Marcan love, sotto voce

Biblical Theology Bulletin, May, 2009 by Mark Kiley

Abstract

Mark's community was heir to preaching about Jewish Scriptures concerning love. Homilists, catechists and the final Evangelist used these as well as Paul's hymn to love as interpretative lenses through which to present the Jesus tradition. They suggested in a subtle manner that the Jesus-event is, at root, about love. This article is an appeal to listen to the still whisper that informs Mark's good news.

Key Words: Shema, Song of Solomon, Hosea, Paschal Mystery. Corinth

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Since the turn of the millennium, we have enjoyed a steady stream of major critical commentaries on Mark. Among the most notable are those by Marcus, Donahue & Harrington, Boring, Culpepper, and Yarbro Collins. This seems to me a good opportunity to discern more closely the shape of a major stand of trees in the forest of Marcan theology, that of love. My thesis is that the Marcan statement on love is spoken softly. That is, I will examine the way in which Marcan texts that do not explicitly mention love nevertheless have at some stage been influenced by texts about love. So with some attention to the minor influence of scattered texts about love, I want first and primarily to examine three Old Testament texts concerned with love (Deuteronomy 6, The Song of Solomon 2 and 8, and Hosea 11) as they influence the first half of the Gospel. And I will do much the same for the latter half of the Gospel and the hymn to love in 1 Corinthians 13.

Jewish Scriptures about Love in Mark 1-10

A. The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4)

Mark 2:1-12, on the forgiving and healing of the paralytic, displays the influence of several love texts, including the Shema's call to love the Lord.

The two-part event of forgiveness and healing in the narrative engages in turn the themes of Proverbs 10:12 (Love covers all sins) and 1 Corinthians 13:7 (Love covers, stegei, all). These might be simply parallels. But the thudding quality of the text "they unroofed the roof" constitutes the first clue that this is not just any roof (stege). Perfectly good verbal options were available to the Evangelist to say that they removed the roof. And the word all occurs twice in Mark 2:1-12. Perhaps the double occurrences in Mark of roof-roof all-all suggest an interaction of some kind between the Jesus tradition and the verses in Proverbs and 1 Corinthians, but in gradually accruing stages. The construal offered here furnishes no certainty about which elements are historical Jesus tradition that triggered the interest in the love texts and which details are provided to further elucidate the love trajectory. But the interplay is patent. For example, themes in Romans 8 of tekna, children (vv 16, 17, 21) and inability to be separated from the love of Christ (v 35) are part of the profile of this pericope (Mk 2:5, 2). See also Bear one another's burdens (Gal 6:2, in the context of love your neighbor Gal 5:14). The incipient homiletic shaping of the Jesus tradition would have been complemented and rendered in its final written shape by the Marcan author. But from early on, the process would have been intent on portraying Jesus as mediating this covering Love. Moreover, this sense of love-as-covering may have been developed from, or with awareness of, similar depictions of Sinai and the Law under which the people dwelt.

What we see in this narrative in Mark 2 is an implicit affirmation of the call to love issued by the Shema: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is One ... you shall love the Lord with your whole heart, soul and ... strength." Indeed, the central word of 2:1-12 is heis, one. Actually, the center resides between me, not, and heis.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9                    Mark 2:1-12

Hear, O Israel                       1 akousthe, heard
The Lord is one                      7 except one, God
Sitting in your house                6 seated there
Love the Lord, with all your heart   6,8 kardia, heart
When you lie down/get up             4, 12 on the mat, arose
On your doorposts/gates              2 door
Glorify                              12 glorified God
Deuteronomy 5
27 return to your tents              11 return home
6 who brought you out                12 went out before all

Shema and love elsewhere in Mark. Mark 2:1-12, insofar as it is crafted by the Shema, serves as preparation for the discussion in 12:28ff about the importance of the Love command, the Shema. And the anthropological components of the Shema, loving God with all one's heart, soul, mind and strength, develop in a very interesting fashion. One may see the scribes who consider/judge in their heart (2:6) as exercising the first activity. Mark 8:36 explores the second dynamic when it equates losing one's life for Jesus' sake and the gospel's as equivalent to saving it. The fourth dynamic, loving with all one's strength, is present in the discussion with the wealthy man over the sale of his possessions and gift to the poor (10:21). And its relation to the love dynamic of the Shema is implicitly present in that Jesus "looked at him and loved him."