response is “I am willing” or “I do choose”, and he cures the man of his leprosy.

          This is not the ten lepers crying out from a distance for mercy. This is not the woman who was so shy she only dared to touch Jesus’ cloak to be healed. This is not someone to whom Jesus has said, “Your sins are forgiven” to demonstrate the healing power of God to the spirit as well as to the body.

          If You Choose. So the man was prepared for both failure, if the healing skills of Jesus were not up to challenge, and for rejection. Jesus could have rejected him, calling him ‘unclean’ and driving him off.

          The life of the leper was on the margins. We know about social distancing, but that’s a mutual undertaking for the prevention of Covid. The leper was required to maintain distance, at the risk of being driven off with rocks or worse. There is a reason that Gregory Peck, playing Brigadier Frank Savage in the World War 2 film “Twelve O’clock High”, put all the worst elements of his bomber crews together into one plane called “The Leper Colony”. It is the place of the undesirables.

          In the movie, he did not care if they got killed. He put the losers together so they would not get other airmen killed. Neither did society at large in the time of Jesus care if lepers were killed. It kept the disease from spreading.

          "If you choose", the man said. I think he said it because he was beyond caring. He no longer carried the desperation of a Stephen Strange trying to get his life back. One did not get their life back after leprosy. So here came another faith healer who seemed to be getting popular reviews. What is the worst that could happen to the leper? Jesus rejects him and turns the crowd on him for ‘daring’ to infect the Teacher? If they stoned him to death, that’s another way out of his miserable existence.

          But Jesus chose to heal him, and the man received his life back in joy and thanksgiving.

          So am I saying that if Stephen Strange found his way to Jesus that he might have been healed? No. The franchise is about Dr. Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, not Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord. Besides, how much arrogance would Dr. Strange have to swallow before coming to our Lord?

          What I am saying is that there is One who will always choose to heal, always choose to forgive, always choose to love us. The leper opened a choice for Jesus, but for Jesus, there is no choice. This is what He does-for us. When we come to Jesus to be cleansed from our sins, when we lift up our illnesses and failings to His healing power, when we seek His grace, Jesus will always choose to heal us.

          But as the journey of healing for Dr. Stephen Strange, brilliant but now broken surgeon, went down a very different path, so could our journeys in Christ. It could turn into quite a ride.

Peter Hofstra

Why Jesus Casting Out Demons Is Still So Important to Understand.

Began preaching in the book of Mark. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry is a good parallel for the beginning of the Christian faith in the weeks after Easter. It sets the tone for Jesus’ ministry.

This ministry is marked by the sharing of the word, casting out demons and evil spirits, healing the sick, and taking time away from the crowds to be spent in meditative prayer His Father. The turning point of these passages is the driving power of the Holy Spirit. It came down upon Jesus as His baptism. What is in it for us as Christians? What are the gifts of the spirit? How do we discern what we have in Jesus to do?

 So, if I am doing my job, the sermon should be an exposition of God’s Word to inspire worship in the faithful. In response to a sermon, we share an Affirmation of Faith, usually drawn from our Book of Confessions or Scripture. I draw on denominational resources for that, to connect with other churches as they draw together their own orders of worship. But I noticed that in our affirmation from the PCUSA’s “Brief Statement of Faith”, it gave a more comprehensive list of what it is that Jesus does among us, but did not specify the casting out of demons.

Not sure if that was an editing choice for the affirmation or something that points to a ‘kinder, gentler’ rendition of the faith. But it is difficult.

Finished a novel where the father of the main character was called a coward. It was at the beginning of the Second World War in Canada. This father mounted a campaign in Quebec designed to keep Canada out of the war. He did not believe in violence or that the nation, especially the French Canadian portion, should engage. In the plot of the novel, he managed to delay the entry as the two cultures in Canada negotiated things out.

To be against THAT war in any circumstances was unpopular. To be politically active about it was far worse. The gentleman does not enter the Army but joins the Red Cross instead, seeking to help that way. Which he does until British and Canadian troops liberate Bergen Belsen concentration camp, at which he is present. Where he admits that he was wrong. That there is evil to be fought against.

