Revelation 13.11->

Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.

It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. It works great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of men; and by the signs which it was allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives thos who dwell on earth, bidding them make an image for the beast which was wounded by the sword and yet lived; and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast should even speak, and to cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.

This calls for wisdom: Let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number; its number is six hundred and sixty six.

Revelation 13.1-10

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns and a blashemous name upon its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's; and its mouth was like a lion's mouth.

And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth followed the beast with wonder.

Men worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying "Who is like the beast? And who can fight against it?"

And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blashemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months; it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in Heaven. Also, it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and tongue and nation. And all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.

If anyone has an ear, let him hear:

If anyone is to be taken captive,
to captivity he goes;
if anyone slays with the sword;
with the sword must he be slain.

Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints!

Revelation 12.13->

And when the dragon saw that he'd been thrown down to the earth, he persued the woman who had borne the male child. But the woman was given the wings of a great eagle, that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, where she is to be nourished for 3 1/2 years.

The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth, to sweep the woman away with the flood. But the earth came to the aid of the woman, and swallowed the river which the dragon had poured from his mouth.

Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep God's commandments and bear testimony to Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

Revelation 12.7-12

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.

And the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called The Devil, and Satan--the deceiver of the whole world--He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

And I heard a loud voice in Heaven, saying, "Now the salvation and the power and the reign of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their own lives even unto death. Rejoice then, O heaven and you that dwell therein! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows his time is short!"

Revelation 12.1-6

And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for her delivery.

And another portent appeared in heaven, behold: a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth.

She brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the earth with a rod of iron; but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

back in Revelation

This is still a problematic book.

Either it drove off the previous tenants of this blog, or I did. It's a scarey book, as Quakerbear said, and I've always had real mixed feelings about it.

Is it prediction? Or symbolic? What happened, or what will happen, or what always happens?

In this part that just ended, God has taken up his reign, and his supporters are glad he has; meanwhile scarey phenomena continue.

Is that a past event, or a future one, or an "all-moments" condition? I'd vote for all moments.

Why does "the devil" still seem so influential, at least in the "larger" events of this world? In the book itself, human beings continue to suffer Heaven-to-Earth violence. This taking up of God's authority seems to happen (at least the commentary I'm reading says so) between one "woe" and another.

So what's going on, with this?

Where we left off last year in Revelation

October 29, 2006
Seventh Trumpet Sounds/Revelation 11:15-19

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and voices could be heard shouting in heaven, calling, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.

The twenty-four elders, enthroned in the presence of God, prostrated themselves and touched the ground with their foreheads worshipping God with these words,

We give thanks to you, Almighty Lord God, He who is, He who was, for assuming your great power and beginning your reign. The nations were in uproar and now the time has come for your retribution, and for the dead to be judged, and for your servants the prophets, for the saints and for those who fear your name, small and great alike, to be rewarded. The time has come to destroy those who are destroying the earth.

Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it. Then came flashes of lightning, peals of thunder and an earthquake and violent hail.

Cecil B. DeMille eat your heart out

[posted by david @ 10/29/2006]
2 Comments:

At 5:51 AM, david said...

Then the sanctuary of God in heaven opened, and the ark of the covenant could be seen inside it.

The ark represents the presence of HaShem's glory and acted as a standard for the armies of Israel as they marched into battle. El Shaddai -- the Lord of hosts is about to go to war against the armies of the earth. Everything to this point has been preamble.

At 1:29 PM, forrest said...

I'm really sorry that I let so much of this go by without comment, because we're in critical territory here.

If you want to look at what's going on in the gospels we all consider so familiar and nonproblematical... Jesus goes around proclaiming that the "Kingdom of God" is arriving.

This is IT! That "kingdom" meant God's Reign, not God's realm... And that is precisely what this passage is talking about, the time when that reign becomes apparent.

There's also that awkward matter: Who are "those who are destroying the earth"? Oh help, oh help, oh bother; I think I have an idea that I don't like! But that will be for another post.

Mark 15.40-16.8

A number of women were also present, watching from a distance. Among them were Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James the Younger and of Joseph, and Salome, who had all followed him and waited on him when he was in Galilee, and there were several others who had come up to Jerusalem with him.

By this time evening had come; and as it was the day before Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the Council, a man who was eagerly awaiting the Kingdom of God, bravely went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Pilate was surprized to hear that he was dead; so he sent for the centurion and asked him whether it was long since he died. And when he heard the centurion's report, he gave Joseph leave to take the dead body.

So Joseph brought a linen sheet, took him down from the cross, and wrapped him in the sheet. Then he laid him in a tomb cut out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the entrance. And Mary of Magdala and Mary the mother of Joseph were watching and saw where he was laid.

Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought aromatic oils intending to go and anoint him; and very early on the Sunday morning, just after sunrise, the came to the tomb.

They were wondering among themselves who would roll away the stone for them from the entrance to the tomb, when they looked up and saw that the stone, huge as it was, had been rolled back already. They went into the tomb, where they saw a youth sitting on the right-hand side, wearing a white robe, and they were dumbfounded.

But he said to them, "Fear nothing. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. Look, here is the place where they laid him.

"But go and give this message to his disciples and Peter: 'He will go on before you into Galilee and you will see him there, as he told you.' "

Then they went out and ran away from the tomb, beside themselves with terror. They said nothing to anybody, for they were afraid.

["At this point some of the most ancient witnesses bring the book to a close."
{New English Bible.)]

[New Oxford Annotated Bible, 1971: "The traditional close of the Gospel of Mark.

"Nothing is certainly known about how this Gospel originally ended or about the origin of verses 9-20, which cannot have been part of the original text of Mark....

"The most likely accounting for the origin of these verses as a unit is that, having been complied early in the 2nd Century as a didactic summary of grounds for belief in Jesus' resurrection, they were appended to the Gospel by the end of the 2nd Century..."]

History Prophesied or Prophecy Historicized?

We've just seen one story of Jesus' crucifixion, together with a psalm which seems to parallel it. Indeed, Jesus is evidently refering to that very psalm from the cross. (Quoting the first line of a familiar passage often means that the speaker recited the entire text.)

The other two synoptic gospels (Matthew, Luke) seem to have taken their story either directly from here or from the same source. And John, often differing wildly from the synoptics, is very close in this passage.

Was there in fact any of Jesus' followers at hand to witness the crucifixion? Showing a sympathetic interest in someone being executed as a rebel against Roman authority could be hazardous to one's immediate survival. The male disciples are supposed to be generally in hiding about now, even according to the gospels, and this is certainly no safe place for a woman. Possible, but not likely.

Would they be close enough to hear a man, exhausted and struggling for each breath, recite a psalm?

It seems very likely here that one of Jesus' followers remembered/found that psalm, saw things in the closing lines very close to the significance of Jesus' death as they understood it--and concluded that the psalm must be about Jesus. And therefore they took their account of the event from the psalm.

The dividing & casting lots for his clothes is the clearest example. For people to divide the wardrobe and cast lots for the garments of a warrior-chieftain like David on one of those bad days when he was on the run--that sounds very likely. To divide the one suit of clothes that a man had on his back while he was arrested, manhandled and beaten?

The other details are more plausible, if only Romans and Jews friendly to Rome were likely to be around. But the language is awfully close...

Did the gospel writers really work this way? Certainly, at least once. Where Zechariah has the King enter Jerusalem, "humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass."

