Jan 28 | “Shedding Light, Shedding Blood” (Sermon, January 28th)

Mark 4:1-20

4Again he began to teach beside the lake. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the lake on the land. ²He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: ³â€˜Listen! A sower went out to sow. ⁴And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. ⁶And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. ⁷Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. ⁸Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’ ⁹And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’

10 When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. ¹¹And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; ¹²in order that
“they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.”’

13 And he said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? ¹⁴The sower sows the word. ¹⁵These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. ¹⁶And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. ¹⁷But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. ¹⁸And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, ¹⁹but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. ²⁰And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.’

 

“‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that
“they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.”’

Well, that sucks.

Doesn’t jive very well with what we say about Jesus, does it? We’re used to “Ask and it will be given unto you.” Who is this Jesus who lays traps for the crowd – a crowd so large that he needs to be in a boat to accommodate them all? Who is this trickster who teaches in order to obfuscate – not just to obfuscate, but to exclude?

Those of us at seminary sometimes call the writer of Mark “The Cop.” “Just the facts, ma’am.” There’s nothing superfluous in Mark. Everything there is there on purpose: it has to serve the story. This makes Mark a masterful author – even better than some authors on the bestseller list today. His is likely the oldest of the Gospels in our canon, maybe written twenty to forty years after the death of Jesus.

Christians during this time were struggling to understand how it could be that the man they called the Saviour of the World could have been subjected to such a brutal and humiliating death. Others mocked them, deriding the weakness and futility of a god that could be killed as a criminal. And it was hard to argue.

Already some were claiming that Jesus had been the Messiah all along. There is debate now and I believe there was debate then over whether or not Jesus had actually told people he was the Messiah while he was alive. Mark is unclear. Not just the crowd but the disciples are portrayed as dimwits who never figure it out. Every time the subject comes up around Jesus he appears to shush people. “He sternly ordered them to tell no-one what they had seen.”

Either way, it was hard for new followers who had not known Jesus personally to believe that the Anointed One of God had been the same as the one who suffered a gruesome execution at the hands of the state. How could this be part of God’s plan?

One of the ways that the writer of Mark appears to be trying to make sense of it all is to explore the theme of hiddenness. In this passage we just heard, Jesus says that parables are there so that those outside will not understand (and even the disciples need it explained). In following passages, we hear Jesus say, “Nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest.”

Well, that’s a relief! We might as well end there! Ah, but – why bother hiding at all if it’s only going to be made manifest later?

This is Mark’s masterstroke: One hides in order to make manifest.

That makes absolutely no sense! No – we need some help. So very quickly let’s look at the boundary of this passage. The first word you heard was “Again.” So it’s related to what came before. What’s it referring to? Today, for our purposes, let’s check the last time that boat was mentioned. The disciples brought a boat so that Jesus wouldn’t be crushed by the crowds rushing forward to be healed. What else was going on? Unclean spirits were shouting at him: “You are the Son of God!” And he tells them to shut up. “He ordered them not to make him known.” Again, the original Greek is helpful: one of the words used is related to the word “light.” One could – rather creatively – translate it, “He ordered them not to shed any light on him.”

It’s not time yet.

It is not the season for figs. My hour has not yet come.

The crucifixion is what will shed the light – because that is what God intended. For Mark, shedding light is shedding blood.

This might sound extreme, even vile. It is, a little – we are working within a paradigm that is so far removed from our time that it might as well be alien. We don’t sacrifice animals anymore, so this idea might not work for us. So how can we make it work?

How about this: Bread can only be shared if it is broken. Wine can only be drunk if it is poured out. The life of Christ is a cruciform life, a life of sacrificial self-giving. This is not a call to an unhealthy martyrdom – if there is no bread left to be broken, everyone goes hungry, and the bread is exhausted. A seed withers unless it has good soil for a home.

Draw near then, brothers and sisters, and feed on the bread of heaven, which is never exhausted, and go forth, fearing neither birds, nor sun, nor stones, nor thorns. Draw near and drink living water, and bubble up unto everlasting life.