Was watching Daredevil, the Netflix adaptation now on Disney+. Matt Murdock was talking to his priest, when he asked the priest if he believed in the devil. The priest related a story of how he was in Rwanda during the genocide. Knew a good man in a village who helped everyone. The militia were seeking to get one tribe to murder the other, but they would not harm this good man. So the commander sent soldiers to do it. They went, met the good man, heard the stories, and they did not want to carry out the orders. So the commander himself came. Spoke to the good man for hours in his home. Finally, the commander brought him out and murdered him brutally in front of everyone. The point of the story? The priest had seen the devil in that commander.

So, okay pastor, these stories are fiction. No, they are real enough, but told within a fictionalized setting. That is what good fiction does. 

I want to believe in a kinder, gentler world, one where the devil can be relegated to myth or to the role of the boogyman. But I cannot. The world is not a kind, gentle place. Evil exists, the devil is embodied in human beings. And what the Bible tells us is that Jesus tossed demons and evil spirits out of people, AND THAT THOSE BEINGS FEARED HIM. They feared for their very existence.

Jesus saves us from our sin. I think it is good to be reminded exactly what He is saving us from. And what the Spirit did for Him can be done for us. 

Peter Hofstra

When They Mobbed the House Where Jesus Stayed

         From Mark 1: That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. vss. 32-22

          Can you imagine? Jesus was in church (okay, synagogue, the Jewish version of church) on a Sunday (okay, Saturday, the Jewish version of the Lord’s Day and, yes, the original one that we changed to Sunday because of Jesus’ resurrection), and he was teaching (okay, we pay ministers who need a Masters in Divinity, but Jesus was, lets face it, the true Master of the Divine, so we’ll give it to him) and there is a congregant possessed by an evil spirit.

          It might be argued that there are a lot more people like that in church than we have ever really thought about, but that is another blog post.

          In this case, the evil spirit knows Jesus, and reacts. Goes into the whole mover and shaker thing we associate with movies and shows. It seems to fear its own demise at the hands of God's Holy One.

          To make a long story short (and it is probably too late for that), Jesus tosses out the evil spirit in front of the whole congregation. And our verses at the lead of this post are the result.

          Now, the people follow the rules of Sabbath. Jesus and his disciples travel ‘a sabbath’s journey’, as far as Simon’s house. The rest of the city waits until sunset, as days are measured sunset to sunset, and then they move-when the day of rest is over.

          For us, it might be like gathering the collected persons on our prayer list, those whose names we lift in our time of concerns, those among our family and friends who are in hospital, rehab, nursing home, homebound, ill and infirmed, and carry them all to the door of the house where Jesus is staying, but this time physically instead of (I hope) prayerfully.

          We carry them in and they walk away, dancing and singing and praising God. When was the last time we prayed to our Lord Jesus in the sure and certain knowledge that this is what power he holds?

Peter Hofstra

Galilee, Jesus’ Home Base

          The Bible records that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  This is a town that is about an hour south of Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people.  Jerusalem itself is about halfway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River valley.  If you ever want to find it on a map, find the Jordan, follow it to where it intersects with the Dead Sea, that go west.  Jerusalem is perpendicular to the line of the Jordan.

          Why is this important?  History is said to be shaped by the geography in which it takes place.  And this includes the formation of the gospels.  We need to understand that around Jerusalem was the ‘heartland’ of the Jewish people.  It sits upon the remnants of what was the inheritance of Judah among the Twelve tribes.  It is ruled on behalf of the Romans by a ‘client king’, known to us as Herod from the gospels.

          It was in this territory where Jesus was welcomed by John the Baptizer.  John was baptizing at the Jordan River, welcoming people from the Judean countryside and from Jerusalem itself.  This same territory.  This is where Jesus is baptized by water and the Spirit, the water from John and the Spirit from God.

          From here, Jesus is sent by the Spirit into the desert.  He probably went south, toward the Negev.  As one travels further south through the land that makes up the modern nation of Israel, the more desert-like are the conditions.  Now, in Mark, this time is summed up very quickly. “…he was in the desert forty days being tempted by Satan.  He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.”

          From here, we have no clear sense of where Jesus was until John the Baptizer was arrested.  In that moment, Jesus went north.  To travel in the Promised Land at the time of Jesus, in the southern regions was desert.  This desert extended west to Egypt across the Negev and east across the nation of Jordan into Saudi Arabia.  Coming up from the Negev is the Judean countryside, an area that is ‘feast or famine’.  When the rain is sufficient, it is a bounty.  When not, it is an extension of the desert.  It rises into the hill country, with Jerusalem at the head of those hills.