"Matthew," apparently unaware that this is a poetic repetition, has Jesus enter Jerusalem riding two animals, sitting on a cloth draped between them. It sounds extremely awkward.

A fraudulent procedure? No, merely the result of a strong belief that whatever really happened must have matched scripture as they understood it.

Mark 15.16-39

Then the soldiers took him inside the courtyard (the Governor's headquarters) and called together the whole company. They dressed him in purple, and having plaited a crown of thorns, placed it on his head. Then they began to salute him with "Hail, King of the Jews!" They beat him about the head with a cane and spat upon him, and then knelt and paid mock homage to him. When they'd finished their mockery, they stripped him of the purple and dressed him in his own clothes."

Then they took him out to crucify him. A man called Simon, from Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they pressed him into service to carry his cross.

They brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means "Place of a Skull." He was offered drugged wine, but he would not take it. Then they fastened him to the cross. They divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should have.

The hour of the crucifiction was nine in the morning, and the inscription giving the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews." Two bandits were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

The passers-by hurled abuse at him. "Aha!" they cried, wagging their heads, "You would pull the Temple down, would you, and build it in three days? Come down from the cross and save yourself!" So too the chief priests and the doctors of the Law jested with one another: "He save others," they said, "but he cannot save himself. Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross. If we see that, then we shall believe?" Even those who were crucified with him taunted him.

At midday darkness fell over the whole land, which lasted till three in the afternoon; and at three Jesus cried aloud, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani," which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Some of the passers-by, on hearing this, said "Hark, he is calling Elijah." A man came running with a sponge, soaked in sour wine, on the end of a cane, and held it to his lips. "Let us see," he said, "if Elijah is coming to take him down."

Then Jesus gave a loud cry and died.

And the curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

And when the centurian who was standing opposite him saw how he died, he said, "Truly this man was a son of God."

Mark 15.6-15

At the festival season the Governor used to release one prisoner at the people's request. As it happened, the man known as Barabbas was then in custody with the rebels who had committed murder in the rising. When the crowd appeared asking for the usual favor, Pilate replied, "Do you wish for me to release for you the King of the Jews?" For he knew it was out of spite that they had brought Jesus before him.

But the chief priests incited the crowd to ask him to release Barabbas rather than Jesus.

Pilate spoke to them again: "Then what shall I do with the King of the Jews?"

They shouted back "Crucify him!"

"Why? What harm has he done?" Pilate asked.

They shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!" So Pilate, in his desire to satisfy the mob, released Barabbas to them, and had Jesus flogged and handed over to be crucified.

Mark 15.1-5

When morning came the chief priests, having made their plan with the elders and lawyers and all the Council, put Jesus in chains; then they led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

Pilate asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

He replied, "The words are yours."

And the chief priests brought many charges against him.

Pilate questioned him again: "Have you nothing to say in your defence? You see how many charges they are bringing against you."

But to Pilate's astonishment, Jesus made no reply.

Mark 14.65->

Some began to spit on him, blindfolded him, and struck him with their fists, crying out, "Prophesy!" And the High Priest's men set upon him with blows.

Meanwhile Peter was still in the courtyard downstairs. One of the High Priest's serving-maids came by and saw him there warming himself. She looked into his face and said, "You were there too, with this man from Nazareth, this Jesus."

But he denied it. "I know nothing," he said. "I do not understand what you mean."

Then he went outside into the porch, and the maid saw him there again and began to say to the bystanders, "He is one of them;" and again he denied it.

Again, a little later, the bystanders said to Peter, "Surely you are one of them. You must be; you are a Galilean."

At this he burst out into curses, and with an oath he said, "I do not know this man you speak of."

Then the cock crew a second time; and Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, "Before the cock cries twice you will disown me three times." And he burst into tears.

Mark 14.53-64

And they led Jesus to the High Priest, and all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes were assembled.

And Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the High Priest; and he was sitting with the guards, and warming himself at the fire.

Now the chief priests and the whole council sought testimony against Jesus to put him to death; but they found none.

For many bore false witness against him, and their witness did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this Temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.' "

Yet not even so did their testimony agree. And the High Priest stood up in their midst, and asked Jesus, "Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?"

But he was silent and made no answer.

Again the High Priest asked him, "Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed?"

And Jesus said, "I am, and you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of Heaven."

And the High Priest tore his garments, and said, "Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?" And they all condemned him as deserving death.

Mark 14.43-52

Suddenly, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared, and with him was a crowd armed with swords & cudgels, sent by the chief priests, lawyers and elders. Now the traitor had agreed with them upon a signal: "The one I kiss is your man; seize him and get him safely away." When he reached the spot, he stepped forward at once and said to Jesus, "Rabbi," and kissed him. Then they seized him and held him fast.

One of the party drew his sword, and struck at the High Priest's servant, cutting off his ear.

Then Jesus spoke: "Do you take me for a bandit, that you have come out with swords and cudgels to arrest me? Day after day I was within your reach as I taught in the Temple, and you did not lay hands upon me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled."

Then the disciples all deserted him and ran away. Among those following was a young man with nothing on but a linen cloth. They tried to seize him, but he slipped out of the linen cloth and ran away naked.

Mark 14.32-42

When they reached a place called Gethsemane, he said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." And he took Peter and James and John with him. Horror and dismay came over him, and he said to them, "My heart is ready to break with grief; stop here, and stay awake."

Then he went forward a little, threw himself on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, this hour might pass him by. "Abba, Father," he said, "All things are possible to thee; take this cup away from me. Yet not what I will, but what thou wilt."

He came back and found them asleep; and he said to Peter, "Asleep, Simon? Were you not able to keep awake for one hour? Stay awake, all of you, and pray that you may be spared the test: The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Once more he went away and prayed. On his return he found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy, and they did not know how to answer him.

The third time he came and said to them, "Still sleeping? Still taking your ease? Enough! The hour has come. The son of man is betrayed to sinful men. Up, let us go forward! My betrayer is upon us."

New Take (for me!) on Jesus' & HIs Jewish Meals

I've recently been finding David Steinberg's site (http://www.houseofdavid.ca/) quite interesting, but this part (http://www.adath-shalom.ca/greek_influence.htm) adds a whole new perspective:

"In the first half of the twentieth century, Lewy, Baneth, Krauss, and Goldschmidt drew attention to the fact that the forms of the [Passover] Seder are based on Graeco-Roman table manners and dietary habits. But the most detailed evidence of this borrowing was provided in 1957 when Siegfried Stein published “The Influence of Symposia Literature on the Literary Form of the Pesah Haggadah” in The Journal of Jewish Studies.(4) Since then, Stein’s basic thesis has been adopted with variations by various scholars who have written about the origins of the Seder. (5) Stein proved in a very convincing fashion that many of the Seder rituals and literary forms found in Mishnah and Tosefta Pesahim and in the Haggadah were borrowed from the Hellenistic banquet or symposium....

[extensive list of parallels, including the alcoholic & educational functions of both forms]...

"What can we learn from all these parallels? The Jewish people throughout the generations did not live in a vacuum; it absorbed much from its surroundings. But it did not absorb blindly. The Sages absorbed the form of the symposium from the Hellenistic world, but drastically changed its content. The Greeks and Romans discussed love, beauty, food and drink at the symposium, while the Sages at the Seder discussed the Exodus from Egypt, the miracles of God and the greatness of the Redemption. The symposium was meant for the elite, while the Sages turned the Seder into an educational experience for the entire Jewish people."

