{"id":1223,"date":"2010-05-18T14:54:03","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T14:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=660"},"modified":"2017-08-26T15:26:29","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T19:26:29","slug":"marks-gospel-4-counter-culture-jesus-aldred-h-neufeldt-may-16-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1223","title":{"rendered":"Mark's Gospel 4: Counter-culture Jesus – Aldred H. Neufeldt – May 16, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

View Archived Sermons <\/a><\/p>\n

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Text:\u00a0 Mark 2: 18-22<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/font>Introduction<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>Both last Sunday and today we have been and are blessed by the addition new members to our community of faith.\u00a0 It\u2019s a blessing in a number of ways.\u00a0 Most immediately, there is the simple joy of celebrating the joining itself \u2013 whether by transfer and confession of faith or by baptism.\u00a0 Then there is the blessing of coming to know new people \u2013 both for those who have been here for a while and for those joining.\u00a0 More distally, there is the blessing that comes from the ways in which our congregational culture will be enriched.\u00a0 Each person brings her or his own unique cultural heritage to join the mix that already is here. Pastor Marilyn referred to such enrichment in the introductory remarks to her sermon last Sunday.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>Our cultures, both individually and collectively, are not to be taken lightly \u2013 indeed, we should take them very seriously because they explain so much about who and what we are.\u00a0 I\u2019m not talking about the obvious manifestations of culture \u2013 the differences in language, or foods, or family traditions. Important as they are, it is the deeper invisible aspects of culture that are really important \u2013 that part of our culture which most of us are not even aware of, but which act like a filter through which we see and understand the world.\u00a0 We become aware of our deeply personal cultural assumptions only in those rare moments when we step out of our familiar surroundings \u2013 like a fish that is unable to understand the concept of water until it is out of the pond. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>Most everyone here will have had such an experience \u2013 perhaps the first time you came face to face with different ways of thinking about what it means to be on time, or different attitudes about cleanliness, or different ways of thinking about honesty and fair play. Was your first response one of frustration, thinking \u201cwhy can\u2019t they do it the way I\u2019m used to?\u201d\u00a0 Or of bemused tolerance, thinking \u201cit may work for them, but it\u2019s not for me?\u201d\u00a0 Or, of curiosity, thinking \u201chmmm\u2026. interesting\u2026. maybe there is something I can learn from that?\u201d Such aspects of culture are deeply ingrained, absorbed into our very beings, and difficult to change.\u00a0 I should know.\u00a0 I married a woman who learned from her father that to be on time meant one should be there 10 minutes early \u2013 to me, 10 minutes late was fine.\u00a0 By the grace of God, and considerable tolerance, our marriage has survived 47 years despite periodic tensions over our different assumptions about time.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>It is this question of culture that is at the heart of my sermon today \u2013 not the silly part about time \u2013 but the deeper and more important part of culture, gained early in life \u2013 in particular, the cultural context within which Jesus grew up and how that is reflected in his ministry. <\/font>

<\/strong><\/font>The Culture and Politics of Jesus\u2019 Day<\/font><\/strong>
<\/font>Earlier sermons in this series on Mark\u2019s Gospel have made several important points I want to build on.\u00a0 One was that Mark\u2019s Gospel emphasizes the teachings of Jesus as \u2018the way\u2019 to the kingdom of God.\u00a0 A second is that the Gospel inexorably pulls one to Jerusalem, and Jesus\u2019 confrontation with the powers there.\u00a0 A third is that his disciples found it difficult to understand, to see, the meaning of Jesus\u2019 teachings until after his death and resurrection. \u00a0<\/font>