          Keep going north, one enters the hill country of Samaria.  It was said that armies seeking each other in this territory could literally march past each other around opposite sides of one of the hills.  This area was politically and culturally separated from the area of Jerusalem.  The Samaritans and the Jews were at odds with one another, sharing the same religion, but convinced the other was ‘doing it wrong’. 

          When it led to strife, it is compared to the Civil War in the US, where there was such hatred between north and south, between children of the same nation.

          The gospel records Jesus making specific excursions into Samaria, but when John was arrested, when the politics around Jerusalem got a little warm for those connected to John, Jesus went even further north.  There is no clear highway through Samaria, but rather alongside.  One could go up the coast or up the Jordan Valley.  The Valley seems to be the preferred route.  That took one to the Sea of Galilee, the northern terminus of the Jordan, and into the Jezreel Valley, far enough north with that much more rain that it was swamp laden.

          This is where Jesus grew up, in a little town called Nazareth.  He knew the space, spoke with that accent.  Mark records that Jesus recruited his first disciples from among the fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, preached and did miracles at the synagogue in Capernaum-on the shore of that Sea.  This area was connected to Judea as a place of ‘proper’ Jews according to the leadership in Jerusalem.  It was also under a different political authority, although the people would still travel to Jerusalem for the festivals as that was the center of Jewish worship at the time.

          For Jesus, it was his home.  It never carried the threats to his health and safety that Jerusalem did.  He was out of reach of the political and religious authorities.  So after John’s arrest, it was a natural place for him to go until he was ready for his own challenge to Jerusalem. 

          It is where Jesus will develop his ministry and his base of followers.

So What Exactly Is The Bible?

           Sixty six books, of a wide variety of literature types, including some that are unique to this book.  The fancy word is “Canon”, the accepted ‘God-inspired’ list of the biblical books.  This is so important, it is shared in the second paragraph of the first section of the Westminster Confession of Faith, perhaps the most central document to the Presbyterian Church’s historic confessions. (http://files1.wts.edu/uploads/pdf/about/WCF_30.pdf) But what are they?

          First, two ‘testaments’ worth, the Old and the New, essentially pre- and post-Jesus.  There are 39 in the old and 27 in the New.  But on the whole, the Old Testament books are quite a bit longer than their New Testament counterparts so it is around three quarters the length of the gathered document.  Then they break out as follows:

“The Torah”: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  Attributed to Moses, this is the Law of Moses.  It takes us from creation to the edge of the people entering into the Promised Land.  It is history, law, covenant, sacred architecture, census, narrative, anecdote, and so much more.  The Ten Commandments show up twice.  These books serve as the legal and historic foundation for the people of Israel.

“The Histories”: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.  It takes us from Jericho-at the invasion of the Promised Land, to the Restoration after the Babylonian Exile.  It is not a continuous history, but there is overlap.  There are also some ‘one off’ stories (Ruth & Esther), and a compilation of such stories (Judges). 

“The Poetry”: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon.  This is a more diverse list.  Job is ALL about suffering.  The Psalms serve as the hymn book of the Old Testament.  Proverbs are just those.  Ecclesiastes is a hard reflection on life. The Song of Solomon is erotic poetry.  Yup. It is.

“The Prophets”, Major and Minor.  The Majors are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (a second piece attributed to Jeremiah), Ezekiel, and Daniel.  They are major because they are longer.

The Minors provide a great pool of names to get your child picked on in school, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obabiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Malachi.

The books of the Prophets contain their words as commanded by God, sometimes with historic context and even some narrative to set the stage, but often without.

          This brings us then to the New Testament, again, 27 books.

“The Gospels”: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, four books covering essentially the same time period and the same person.  Each has a different point of view, there are commonalities and differences in the narrative, but in the end, they come to the same place, Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. 

“The History”: The Acts of the Apostles is the only dedicated book relating history in the New Testament.  It is not a stand-alone, but is part two to the gospel of Luke (we know this because both are addressed to Theophilus).  It takes us from Jesus’ Ascension to Paul’s being transited to Rome in an appeal to the emperor (I invite you to read it to find out why an apostle has the power to appeal to the emperor).  It seems to be a gathering of tales about various apostles and their work at the establishment of the church.

“The Pauline Epistles”: Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.  They are called “Pauline” because they are written by Paul, according to the testimony of the text (but scholars like to argue about this stuff).  The first batch are written to churches that Paul has or is going to while the last four are to those so named in the title.  It is personal correspondence of which we only have one half, Paul’s.