So here, all of a sudden, is a framework--for why we have all those familiar stories where Jesus uses meals as occasions for discussion & teaching! This sort of event was customary, both for Jews and for Greeks! Jesus uses the custom, but innovates within it by including guests that other Jews could (& did!) object to.

At that last supper, of course, the guest list was reduced to an inner circle and (at least in the synoptic gospels) the subject of discussion was more concrete, of immediate practical importance for those present: 'Who is going to betray Jesus?' and 'Who is going to stand up for him when he's arrested?' If this was the Passover (Not all gospels agree on that!) then probably the Exodus would have also been discussed, but no one would have considered that unusual.

What about that after-dinner excursion to the Mount of Olives? Eating together, to celebrate the liberation of Israel from Egypt... and then going off that same night, to a place where Zechariah says that the Lord will someday defend Jerusalem against all its enemies. Perhaps this day?...

Traditional Hebrew prophecy is not unconditional prediction; it's generally phrased as if it were but there are several occasions when God is persuaded to soften a judgement. So Jesus takes his immediate followers off to this one place, of all places, to pray. Was he expecting deliverance? Or expecting disaster, but hoping that sufficiently intense and earnest prayer might avert it? Why does he leave his comfortable table, and go to the one place he expects to find Judas with a posse?

Mark 14.26-31

After singing the Passover hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. And Jesus said, "You will all fall from your faith. For it stands written: 'I will strike the shepherd down and the sheep will be scattered.' Nevertheless, after I am raised again, I will go on before you into Galilee."

Peter answered, "Everyone else may fall away, but I will not."

Jesus said, "I tell you this. Today, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you yourself will deny me three times."

But he insisted and repeated, "Even if I must die with you, I will never disown you." And they all said the same.

Mark 14.22-25

During supper he took bread, and having said the blessing he broke it and gave it to them, with the words: "Take this; this is my body." Then he took a cup, and having offered thanks to God he gave it to them; and they all drank from it. And he said, "This is my blood of the covenant, shed for many. I tell you this, never again shall I drink from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."

Mark 14.17-21

And when it was evening he came with the twelve. And as they were at the table eating, Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me."

They began to be sorrowful, and to say to him, one after another, "Is it I?"

He said to them, "It is one of the Twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had never been born."

Mark 14.12-16

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered, his disciples said to him, "Where would you like us to go and prepare for your Passover supper?"

So he sent out two of his disciples with these instructions: "Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a jug of water. Follow him and when he enters a house give this message to the householder: 'The Master says, "Where is the room reserved for me to eat the Passover with my disciples?" ' He will show you a large room upstairs, set out in readiness. Make the preparations for us there." Then the disciples went off, and when they came into the city they found everything just as he had told them. So they prepared for Passover.

Mark 14.3-11

Jesus was at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper. As he sat at table, a woman came in carrying a small bottle of very costly perfume, oil of pure nard. She broke it open and poured the oil over his head.

Some of those present said to one another angrily, "Why this waste? The perfume might have been sold for thirty pounds and the money given to the poor." And they turned against her in fury.

But Jesus said, "Let her alone. Why must you make trouble for her? It is a fine thing she has done for me. You have the poor among you always, and you can help them whenever you like, but you will not always have me. She has done what lay in her power; she is beforehand with anointing my body for burial. I tell you this: Wherever in all the world the gospel is proclaimed, what she has done will be told as her memorial."

Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priest to betray him to them. When they heard what he had come for, they were greatly pleased; and he began to look for a good opportunity to betray him.

Mark 14.1-2

It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him. For they said, "Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people."

Mark 13.33->

"Be alert; be wakeful. You do not know when the moment comes.

"It is like a man away from home; he has left his house and put his servants in charge, each with his own work to do, and he has ordered the door-keeper to stay awake. Keep awake, then, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming. Evening or midnight, cock-crow or early dawn--if he comes suddenly, he must not find you asleep. And what I say to you, I say to everyone: Keep awake."

Mark 13.28-32

"Learn a lesson from the fig-tree. When its tender shoots appear and are breaking into leaf, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all this happening, you may know that the end is near [note: "Or that he is near], at the very door. I tell you this, the present generation will live to see it all. Heaven and earth will pass away; my words will never pass away."

"But about that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, not even the Son, only the Father."

Mark 13.24-27

"But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

"And then they will see the son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angel, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of Heaven.

Mark 13.21-23

"Then, it anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Messiah,' or 'Look, there he is,' do not believe it. Impostors will come claiming to be messiahs or prophets, and they will produce signs and wonders to mislead God's chosen, if such a thing were possible. But you be on your guard; I have forewarned you of it all."

Mark 13.14-20

"But when you see the 'abomination of desolation' usurping a place which is not his (Let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must take to the hills. If a man is on the roof, he must not come down into the house to fetch anything out; if in the field, he must not come back for his cloak.

"Alas for women with child in those days, and for those who have children at the breast! Pray that it may not come in winter. For those days will bring distress such as never has been until now since the creation of the world--and never will be again. If the Lord had not cut short that time of troubles, no living thing could survive. However, for the sake of his own, whom He has chosen, He has cut short the time."

Mark 13.9-13

"But take heed to yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them.

"And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.

"And when they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given to you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.

"And brother will deliver up brother to death; and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved."

Mark 13.3-8

And as he sat on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately, "When will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?"

And Jesus told them, "Take heed that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Messiah!' and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines; this is but the beginning of the birth-pangs."

Mark 13.1-2

As he was leaving the Temple, one of his disciples exclaimed, "Look, Master, what huge stones! What fine buildings!"

Jesus said to him, "You see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."

Mark 12.38->

There was a great crowd and they listened to him eagerly. He said as he taught them, "Beware of the doctors of the Law, who love to walk up and down in long robes, receiving respectful greetings in the street, and to have the chief seats in synagogues, and places of honor at feasts. These are the men who eat up the property of widows, while they say long prayers for appearance' sake, and they will receive the severest sentence."

Once he was standing opposite the Temple treasury, watching as people dropped their money into the chest. Many rich people were giving large sums. Presently there came a poor widow who dropped in two tiny coins, together worth a farthing.

He called his disciples to him. "I tell you this," he said. "This widow has given more than any of the others, for those others had more than enough for themselves; but she, with less than enough, has given all that she had to live on."

Mark 12.35-37

After that nobody ventured to put any more questions to him; and Jesus went on to say, as he taught in the Temple, "How can the teachers of the Law maintain that the Messiah is 'Son of David'? David himself said, when inspired by the Holy Spirit, 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool." ' David himself calls him 'Lord'; how can he also be David's son?"

Showers of Blessings: Prayer

Showers of Blessings: Prayer

I think this is a really neat notion.

Mark 12.28-34

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered well, asked him, "Which commandment is the first of all?"

Jesus answered, "The first is, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.' "

And the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that he is one, and that there is no other but he, and to love him with all the heart, and all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." And after that no one dared to ask him any question.

Mark 12.18-27

And Sadducees came to him, who say there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the wife, and raise up children for his brother. There were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and when he died left no children, and the second took her, and died, and the third likewise; and the seventh left no children. Last of all the woman also died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the seventh had her as wife."

Jesus said to them, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in Heaven. And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?' He is not God of the dead, but of the living; you are quite wrong."

new blog

Its looking very much like I couldn't stay away from blogging. I don't know how long this one will last. Its not a subject I'm passionate about. But it may be useful for me for discernment and clarification.