<\/strong><\/font>1.<\/strong> The Two Processions on Palm Sunday.<\/strong>\u00a0 Let me begin with that final week of Jesus in Jerusalem.\u00a0 Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30.\u00a0 (1) It was the beginning of the week of Passover, the most sacred week of the Jewish year.\u00a0 One was a peasant procession \u2013 the other an imperial procession. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>From the east came Jesus, riding a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers with shouts of Hosanna, leafy branches on the road, entering Jerusalem through the Sheep gate near the temple.\u00a0 Jesus came from the peasant village of Nazareth, and most of his followers were peasants.\u00a0 Jesus and some of those followers had journeyed from Galilee, about 100 miles to the north, and now arrived in Jerusalem.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>On the opposite side of the city, from the west, came Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea and Samaria, at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and foot soldiers, trumpets announcing their approach to the west gates and the fortress Antonia overlooking the temple. Pilate and his troops came from \u2018Caesarea on the Sea,\u2019 about 60 miles to the west, where Roman governors of the time lived. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>Jesus would have known about Pilate\u2019s procession, as would all Jews, for it was the standard practice of Roman governors of Judea to be in Jerusalem for major Jewish festivals.\u00a0 They did so, not out of empathy or reverence for the religious devotion of their Jewish subjects, but to be in the city in case there was trouble.\u00a0 They had cause for concern.\u00a0 It was not uncommon, especially at Passover, to have a festival celebrating the liberation of Jewish people from an earlier empire.\u00a0 So, it wasn\u2019t just happenstance that Jesus rode a donkey colt into Jerusalem.\u00a0 As Mark tells it (11: 1 \u2013 11), the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem seems to be a prearranged counter-procession \u2013 planned in advance to contrast with the symbolism of Pilate\u2019s procession. Pilot\u2019s train of soldiers embodied the power, glory and violence of the empire that ruled the world. The Jesus procession recalled imagery from the Jewish Bible and symbolized an alternate vision to earthly kingdoms, the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God \u2013 the power of empire!<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>This Palm Sunday ride was not just about the earthly power and Roman gods Pilate represented \u2013 it was as much to challenge the way in which the temple had been corrupted into an arm of Rome\u2019s presence.\u00a0 The Jewish temple leaders were full collaborators with Rome.\u00a0 From the time of Julius Caesar and before, Rome\u2019s approach to occupation was to make a deal with local leaders \u2013 they could keep their positions of power so long as they collected Rome\u2019s imperial taxes, and kept the peace to Rome\u2019s liking.\u00a0 In Judea at the time of Jesus these were the temple authorities that Mark speaks of as \u2018the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes\u2019 (e.g. 14:53).\u00a0\u00a0 All owed their positions and wealth to Rome.\u00a0 Rome kept the priestly class off balance by appointing the high priest of the temple at its will. So, the high priest and temple authorities walked a fine line between collaborating enough with Rome to keep Rome happy, but
\nnot so much as to anger their Jewish subjects. Moreover, the wealth of both the priestly class and lay wealthy came from the work of the ordinary people \u2013 the peasants, some 90% of the total population, the agricultural laborers, and fisher folk, and artisans of an agrarian society living in hamlets, villages and small towns, who were the producers of the wealth that was taxed or otherwise taken by the wealthy and their retainers living in cities. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>So, it is to the peasants in particular that Jesus directs his message about the kingdom of God and \u201cthe way\u201d \u2013 though it should be remembered there were individual scribes, Pharisees and other members of the council such as Joseph of Arimathea (15:43-46) who were followers \u2013 but these were in the minority.<\/font>

<\/strong><\/font>2.<\/strong> The Cultural Back Story.\u00a0<\/strong> There is a cultural back-story to the Palm Sunday procession worth exploring.\u00a0 It has to do with what shaped Jesus, as well as his disciples. Over the past several decades quite a bit has been learned from literary and archeological sources about what life was like for a growing boy in a small rural village like Nazareth. One Franciscan scholar in Jerusalem puts it this way: (2)<\/font><\/p>\n

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All Jewish boys learned to read and write in their own family. The only known book was the (Jewish) Bible. Parchments were very expensive. Dressed in his \u201ctallit\u201d (prayer shawl with fringes), the child learned the history of his own people by hearing commentaries on the texts proclaimed each Shabbat in the synagogue. He gradually assimilated the history of Israel; the election, the promises, the covenant, the gift of the land, the law. He learned how to sing the psalms, in particular the \u201cHallel\u201d. Two times a day, he recited the \u201cShema Israel\u201d and the prayer of \u201cShemone Esre\u201d. He wore \u201cphylacteries\u201d and did not shave the hair of his temples, as prescribed in the Bible. <\/font><\/p>\n

At the age of twelve, Jesus went down to the Temple of Jerusalem to make his \u201cbar mitswa\u201d, to become a \u201cson of the commandment\u201d like all young Jewish boys. He talked with the teachers who marveled at his wisdom. He discovered the Temple with its priests, its merchants, and its brightly colored and boisterous crowd. To His parents who searched for Him, He answered that He had to be about His Father\u2019s affairs. He already had a deep awareness of his relationship with God whom He called His Father. <\/font><\/p>\n

Returning to Nazareth, Jesus was subject to Mary and Joseph, and ever close to the ordinariness of life. He was not an idle dreamer. Later, in his teaching, he compared the Reign of God to a lamp which gave light to the entire house, or to yeast which a woman took and kneaded into three measures of flour, and which made all the dough rise, or still better, of seed sown in the earth which grew up irresistibly, whether man was awake or asleep. <\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