“The Anonymous Epistle”: Hebrews. In the line of Paul’s correspondence, this one is written to the Jewish people, providing powerful and explicit connections between Jesus and what came before, what comes in the Old Testament.  We do not have an author listed but some suspect Paul and others suspect just about everyone else you can think of. 

“The General Epistles”: Or, the epistles of everyone else, James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1 & 2 & 3 John, and Jude.  Unlike the more specifically targeted correspondence that comes before, these seem to be regionally addressed, thus attributed to the authors instead of the destinations.

“The Apocalypse”: or the Book of Revelations, the book of the End Times.  Written by John (traditionally the one of the Gospel and the trio of Epistles), it is filled with imagery and a ‘history’ of the end of time.  The most important thing to remember is that the Good Guys win. 

          So this is the Canon of the Protestant Church, the ‘top’ 66.  There are a few more books in the Roman Catholic Bible, which we (the Protestants) collectively refer to as the Apocrypha.  That is not my tradition and I do not have much familiarity with them.  What I will say is what the Westminster Confession says, “The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings”. (Chapter 1, Section III).

          SO THEN, where does one start?  Gospels.  Start at the gospels.  That is Jesus, the Reason.  I like John as a starting point, it makes no bones about the connection of Jesus and God from verse 1.  If you do Luke, you will see it is written as a ‘comprehensive’ account for Theophilus, Part 1 to Acts as Part 2.  Mark is the shortest.  Matthew starts with a genealogy-important to set the context of the time-but something of a snooze-fest to the uninitiated.

 

If You Like Murder Stories with Unique Twists and Turns, This Is For You. Holy Week and Murder.

             This blog is about Bible things, so how about a beginning? Look to Jesus, in four gospels, as the centerpiece of the Bible. How about from the point of view of murder? Through the eyes of multiple witnesses?

          The Japanese move “Rashomon” did it, Law and Order tried a series based on this idea, Star Trek: The Next Generation used this to profound effect.  What are the points of view of varying witnesses? What did each person see and how was it different, in detail if not in the main points? How does one find the ‘truth’ in and amongst these different ways of looking?

          Such are the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Four people writing four accounts of the gospel of Jesus, the Good News of Jesus. Why four? Why not? According to how the New Testament was assembled into an ‘official’ form, one key convention was that the gospels included needed to be in wide circulation among the congregations of the time, telling this story of murder.

          There is something of a bitter irony, now that we are in Holy Week, that the Gospels are of a similar nature to the modern media use of multiple perspectives.  The centerpiece of each gospel too is a death, but strangely, we do not usually call it ‘murder’, although it fits the criteria.

          Murder is a human planned, intentional (if in the first degree) process to kill another human being.  Which is exactly what was done to Jesus.  The Leadership planned his death, dragging him up on false charges for a “conviction” and then using the threat of political unrest to manipulate the Romans into carrying out his execution.

          Unlike a ‘typical’ murder portrayed in the media, this one did not end in the arrest and conviction of the murderers, but their forgiveness. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Jesus, on the cross). But if they were somehow tried and convicted, how do you sentence murderers when the victim is resurrected to new life?

          Another question to ask is if the victim knows they are going to die, and they share that information generally in their circle of acquaintances, knowing full well they will rise again, do they have some kind of conspiratorial involvement in this murder? (Or is it attempted murder? Or maybe failed murder? Or murder reversed?)

          A significant story arc in each gospel is how Jesus gets to that point, the point of the conspiracy that is carried out to murder him. It is about the power of authority and who wields it, a combined religious and political authority that the conspirators-who held the power-felt threatened by Jesus and his agenda. It might be shown from the gospels that Jesus, the victim, did not only have foreknowledge of his impending murder, but that he acted out in a way that premeditated his death. Normally, a murder fits into the plans of the murderer (often sick and twisted though the plans may be). In this case, the victim, Jesus, drove the story to the point where they had him killed. But again, that was not the end point. The end came in Jesus’ resurrection.

          That is why the key to understanding the bible, for me, comes in seeking out Jesus. In particular, seeking out what is happening in the conspiracy of His murder, which ends not in his death, but his restoration to new life. There are four witness accounts, four gospels, to be considered for their testimony about Jesus. Read the accounts with an eye to consider why Jesus died. And, even more significantly, why Jesus rose again.