I guess I "bee" back. Well, sort of.

Mark12.13-17

And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to entrap him in his talk. And they came and said to him, "Teacher, we know that you are true, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"

But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, "Why put me to the test? Bring me a coin, and let me look at it."

And they brought one.

And he said to them, "Whose likeness and inscription is this?"

They said to him, "Caesar's."

Jesus said to them, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

And they were amazed at him.

That Pesky "Stone that the Builders Rejected."

Why does Mark (like the other synoptic writers) show Jesus quoting this line at the Temple?

As I said, it's from Psalm 118. If you read this, you will find that the beginning seems to be stage directions for various groups to speak in the liturgy of a royal entrance to the Temple. Toward the end, "Bind the festal procession with branches up to the horns of the altar," is probably a reference to the Feast of Tabernacles where the king is supposed to come to the Temple to read what Deuteronomy says about his place in the scheme of things.

If Jesus is referring to a portion of the psalm, his hearers are familiar with the rest. "Blessed be he who enters in the name of the Lord!"--the anointed king, that is--is also from this psalm.

He is implying a claim to royal honors while the priestly hierarchy, their leader appointed by the Romans (and his ceremonial robes kept in Roman custody) feel put on the spot by this demand. Whatever they do is likely to bring trouble, from either the Romans or their own countrymen, whom they are supposed to be keeping in (Roman) order.

A Passage Jesus is alluding to here: Isaiah 5

Let me sing a song for my beloved,
a love song concerning his vineyard.
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.

He digged it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it
and hewed out a wine vat in it

and he looked for it to yield grapes
but it yielded wild grapes.

And now, oh inhabitants of Jerusalem
and men of Judah,
judge, I pray you, between me
and my vineyard.

What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I have not done in it?
When I looked for it to yield grapes
why did it yield wild grapes?

And now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge
and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall
and it shall be trampled down.

I will make it a waste;
it shall not be pruned or hoed
and briers and thorns shall grow up;
I shall also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah
are his pleasant planting--

and he looked for justice,
but behold, bloodshed!--
for righteousness,
but behold, a cry!

Woe to those who join house to house,
who add field to field
until there is no more room
and you are made to dwell alone
in the midst of the land.

The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing;
surely many houses shall be desolate,
large and beautiful houses
without inhabitants.
For ten acres of vineyard shall yield
but one bath,
and a homer of seed shall yield
but an ephah.

Woe to those who rise early in the morning
that they may run after strong drink,
who tarry long into the evening
til wine inflames them!
They have lyre and harp,
timbrel and flute and wine at their feasts;

they do not regard the deeds of the Lord
or see the work of his hands.

Therefore my people go into exile
for want of knowledge;
their honored men are dying of hunger
and their multitude is parched with thirst,

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite
and opened its mouth beyond measure,
and the multitude go down,
her throng and he who exults in her.

Man is bowed down and men are brought low
and the eyes of the haughty are humbled
for the Lord of hosts its exalted in justice,
and the holy God shows
himself holy in righteousness.

Then shall the lambs graze as in their pastures;
fatlings and kids shall feed among the ruins.

Woe to those who draw iniquity
with cords of falsehood,
who draw sin with as with cart ropes,
who say "Let Him make haste,
let Him speed His work
that we may see it;
let the purpose of the Holy One of Israel draw near
and let it come, that we may see it!"

Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes
and shrewd in their own sight!
Woe to those who are heroes
at drinking wine
and valiant men in mixing strong drink,

who acquit the guilty for a bribe
and deprive the innocent of his right!

Therefore, as the tongue of fire
devours the stubble
and as dry grass sinks down in the flame,
so their root will be as rottenness,
and their blossum go up like dust;

for they have rejected the law
of the Lord of hosts
and have despised the word
of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore the anger of the Lord
was kindled against his people
and he stretched out his hand against them
and smote them;

and the mountains quaked,
and their corpses were as refuse
in the midst of the streets.

For all this his anger is not turned away
and his hand is stretched out still.

He will raise a signal for a nation afar off
and whistle for it from the ends of the earth;
and lo, swiftly, speedily it comes!
None is weary; none stumbles;
none slumbers or sleeps;
not a waistcloth is loose
nor a sandal-thong broken;

their arrows are sharp;
all their bows bent;
their horses' hooves seem like flint
and their wheels like the whirlwind.

Their roaring is like a lion;
Like young lions they roar.
They growl and seize their prey;
they carry it off and none can rescue.

They will growl over it on that day
like the roaring of the sea.
And if one look to the land,
behold, darkness and distress;
and the light is dwindled by clouds.

Mark 12.1-12

And he began to speak to them in parables. "A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants and went into another country.

"When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruits of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him, and sent him home empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed, and so with many others; some they beat and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'

"But some tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' And they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.

"What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others.

"Have you not read this scripture?:
'The very stone which the builders rejected
is become the head of the corner;
this was the Lord's doing
and it is marvelous in our eyes!'"

And they tried to arrest him, but feared the multitude, for they perceived that he had told the parable against the; so they left him and went away.

Mark 11.27->

And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the Temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, and they asked, "By what authority are you doing these things?--Who gave you the authority to do them?"

Jesus said to them, "I will ask you a question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from Heaven or from men? Answer me!"

And they argued with one another, "If we say, 'From Heaven,' he will say, 'Why then did you not believe him?' But shall we say, 'From men'?" They were afraid of the people, for all held that John was a real prophet. So they answered Jesus, "We do not know."

And Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."

Mark 11.22-26 (Not sure when I'll be back to computer...)

And Jesus answered them, "Have faith in God.

"Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

"And wherever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."

Mark 11.11-22

He entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple, where he looked at the whole scene, but as it was now late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

On the following day, after they had left Bethany, he felt hungry, and noticing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. But when he came there he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again!" And his disciples were listening.

So they came to Jerusalem, and he went into the Temple and began driving out those who bought and sold in the Temple. He upset the tables of the money-changers and the seats of the dealers in pigeons; and he would not allow anyone to use the Temple court as a thoroughfare for carrying goods.

Then he began to teach them, and said, "Does not Scripture say, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations"? But you have made it a robbers' cave.

The chief priests and the doctors of the law heard of this and sought some means of making away with him, for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came he went out of the city.

Early next morning, as they passed by, they saw that the fig-tree had withered from the roots up; and Peter, recalling what had happened, said to him, "Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered."

Mark 11.1-11

They were now approaching Jerusalem, and when they reached Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples with these instructions: "Go to the village opposite, and just as you enter, you will find tethered there a colt which no one yet has ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks, 'Why are you doing that?' say 'Our Master needs it, and will send it back here without delay.' "

So they went off, and found the colt tethered to a door outside in the street. They were untying it when some of the bystanders asked, "What are you doing, untying that colt?"

They answered as Jesus had told them, and were then allowed to take it. So they brought the colt to Jesus and spread their cloaks on it, and he mounted. And people carpeted the road with their cloaks, while others spread brushwood which they had cut in the fields, and those who went ahead and the others who came behind shouted, "Hosanna! Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessings on the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the Heavens!"

Mark 10.46-> (Sorry, had this mislabeled.)

They came to Jerico; and as [Jesus] was leaving the town, with his disciples and a large crowd, Batimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was seated at the roadside. Hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me!"