<\/font>Whether or not this account is exactly correct, it is evident from Jesus\u2019 teaching that the memories of his childhood were never far off. The images he used \u2013 the lilies of the fields, the birds that ate the grain on the road, the widow who demanded justice and that of the unjust judge \u2013 reveals a deep religious sensitivity to ordinary life.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>At the same time, he was sensitive to the political and religious context of his time. Even in early life his horizons would have expanded beyond Nazareth and even Galilee.\u00a0 Sepphoris, the Capital of Galilee, was not more than a few kilometers from the village of his childhood.\u00a0 Even if he never went there, Jesus would have heard about the Roman town, with its own theater, villas and banks \u2013 a new culture, occupied by strangers, very close at hand. \u201cWhy were the Romans in the land promised to our fathers?\u201d is a question he must have heard many a time. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>He also would have heard stories about the high priests in Jerusalem, about how the temple was to be the dwelling place of God and the mediator of forgiveness through sacrifice; and, how it now collected not only the tithes for the temple, but also the imperial tax for Rome.\u00a0 All this must have been the cause for gossip and unhappiness amongst the adults he knew.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>The Counter Culture Jesus<\/font><\/strong>
<\/font>Such was the context in which the Jesus and his disciples grew up \u2013 and in which Jesus formulated his counter-cultural vision of the kingdom of God and \u2018the way\u2019 to the kingdom. From the beginning of Mark\u2019s Gospel we hear the words \u201cThe time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is near\u201d (1:15).\u00a0 The phrase \u2018kingdom of God\u2019 was a political as well as religious metaphor.\u00a0 To his listeners it would have suggested a kingdom very different from the kingdoms they knew, very different from the domination they experienced from Jerusalem.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>According to Mark, Jesus\u2019 message and activity immediately involves him in conflict with authorities.\u00a0 The scripture text I chose for today provides one small illustration.\u00a0\u00a0 John\u2019s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, Jesus and his disciples were not.\u00a0 Jewish Law required only one fast, on the Day of Atonement, though Pharisees adopted a more rigorous regimen, fasting twice a week and on days commemorating certain historical events.\u00a0\u00a0 Whatever the reason for their fast, Jesus responds to the Pharisees by saying: \u201cwho fasts at a wedding?\u201d\u00a0 Everyone knew a wedding celebration normally lasted 7 days \u2013 and, one fasts only when the wedding is over. \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>The passage then continues with two well known pieces of homey wisdom \u2013 \u201cno one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; if he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skin, and the wine is lost, and so are his skins; but the new wine is for fresh skins.\u201d<\/em> (v. 21-22).\u00a0 The message to the Pharisees is that there is a need for reform, and reform won\u2019t come from those in power \u2013 the \u2018old wineskins\u2019, the \u2018old garment\u2019.\u00a0 There is a new wine being fermented, and it will need new wineskins that can expand under pressure until the wine matures.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>Both here and in subsequent passages throughout Mark\u2019s Gospel, Jesus consistently sides with people on the fringe of the established order \u2013 the peasants. His ministry in Galilee, and on the outskirts of the more glamorous and beautiful city of Jerusalem, included healing lepers, touching blind people, eating with the poor and the sick, allowing those with no social status to come eat at the table. He ministered to prostitutes, to aliens, to widows, to foreigners. He condemned the domination system for its abuse and the oppression of those without power. Pursuit of economic and political gain in the middle of such rampant oppression, Jesu
\ns argues, is an affront to the nature of God\u2019s kingdom.\u00a0 Power, Jesus demonstrates, comes through powerlessness. If you want to be the greatest of all, you must become the least of all. <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>To be clear, the conflict Jesus had was not about priests or about wealth as such.\u00a0 There are accounts of encounters with people of wealth or the priestly class that are positive.\u00a0 Rather, Jesus\u2019 protest was against a domination system, which the temple leaders sought to legitimate in the name of God. And, his counter-cultural message and approach brought him face-to-face with that dominant power system.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>Concluding Thoughts<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/font>That brings us back to the beginning.\u00a0 As we, individually, search how to be faithful to the Jesus vision, we might remember that two processions entered Jerusalem on that day in the year 30.\u00a0 The same question, the same alternatives face us today as then.\u00a0 Will we be people who are most shaped by our affluence, our wealth and class position, or by our identity as followers of Christ?\u00a0 Which procession are we in?\u00a0 Which one do we want to be in? \u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font>Collectively, we do take a stance.\u00a0 In TUMC we emphasize living together peacefully and simply as we continue the work of Jesus. We do not pursue relevance. We do not pursue glitz. Though we\u2019re not always successful, we seek to carry out the practices of Jesus in our effort to live as a community of counter-culture. <\/font><\/div>\n

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Endnotes:<\/font><\/strong><\/font>
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1. <\/font>I owe a debt to Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan\u2019s book The Last Week (Harper Collins, 2006) for their contrast of the two processions and their analysis of the context in which they occurred.<\/font>
\u00a0<\/font>
2. Fr. Frederick Manns (1998).\u00a0 Everyday life in the time of Jesus.\u00a0 Accessed from URL: http:\/\/198.62.75.1\/www1\/ofm\/mag\/TSmgenB3.html<\/font>
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View Archived Sermons \u00a0 Text:\u00a0 Mark 2: 18-22 Introduction Both last Sunday and today we have been and are blessed by the addition new members to our community of faith.\u00a0 It\u2019s a blessing in a number of ways.\u00a0 Most immediately, there is the simple joy of celebrating the joining itself \u2013 whether by transfer and confession of faith or by baptism.\u00a0 Then there is the blessing of coming to know new people \u2013 both for those who have been here…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4006,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1223\/revisions\/4006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}