Connectivity

Each Gospel account possesses its own particular flavor. This year on Sundays the Gospel lessons mostly come from Matthew, which gives us the Sermon on the Mount with challenges to tend for the outcast, the poor, and the lowly. Luke’s distinctness derives from the details, the Songs from Anna, Simeon, Zechariah, and Mary, as well as the parables. In John we find a sophisticated way of talking and thinking about God, a festive theme, and of course, the opening verses describing the Word creating all. While I love all of these appetizing aspects of other Gospel accounts, my favorite telling of the Good News is Mark’s.

Mark tells the story with perfect pace, as though the tale of Jesus could be turned into a screenplay and then a movie. Immediately the audience moves from one story to the next, until the events of Holy Week unfold slowly and deliberately to emphasize their importance. Also, the interpretation does not get accomplished by the narrator, but by us who hear the most basic details about the Son of Man. We must decide what to make of Jesus. When we read through the pages of Mark we may experience Jesus stepping out of the story and into our lives. To top it all off the original ending leads us to go out and see the Risen Lord in our own lives, in our own Galilee. What’s not to love about Mark’s expression of the Good News?

An enveloping structure additionally stands out as one of the other hallmarks found within the Gospel account of Mark. This means that sometimes stories happen within a story or are far more connected than we might initially imagine. In Chapter 11 the cursing of the fig tree immediately precedes and follows the cleansing of the Temple, as if to show us that our spirituality will wither and die like that tree if we turn our spiritual practices into money-making mockeries. To this end, we can swiftly discover that so much in Mark connects, and the edges of stories blur into one another masterfully, such that one helps us to interpret another. Today’s passage falls into this same pattern.

As Jesus and his disciples travel through Galilee, a rough place in which Jesus’ healing, feeding, and teaching flourished, this band of travelers kept a low profile. They did this because Jesus sought to teach them about the nature of the Son of Man. The Messiah would be betrayed, undergo suffering at human hands, and even die before rising again. With the backdrop of other lessons in his ministry, Jesus tries to show his closest followers what lies ahead. Their fear though precludes them from seeing or even asking for clarification. This is where the connectivity from one story to the next comes to the forefront.

While the disciples were walking with Jesus and hearing of what the Messiah must undergo, they begin to argue over who is the greatest. This is no coincidence. Even though they could not grasp where Jesus’ ministry was going, they did still make the connection between greatness and the coming of the Christ. However, they mistook what greatness looks like—just like we do so often in our lives.

To be the Messiah requires suffering greatly, laying down one’s life for another, and rebuffing the lure of power at every turn. “Whoever wants to be first must be last and servant of all.” Those who want to be followers of Jesus must also take on the mantle of the lowly and the role of the servant. However, what does this look like?

While it might seem like a random detail thrown into the story, Jesus’ invitation of a child to come among the disciples serves at the culmination of this lesson on discipleship. Children in that day and age were sadly on the lowest rung of society. Unlike in most of our society today where we celebrate children, back then young ones were seen primarily as cheap labor. Kids had rough lives that were liabilities on their families until they could start making money for their families. Jesus wisely saw this terrible reality and sought to encourage his disciples to flip the prevailing system on its head. In this way he bid them to welcome even the lowest members of society to be welcomed as though they were welcoming Jesus himself.

Connectivity in Mark’s Gospel account provides a beautiful way of us understanding the profound wisdom that Jesus left us. While we assuredly do not have to get every connection to follow Jesus, as we dig deeper into the Living Word of God we experience all the more Life in Christ. In our daily lives we may want to consider ourselves the greatest, but Jesus challenges us, like he challenged his disciples, to see that greatness in God’s eyes stems from becoming lowly and welcoming even those whom others despise or overlook. Who can you welcome, who can you serve, who can you love that everyone else misses or hates?