Many of the people rounded on him, "Re quiet," they said, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have pity on me."

Jesus stopped and said, "Call him;" so they called the blind man and said, "Take heart; stand up; he is calling you."

At that he threw off his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.

Jesus said to him, "What do you want me to do?"

"Master," the blind man answered, "I want my sight back."

Jesus said to him, "Go; your faith has cured you."

And at once he recovered his sight and followed him on the road.

True Love

 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Billy Bob Shakespeare, Sonnet CXVI

Mark 10.35-45

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him and said, "Master, we should like you to do us a favor."

"What is it you want me to do?" he asked.

They answered, "Grant us the right to sit in state with you, one at your right and the other at your left."

Jesus said to them, "You do not understand what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink, or be baptised with the baptism I am baptized with?"

"We can," they answered.

Jesus said, "The cup that I drink you shall drink, and the baptism I am baptized with shall be your baptism; but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant; it is for those to whom it has already been assigned."

When the other ten heard this, they were indignant with James and John. Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that in the world the recognized rulers lord it over their subjects, and their great men make them feel the weight of their authority. That is not the way with you; among you, whoever wants to be great must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the willing slave of all. For even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve, and to surrender his life as a ransom for many."

Mark 10.32-34

They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, Jesus leading the way; and the disciples were filled with awe, while those who followed behind were afraid. He took the Twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to him. "We are now going to Jerusalem," he said, "and the son of man will be given up to the chief priests and the doctors of the law; they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the foreign power. He will be mocked and spat upon, flogged and killed; and three days afterwards, he will rise again."

Mark 10.28-31

At this Peter spoke. "We here," he said, "have left everything to become your followers."

Jesus said, "I tell you this: There is no one who has given up home, brothers or sisters, mother, father, or children, or land, for my sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive in this age a hundred times as much--homes, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and land--and persecutions besides; and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first."

Money Is Addictive and Causes Brain Damage.

Here's the first obstacle: Just about everyone reads this story and says, "Who, me?"

We are rich in our hearts. And thus Matthew's evasive amendment: "Blessed are the poor in spirit" doesn't soften things nearly enough. In our hearts we'd still like the blessings of security, sufficiency, and a large estate to play in. What's wrong with that?

There's nothing obviously wrong with finding an elegant hand-crafted ring that makes the bearer invisible; but when you read _The Lord of the Rings_ and see how the Ring twists people's minds, you stop thinking of it as a pleasant convenience and recognize it as intrinsically evil.

"Well, that's just a story. And money doesn't have to twist our minds! I know some perfectly nice rich people!"

See?

I know perfectly nice people who like to drink too much. Personal factors determine whether they take to parroting talk-radio concepts or merely go heedlessly driving over pedestrians, but there's no question it's a barrier between us, and limits them.

"Yes, but poor people aren't any better than anyone else, and I don't really have all that much, and people in my family need things too!"

See, where there's guilt there's evasion. Maybe there's even more evasion than there needs to be, because few of us are that guilty. Few of us can imagine, much less actually intend the various horrors that have been routinely inflicted in the process of safeguarding our privileged position. (Which position is not, as we know, an unqualified blessing--but is as hard for us to leave as for an addict to do without his fix.)

Money is a good thing; it helps us escape the painful and crippling effects of poverty, an evil much more common and obviously debilitating. Who can deny this?

Should we strive for moderation? No, recognize the tension. Tension holds us upright against torques that would otherwise flop us forward on our faces or back onto our butts. Awareness of opposing forces helps us balance ourselves in a comfortable position. But it's hard to sense the forces accurately when one is terrified of falling.

Is this really about "going to Heaven when we die?" Well, no, it isn't. But it is about Judgement. Our civilization has screwed things up on a vast scale, and continues to harm people on a vast scale, and we shouldn't either forget that or dwell overmuch on it. When our present way of life collapses--that fall will be our only possible escape from overwhelming, growing evils, and it will also be traumatic. We can do this the easy way--or cling to what we have, and take a hard fall.

The Kingdom is not in the sky. You don't have to die, you don't even need to give your money away and go on the streets to get in. But it does cost all you have.

And then you have everything you need. But it's harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one person to enter the Kingdom alone.

I be jammin'

 

I find myself back in my old home digs and my landlord has retiled the bathroom. Seems the floor tiles in my bedroom closet that I was complaining about being loose were loose because water form the tub was seeping under the floor boards -- and growing a ripe crop of mould. Splains why I've been suffering respiratory issues for three months. And the doctor has been telling me to ignore it -- its only a reaction to medication and will go away after meds are adjusted. It always gives me a warm feeling in my heart when medical professionals take for granted that patients are incompetent to know what's going on in their own anatomy or be consulted in their treatment.

But. I spent a week on the West coast -- I peered down mountain gorges, took pics of glaciers and saw 400 hundred year old trees again for the first time in three decades. I breathed real air. And came away semi-refreshed in body and spirit. Though I ate too much of the stuff I shouldn't.

Mark 23-27

Jesus looked around at his disciples and said, "How hard it will be for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God."

They were amazed that he should say this, but Jesus insisted, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

They were more astonished than ever, and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?"

Jesus looked them in the face and said, "For men it is impossible, but not for God; to God everything is possible."

Sell All You Have

There's a modern concept that people can make money in ways that add to everyone's common wealth. The notion that any number of rich people actually make their money in such ways is suspect, but we do have the concept, and the people of Jesus's time do not.

For them, respectable wealth comes from agricultural land; there's a limited amount of it, and if you get more, your neighbors consequently have less.

As a good 1st Century Jew, can you acquire such wealth from lawful transactions?

Leviticus: (25.23) "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and sojourners with me... (25.35-38) And if your brother becomes poor, and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall maintain him; as a stranger and a sojourner he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or increase, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God."

Deuteronomy: (15.7-9) "If there is among you a poor man, one of your brethren, in any of the towns within your land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him, and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take heed lest there be a base thought in your heart, and you say, 'The seventh year, the year of release [of debts among other things] is near,' and your eye be hostile toward your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and it be sin in you."

Some hundred years before, Hillel had found a way around the 7th year limitation, precisely because Jews who had fallen on hard times could not find rich neighbors willing to lend without interest or collateral. Since then, land had increasingly become a commodity to be traded as in pagan cultures, and many families had lost their land to join the ranks of those day-laborers featured in some parables.

William Herzog, in _Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God_, makes a good case for the possiblity that the whole story is a set-up. Jesus lists the actual crimes the man has not committed, but deliberately omits the commandments about honoring God, which must necessarily have been violated in consolidating so much wealth, and continuing to hold it in the face of his brothers' need. I can't do justice to Herzog's case here, but I agree Jesus is implying that the man has acquired his wealth by violating the spirit of the traditional Jewish Covenant: "Perhaps it has not occured to the rich man that, while he has never killed a man face to face, he has most likely degraded peasant farmers to the status of day laborers, and from the time a peasant becomes a day laborer, devoid of the safety net of the village and with nothing left to sell but his animal energy, to the time he dies of malnuitrition is a matter of a few years at most. Every time he alienates a peasant family from their land he has pronounced a death sentence upon them... Every time that he has blamed his victims for the plight that he and his class have visited upon them, he is bearing false witness against them. It probably has not occured to the rich man that, while he has never mugged anyone on the street and taken their money, he has used the system to rob the poor blind..." For Herzog, Jesus is simply asking the man for restitution.

