Tag: Mark

Morning Musing: Mark 10:5-9

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“But Jesus told them, ‘He wrote this command for you because of the hardness of your hearts. But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In many of the weddings I’ve done and attended over the years, a common feature of the ceremony was some sort of a symbolic unity ritual. Most often it has been a candle. Two candles are lit at the beginning of the service and during the affair, the bride and groom take up their candle and use them to simultaneously light a third. Sometimes it has been a sand ceremony. Here, two different colors of sand are poured from their respective vessels into a third resulting in a mixing of colors. One time the couple weaved a braid together into a cord of three strands. The point of these exercises is to signify the permanence of the relationship being formed. Why is this kind of thing included in so many wedding ceremonies, and how should we think about this in a day when divorce is common and marriage rates are falling? Let’s turn today and tomorrow to some words from Jesus that speak right to the heart of this issue and see what kind of clarity He brings to the matter for us.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 10:1

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“He set out from there and went to the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Then crowds converged on him again, and as was his custom he taught them again.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been interrupted? Of course you have. Life is, in some ways, a long string of interruptions from what we’d rather be doing. Some of the interruptions we invite into our lives, but others just happen. Learning to successfully manage interruptions is a critical skill to develop if we want to get along well in life. If we are going to learn how to manage interruptions better than we already do, one of the first things we need to learn is how to discern what kind of interruption we are facing. Is it an interruption over which we have some measure of control, or one that is completely out of our hands? Those are the two main options for what kind of interpolation our schedule is going to have to manage. But there is a third kind and a third way of looking at things here. We catch a glimpse of this here in Jesus’ life. Let’s look closely to see what it is and what it means for us.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 9:43-47

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“And if your hand causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and go to hell, the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to fall away, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to fall away, gouge it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In 1986 a new term was coined to describe a certain class of radio disc-jockeys: Shock jock. Shock jocks were radio personalities who pushed the envelop of what was socially and morally acceptable (not to mentioned allowed by the FCC) as far as they possibly could in order to keep their audiences coming back for more. The idea of saying unexpected or potentially offensive things to get people to listen, though, has been around for a long time. While this kind of thing has often been a tool of comedians, its use goes further back than that. Using a bit of shock to get His audience to pay attention was actually something Jesus liked to do on occasion. Here is perhaps the most famous example of his doing this. Let’s talk about it.

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Morning Musing: Mark 9:41-42

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“And whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ – truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away – it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

If you want to get in good with me, do you know the best way to do that? Love my kids. My kids rank pretty high on my list of priorities. In terms of the people I care most about in the world, there’s only one person who outranks them and I’m married to her. If you treat them in a way that reflects my passion for them, you’re going to be sitting pretty firmly in my good graces. In fact, if you love my kids well, even if I’m not terribly inclined to like you myself, I’m going to give you a pretty strong benefit of the doubt and you’ll have to work pretty hard before I write you off. The simple truth is – and if you’re a parent you know this – we love the folks who love our kids. On the other hand, if you’re ugly to my kids, I don’t much care how kind or generous or gracious you are with me, you and I are done. As we keep inching forward in Mark’s Gospel, what we see here reveals that Jesus feels the same way. His family just happens to be a whole lot larger than yours and mine.

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Digging in Deeper: Mark 9:38-40

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“John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us.’ ‘Don’t stop him,’ said Jesus, ‘because there is no one who will perform a miracle in my name who can soon afterward speak evil of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We are naturally tribal. Our world has always been divided into two groups: Us and them. Now, sure, the exact makeup of those two groups changes. There are all kinds of different “uses” and all kinds of different “thems.” A person might fall into both categories within the same group of people depending on which particular flavor of us and them is being considered at the moment. But while there is all kinds of variety when it comes to exactly who goes in which group and when, the basic dividing line between us and them remains consistent. It is natural. It always has been. When Jesus came and began teaching about the kingdom of God, He didn’t try and tell us to operate differently. Surprised by that? Jesus didn’t try to undo our tribalistic impulse. He simply invited us to think about ourselves as part of a much bigger tribe.

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