Week beginning 15 October 2018
Gospel Readings:
Mark 1:14-20
Mark 1:21-28
Mark 1:29-34
Exodus 19:1-8
Devotion 1
Wait: Take time to sit in silence together, allowing space for God’s voice to be heard.
Read: Mark 1:14-15
Jesus’ public ministry begins here against the backdrop of imperial power highlighted by the arrest of John by Herod Antipas.
The imprisonment of John the Baptist, the wild and woolly wilderness preacher, signals that start of Jesus’ mission (not the death of a great king, as was the case for Isaiah), and it begins among the dispossessed of Galilee (not among the priestly classes of the capital city of Jerusalem). It is a mission from the periphery, from beyond the borders of respectability, and it begins out in the country among the marginalised.1
Jesus, speaking in the Galilean context of the exploitation and domination of peasant villages and their local economies of farming and fishing, proclaims the “good news” not of Caesar, but of God. Mark summarises his message with the words, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news.” For the peasant farmers and fishing families of Galilee, it is a call away from living with broken communities and crushed spirits, and to begin living as though they believe that another world is possible. To see just what that world—which Mark calls “the kingdom of God”—looks like, we will have to journey through the rest of the story.
Reflect
- How do you understand the kingdom of God?
- Imagine you belong to a village community struggling under the weight of imperial occupation exploitation. What might God’s restoration look like to you?
- What might the enacting Jesus’ words, “repent and believe” look like for you this week?
Pray
Share Communion
Close with the Lord’s Prayer
1 Athol Gill, Life on the Road, (Springvale: UNOH, 2009), 20.
Devotion 2
Wait: Take time to sit in silence together, aware of God’s presence in a broken world.
Read: Mark 1:16-20
The setting along the Sea of Galilee and amongst fishermen would bring to mind for Mark’s hearers and socio-economic situation of life on the underside. The fishing industry around Lake Galilee was an industry of exploitation and monopolisation, where the catches of fishermen were “largely requisitioned by the Romans to supply mobile protein (i.e., salted fish) for the endless needs of the imperial army and for trade.”2 John Dominic-Crossan explains that, “There were probably taxes for every stage of fishing – for having a boat, for fishing with dragnets, maybe even for casting a net from the shore.3 For the peasant fishermen who worked the lake, it was as though every fish they caught was a reminder that Rome owned the lake and the fish in it.
Into this setting, Jesus invites two fishermen, Simon and Andrew, to “[f]ollow me and I will make you fishers of people.” The words are the first “call to discipleship” in Mark’s Gospel—an invitation to “break with business as usual.”4 They are a call to gather people to collectively imagine life under the “kingdom of God”—what life would be like if things were as God wants them to be.
This call is extended to two other fishermen as well, James and Jon, whose sense of freedom in their newfound vocation is contrasted with “the hired men” who remain in the boat to continue catching fish to serve the imperial economy.
God is doing something new, and we get the feeling that life is going to be found in getting in on whatever it is.
Reflect
- Imagine that you are one of the fishermen on Lake Galilee hearing Jesus’ call to discipleship. What would stir you to follow him? What might cause you to hesitate?
- In ways do you sense God’s Spirit inviting you to live out this story?
Pray for one another.
Share Communion
Close with the Lord’s Prayer
2 Howard-Brook, Wes, Come Out, My People!’ (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2010), 402.
3 John Dominic Crossan, The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer. (Pymble: Harper Collins e-Books, 2010), 125.
4 Ched Myers, Binding the Strongman: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. 20th Anniversary ed. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2008), 133.
Devotion 3
Wait: Take time to sit in the silence of repentance together, aware of our inadequacy and God’s grace.
Read: Mark 1:21-28
Here we find the first of three exorcism stories in Mark’s gospel. For the first time we find Jesus approaching a central space, no longer in the “wilderness” of the margins. Here, in this central space, his modus operandi is not invitation, but confrontation.
At the beginning and the end of this story Mark gives us a clue as to what is at issue with his repetition of the word authority. Jesus teaches ‘as one having authority’, in contrast to the scribes, who do not have authority. The following exchange needs to be read in this light.
Ched Myers reads the identification of the man “in their synagogue” as one who is representative of the synagogue, perhaps himself a scribe. The unclean spirit, then, is speaking on behalf of the synagogue rulers.5 Verse 24 makes good sense in this framework. We will find later that Jesus does indeed call for the overthrow of the Temple establishment in Jerusalem (Mk 11:20-24), of which the synagogue acts as a representative. The unclean spirit here names Jesus, a way in the ancient world of asserting control over someone. Jesus, though, will not be controlled. Jesus exorcises the spirit, and the people are amazed. But it doesn’t seem to be his exorcism they are amazed at – it is his teaching, and the authority it carries. We’re not told here, though, just what that teaching is.
The battle for authority will run all through Mark’s gospel, and will culminate in Jesus’ trial. As we read the narrative, we’re invited to look at the actions and words of Jesus and to see for ourselves just what it is that made the people exclaim, ‘What is this? A new teaching – with authority!’
Reflect
- In what ways have you seen authority used or abused?
- Why do you think the people saw Jesus as having authority?
- In what ways do you hear God’s voice in today’s reading?
Pray
Share Communion
Close with the Lord’s Prayer
5 Myers, Binding the Strongman, 142.
Devotion 4
Wait: Take time to sit in the silence of gratitude together, giving thanks for the ways you’ve experienced God’s loving kindness.
This week’s Common Value:Commitment to each other and a particular place.
Read: Exodus 19:1-8
Ask
- How might we put into practice our commitment to one another and this neighbourhood this week?
Pray
Share Communion
Close with the Lord’s Prayer