How to apply this to our own times? Don't we consider it "success" to gain a comfortable life without work--certainly without harsh labor? Which implies that someone else will have to do it. There aren't many people who haven't at some point needed to do something unpleasant for their living--which somehow legitimizes it in our eyes--but how many of us have done our share of the suffering of this world?--or had merely our share of its goods? In principle, more of us than you'd expect would choose to share fairly, but the choice the world offers is "either too much or too little."

But what happens if every good person "sells all that he has, and gives to the poor?" Only bad people would have land, after that? The price of land would fall until poor people could afford some? The bad people who'd bought all the land would have to pay their laborers more than a denarius per day? Everybody would repent?

Obviously we don't have Jesus laying out a rule book here or setting us obstacles we have to jump to "earn" eternal life. But if Jesus is our ruler, how far do we and our institutions measure by this scale?

Mark 10.17-22

As he was starting out on a journey, a stranger ran up, and kneeling before him asked, "Good master, what must I do to win eternal life?"

Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

"You know the commandments: 'Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not give false evidence; do not defraud; honor your father and mother.' "

"But Master," he replied, "I have kept all these since I was a boy."

Jesus looked straight at him; his heart warmed to him, and he said, "One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have, and give to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; and come, follow me."

At these words his face fell and he went away with a heavy heart, for he was a man of great wealth.

Mark 10.13-17

They brought children for him to touch; and the disciples scolded them for it. But when Jesus this he was indignant, and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not try to stop them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it." And he put his arms round them, laid his hands upon them, and blessed them.

Mark 10.1-12

On leaving those parts he came into the regions of Judea and Transjordan; and when a crowd gathered round him once again, he followed his usual practice and taught them.

The question was put to him: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" This was to test him.

He asked in return, "What did Moses command you?"

They answered, "Moses permitted a man to divorce his wife by note of dismissal."

Jesus said to them, "It was because you were so unteachable that he made this rule for you; but in the beginning, at the creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be made one with his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. It follows that they are no longer two individuals; they are one flesh. What God has joined together, man must not separate."

When they were indoors again the disciples questioned him about this matter; he said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; so too, if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

Mark 9.43->

"If your hand is your undoing, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life maimed than to go to hell and the unquenchable fire. And if it is your foot that leads you astray, cut it off; it is better to enter into life a cripple than to keep both your feet and be thrown into hell. And if it is your eye, tear it out; it is better to enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into hell, where the devouring worm never dies and the fire is not quenched.

"For everyone will be salted with salt.

"Salt is a good thing, but if salt loses its saltness, what will you season it with?

"Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."

Long Silence...

Okay, here's my try:

The hour is getting late in this universe. If we aren't scared, we've either got faith or blind spots. I fear I've just gone numb.

If we find it hard to care about all those strangers whom we ought to help if we only knew a way... it's probably because we really don't know any way. There's serious despair going around; we're lucky if we haven't come down with it ourselves.

Most of us are compulsively going through motions, some of us donating and others of us busy lobbying or organizing or protesting to keep the Forces of Shameless Cluelessness from committing yet another incredibly stupid atrocity, just wanting to believe we can.

While we often want to pray that some new evil be averted, we know that God has allowed the same thing over and over in the past, and shows no sign of stopping. We see furthermore that humans everywhere are persisting in just the sort of behavior that makes calamities unavoidable.

We're humans; we have to either make sense of all this or at least imagine we can cope with it anyway. But the world only truly makes sense in reference to God.

Scriptures can be misused in many ways; their true value is that they remind us of God and lead us to see our situation in that context.

----------------
For the past several months we've been reading a scripture about Jesus, and we haven't found too much to say about it.

"If you bring forth what is within you, it will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, it will destroy you."

Jesus said that, according to the Gospel of Thomas. It sounds to me like something he would have said. Truth.

Come on, please! Someone bring forth something, from what is within you!

What is this person Jesus doing, so far? Why? What does it mean to you?

Trying Something New?

Is there material worth studying in the Christian scriptures? I think so.

Is there much appetite on the net for this kind of study? Among Friends & acquaintances? Maybe someone can give me an estimate of how many lurkers we have here; maybe there're more than I think. Maybe the problem is merely one of encouraging them to speak up and make fools of themselves like the rest of us?

We need more people contributing to this site! We couldn't afford to lose David, but we have, and my appetite for slogging through Mark: start at the beginning, go on to the end, then stop!--isn't what I thought it would be.

What are we reading this stuff for? Is this--and nothing else--the "Word of God"?--or as George Fox put it, at least "words of God"? What does that mean? If we stare at these books long enough, do we reach Truth somehow?

What's central here? Is there a coherent story that accounts for the existence of these materials, the inspiration together with the narrow misunderstandings? What part of this do we most need to study, for what reason?

How do we all see what we're trying to do with this? Comments, anyone?

I too may be on the way out.

I have been, voluntarily or just accidentally, bugging out of participation here. Partly from having the system all churned-up by the site service-providers, mainly from caring-less and feeling that I would rather be fixing my old go-playing program to run again, only redesigned to improve its game sufficiently in maybe a million years or so of playing with itself....

The Bible. A collection of stories-of and ravings-by people who once lived their lives in reference to God.

Here we are, reading these books in an age of disconnection. (Like all the other ages we've ever heard of...) Our civilization offers us the choice of being disconnected atheists or disconnected believers. God knows we can't live that way; it's just not eternally viable! But this seems to be the norm.

I've seen a lot of comments here. I can't be sure my own comments are better–How would I know what blind spots I'm not seeing?-- but most of what I've observed has been people busy confirming their own mental baggage. If this were an airplane it would still be on the runway struggling to move against all the anchors we'd hung out the windows.

I can't prove myself innocent, nor would it matter. What I'm saying is that this exercise, as we've been practicing it, is useless. No wonder people quit (or stay away from the beginning) in droves.

Am I the only one who's felt this? What might be a better approach?

good night vacuumland

Growing up my favourite Saturday morning radio show was Eclectic Circus on CBC FM. The name was apropos: played everything from Wagner to The Beatles seasoned liberally with Mozart, 60s folk-rock, and the occasional jazz ensemble piece. The host, Alan McFee would sign off each show with the a reading I later learned was from Shakespeare's The Tempest:

OUR revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Prospero in The Tempest

He would then say: "Good Night Vacuumland!"


I think Eclectic Circus is a good metaphor for the last year and a half we have spent here together. But I think it is time for me, like Prospero, to set aside my magick bookes and re-enter incarnate society. Its been fun. If those of you still left decide to continue the project -- feel free -- Crystal, Forrest, and Larry all have administrative rights -- I may check in now and then to kibitz around -- throw my two pennies into the pot and so forth.

Good night vaccumland.

mark 9:30-42

9:30-32 - Then they left that district and went straight through Galilee. Jesus kept this journey secret for he was teaching his disciples that the Son of Man would be betrayed into the power of men, that they would kill him and that three days after his death he would rise again. But they were completely mystified by this saying, and were afraid to question him about it.

9:33 - So they came to Capernaum. And when they were indoors he asked them, "What were you discussing as we came along?"

9:34-35 - They were silent, for on the way they had been arguing about who should be the greatest. Jesus sat down and called the twelve, and said to them, "If any man wants to be first, he must be last and servant of all."

9:36-37 - Then he took a little child and stood him in front of them all, and putting his arms round him, said to them, "Anyone who welcomes one little child like this for my sake is welcoming me. And the man who welcomes me is welcoming not only me but the one who sent me!"

9:38 - Then John said to him, "Master, we saw somebody driving out evil spirits in your name, and we stopped him, for he is not one who follows us."

9:39-41 - But Jesus replied, "You must not stop him. No one who exerts such power in my name would readily say anything against me. For the man who is not against us is on our side. In fact, I assure you that the man who gives you a mere drink of water in my name, because you are followers of mine, will most certainly be rewarded."

9:42 - "And I tell you too, that the man who disturbs the faith of one of the humblest of those who believe in me would be better off if he were thrown into the sea with a great mill-stone hung round his neck!"

mark 9:14-29

9:14-15 - Then as they rejoined the other disciples, they saw that they were surrounded by a large crowd, and that some of the scribes were arguing with them. As soon as the people saw Jesus, they ran forward excitedly to welcome him.

9:16 - "What is the trouble?" Jesus asked them.

9:17-18 - A man from the crowd answered, "Master, I brought my son to you because he has a dumb spirit. Wherever he is, it gets hold of him, throws him down on the ground and there he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth. It's simply wearing him out. I did speak to your disciples to get them to drive it out, but they hadn't the power to do it."

9:19 - Jesus answered them, "Oh, what a faithless people you are! How long must I be with you, how long must I put up with you? Bring him here to me."

9:20 - So they brought the boy to him, and as soon as the spirit saw Jesus, it convulsed the boy, who fell to the ground and writhed there, foaming at the mouth.

9:21 - "How long has he been like this?" Jesus asked the father.

9:22 - "Ever since he was a child," he replied. "Again and again it has thrown him into the fire or into water to finish him off. But if you can do anything, please take pity on us and help us."

9:23 - "If you can do anything!" retorted Jesus. "Everything is possible to the man who believes."

9:24 - "I do believe," the boy's father burst out. "Help me to believe more!"

9:25 - When Jesus noticed that a crowd was rapidly gathering, he spoke sharply to the evil spirit, with the words, "I command you, deaf and dumb spirit, come out of this boy, and never go into him again!"

9:26 - The spirit gave a loud scream and after a dreadful convulsion left him. The boy lay there like a corpse, so that most of the bystanders said, "He is dead."

9:27-28 - But Jesus grasped his hands and lifted him up, and then he stood on his own feet. When he had gone home, Jesus' disciples asked him privately, "Why were we unable to drive it out?"

9:29 - "Nothing can drive out this kind of thing except prayer," replied Jesus.

mark 9:1-13

9:1 - Then he added, "Believe me, there are some of you standing here who will know nothing of death until you have seen the kingdom of God coming in its power!"

9:2-5 - Six days later, Jesus took Peter and James and John with him and led them high up on a hill-side where they were entirely alone. His whole appearance changed before their eyes, while his clothes became white, dazzling white - whiter than any earthly bleaching could make them. Elijah and Moses appeared to the disciples and stood there in conversation with Jesus. Peter burst out to Jesus, "Master, it is wonderful for us to be here! Shall we put up three shelters - one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah?"

9:6-7 - He really did not know what to say, for they were very frightened. Then came a cloud which overshadowed them and a voice spoke out of the cloud, "This is my dearly-loved Son. Listen to him!"

9:8-11 - Then, quite suddenly they looked all round them and saw nobody at all with them but Jesus. And as they came down the hill-side, he warned them not to tell anybody what they had seen till "the Son of Man should have risen again from the dead". They treasured this remark and tried to puzzle out among themselves what "Rising from the dead" could mean. Then they asked him this question, "Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come before Christ?"

9:12-13 - "It is quite true," he told them, "that Elijah does come first, and begins the restitution of all things. But what does the scripture say about the Son of Man? This: that he must go through much suffering and be treated with contempt! I tell you that not only has Elijah come already but they have done to him exactly what they wanted - just as the scripture says of him."

according to mark 8:22-38

8:22-23 - So they arrived at Bethsaida where a blind man was brought to him, with the earnest request that he should touch him. Jesus took the blind man's hand and led him outside the village. Then he moistened his eyes with saliva and putting his hands on him, asked, "Can you see at all?"

8:24 - The man looked up and said, "I can see people. They look like trees - only they are walking about."

8:25-26 - Then Jesus put his hands on his eyes once more and his sight came into focus. And he recovered and saw everything sharp and clear. And Jesus sent him off to his own house with the words, "Don't even go into the village."

8:27 - Jesus then went away with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who are men saying that I am?"

8:28 - "John the Baptist," they answered. "But others say that you are Elijah or, some say, one of the prophets."

8:29 - Then he asked them, "But what about you - who do you say that I am?" "You are Christ!" answered Peter.

8:30 - Then Jesus impressed it upon them that they must not mention this to anyone.

8:31-33 - And he began to teach them that it was inevitable that the Son of Man should go through much suffering and be utterly repudiated by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He told them all this quite bluntly. This made Peter draw him on one side and take him to task about what he had said. But Jesus turned and faced his disciples and rebuked Peter. "Out of my way, Satan!" he said. "Peter, you are not looking at things from God's point of view, but from man's!"

8:34-38 - Then he called his disciples and the people around him, and said to them, "If anyone wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up all right to himself, take up his cross and follow me. The man who tries to save his life will lose it; it is the man who loses his life for my sake and the Gospel's who will save it. What good can it do a man to gain the whole world at the price of his own soul? What can a man offer to buy back his soul once he has lost it? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this unfaithful and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in the Father's glory with the holy angels around him."

according to mark 8:1-21

8:1-3 - About this time it happened again that a large crowd collected and had nothing to eat. Jesus called the disciples over to him and said, "My heart goes out to this crowd; they have been with me three days now and they have no food left. If I send them off home without anything, they will collapse on the way - and some of them have come from a distance."

8:4 - His disciples replied, "Where could anyone find the food to feed them here in this deserted spot?"

8:5 - "How many loaves have you got?" Jesus asked them. "Seven," they replied.

8:6-10 - So Jesus told the crowd to settle themselves on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves into his hands, and with a prayer of thanksgiving broke them, and gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people; and this they did. They had a few small fish as well, and after blessing them, Jesus told the disciples to give these also to the people. They ate and they were satisfied. Moreover, they picked up seven baskets full of pieces left over. The people numbered about four thousand. Jesus sent them home, and then he boarded the boat at once with his disciples and went on to the district of Dalmanutha.

8:11-12 - Now the Pharisees came out and began an argument with him, wanting a sign from Heaven. Jesus gave a deep sigh, and then said, "What makes this generation want a sign? I can tell you this, they will certainly not be given one!"

8:13 - Then he left them and got aboard the boat again, and crossed the lake.

8:14-20 - The disciples had forgotten to take any food and had only one loaf with them in the boat. Jesus spoke seriously to them, "Keep your eyes open! Be on your guard against the 'yeast' of the Pharisees and the 'yeast' of Herod!" And this sent them into an earnest consultation among themselves because they had brought no bread. Jesus knew it and said to them, "Why all this discussion about bringing no bread? Don't you understand or grasp what I say even yet? Are you like the people who 'having eyes, do not see, and having ears, do not hear'? Have your forgotten - when I broke five loaves for five thousand people, how many baskets full of pieces did you pick up?" "Twelve," they replied. "And then there were seven loaves for four thousand people, how many baskets of pieces did you pick up?" "Seven," they said.

8:21 - "And does that still mean nothing to you?" he said.

acoording to mark 7:31-37

7:31-34 - Once more Jesus left the neighbourhood of Tyre and passed through Sidon towards the Lake of Galilee, and crossed the Ten Towns territory. They brought to him a man who was deaf and unable to speak intelligibly, and they implored him to put his hand upon him. Jesus took him away from the crowd by himself. He put his fingers in the man's ears and touched his tongue with his own saliva. Then, looking up to Heaven, he gave a deep sigh and said to him in Aramaic, "Open!"

7:35-37 - And his ears were opened and immediately whatever had tied his tongue came loose and he spoke quite plainly. Jesus gave instructions that they should tell no one about this happening, but the more he told them, the more they broadcast the news. People were absolutely amazed, and kept saying, "How wonderful he has done everything! He even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak."

according to mark 7:24-30

7:24-27 - Then he got up and left that place and went off to the neighbourhood of Tyre. There he went into a house and wanted no one to know where he was. But it proved impossible to remain hidden. For no sooner had he got there, than a woman who had heard about him, and who had a daughter possessed by an evil spirit, arrived and prostrated herself before him. She was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she asked him to drive the evil spirit out of her daughter. Jesus said to her, "You must let the children have all they want first. It is not right, you know, to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs."

7:28 - But she replied, "Yes, Lord, I know, but even the dogs under the table eat what the children leave."

7:29 - "If you can answer like that," Jesus said to her, "you can go home! The evil spirit has left your daughter."

7:30 - And she went back home and found the child lying quietly on her bed, and the evil spirit gone.

unclean! unclean!/david

So as I read through this passage this morning -- yes -- I posted the passage without reading it first -- and what most strongly niggled me was the word "common". the translations I'm familiar with all say "unclean".

Common. And I take the opposite of common in this sense to be elite. This is all about boundary markers, who's in and who's out. And Judaism does like its boundary markers:

Deuteronomy 19:14 You must not displace your neighbour's boundary mark, positioned by men of old in the heritage soon to be yours, in the country which Yahweh your God is about to give you.

Mind you -- so does Quakerism. That's in part what the funny hats and thee and thou and the give-peace-a-chance-bumper-stickers are about.

Mark tells us: The Pharisees, and indeed all the Jews, will never eat unless they have washed their hands in a particular way, following a traditional rule. And they will not eat anything bought in the market until they have first performed their "sprinkling". And there are many other things which they consider important, concerned with the washing of cups, jugs and basins.

Now I would have bought this one if he just said Pharisees. Thanks to 2000 years of Christian appropriation of western history the Pharisees are pretty much the stuck up prigs of the cosmos to pretty much everyone except maybe the Hasidim. But Mark went one step further and said indeed all the Jews. This tells me a lot.

Mark no longer thinks of himself and his community as being the Jews. The Jews are the other guys. Here it is only 30 years later and Mark is pointing to Jews and saying -- not us. Somebody moved the boundary markers.

All the Jews wash their hands before meals to keep from being "common" (unclean). But his (Jesus')disciples ate their meals with "common" hands. But Jesus' disciples are Jews. If all the Jews did this and Jesus' disciples did not, then we have two choices. First, all the Jews didn't. there's a class distinction here. Maybe commoners didn't except on special occasions. I can believe this. I know a Muslim who drinks alcohol except during Ramadan. Second possibility: Jesus taught his disciples to ignore the rule.

If Jesus taught his disciple to ignore a long standing ritual purity law then why do they go to him afterwards and ask for an explanation? Should they not already know the answer to their question?

What I'm seeing here is a relaxation of the boundary rules attributed to Jesus. But in the act of witnessing to it my story teller is actually placing the those boundary markers in a new place rather than removing them altogether. Sort of like pointing the finger and laughing at another person's belief system to show how open-minded you are. I've learned God's humour tends towards the ironic -- mostly as we humans make such good targets of satire.

So what do I do with this? Where are the boundary markers I set? And just how proudly do I maintain them?

I have one foot in two different faith communities. The Protestant church I attend has its boundary markers -- though I don't think anyone really agrees where they belong. And the Quakers I know and love think they don't have any -- and paradoxically -- that is their most rigid one. Like I said, God's humour tends towards the ironic -- mostly as we humans make such good targets of satire.

according to mark 7:1-23

7:1-5 - And now Jesus was approached by the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem. They had noticed that his disciples ate their meals with "common" hands - meaning that they had not gone through a ceremonial washing. (The Pharisees, and indeed all the Jews, will never eat unless they have washed their hands in a particular way, following a traditional rule. And they will not eat anything bought in the market until they have first performed their "sprinkling". And there are many other things which they consider important, concerned with the washing of cups, jugs and basins.) So the Pharisees and the scribes put this question to Jesus, "Why do your disciples refuse to follow the ancient tradition, and eat their bread with 'common' hands?"

7:6-8 - Jesus replied, "You hypocrites, Isaiah described you beautifully when he wrote - 'This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men'. You are so busy holding on to the traditions of men that you let go the commandment of God!"

7:9-13 - Then he went on, "It is wonderful to see how you can set aside the commandment of God to preserve your own tradition! For Moses said, 'Honour your father and your mother' and 'He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death'. But you say, 'if a man says to his father or his mother, Korban - meaning, I have given God whatever duty I owed to you', then he need not lift a finger any longer for his father or mother, so making the word of God invalid for the sake of the tradition which you hold. And this is typical of much of what you do."

7:14-15 - Then he called the crowd close to him again, and spoke to them, "Listen to me now, all of you, and understand this, There is nothing outside a man which can enter into him and make him 'common'. It is the things which come out of a man that make him 'common'!"

7:17 - Later, when he had gone indoors away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about this parable.

7:18-23 - "Oh, are you as dull as they are?" he said. "Can't you see that anything that goes into a man from outside cannot make him 'common' or unclean? You see, it doesn't go into his heart, but into his stomach, and passes out of the body altogether, so that all food is clean enough. But," he went on, "whatever comes out of a man, that is what makes a man 'common' or unclean. For it is from inside, from men's hearts and minds, that evil thoughts arise - lust, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, arrogance and folly! All these evil things come from inside a man and make him unclean!"

according to mark 6:45-56

6:45-50 - Directly after this, Jesus made his disciples get aboard the boat and go on ahead to Bethsaida on the other side of the lake, while he himself sent the crowds home. And when he had sent them all on their way, he went off to the hill-side to pray. When it grew late, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was by himself on land. He saw them straining at the oars, for the wind was dead against them. And in the small hours he went towards them, walking on the waters of the lake, intending to come alongside them. But when they saw him walking on the water, they thought he was a ghost, and screamed out. For they all saw him and they were absolutely terrified. But Jesus at once spoke quietly to them, "It's all right, it is I myself; don't be afraid!"

6:51-52 - And he climbed aboard the boat with them, and the wind dropped. But they were scared out of their wits. They had not had the sense to learn the lesson of the loaves. Even that miracle had not opened their eyes to see who he was.

6:53-56 - And when they had crossed over to the other side of the lake, they landed at Gennesaret and tied up there. As soon as they came ashore, the people recognised Jesus and rushed all over the countryside and began to carry the sick around on their beds to wherever they heard that he was. Wherever he went, in villages or towns or farms, they laid down their sick right in the road-way and begged him that they might "just touch the edge of his cloak". And all those who touched him were healed.

JB Phillips translation