Recent reflections on the Gospel according to Mark

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 2005 by Sean P. Kealy

Mark's Urgent Message

Mark's Urgent Message is the title of Irish Biblical Scholar Sean Freyne's reflection (86-91) in his collection TEXTS, CONTEXTS AND CULTURES. The oral recitation of the British actor Alec McCowan (tone of voice, changes of pace, facial expressions, movement) opened for him Mark's text as no other study so that it became "a gospel of great power and suspense as it draws us into the story and forces us to take sides." He believes that "it was originally written for just this kind of oral performance for Christian communities in Rome, or possibly even in Palestine" (86). The scarcity of advance information is deliberate, as the aura of mystery and silence hangs over the whole story. Mark the clever dramatist/teacher wants us to be attentive readers from the beginning, to form our own impressions and write the ending accordingly: Did the disciples return to Galilee? Do we share the women's fear? Would we return? Why Galilee, anyhow? Jesus summons us not to Jerusalem or Galilee but to our own true selves "to think the thoughts of God and not the thoughts of men" (8:33). Freyne notes that in contrast to the other Gospels, especially Luke, Mark does not portray Jesus at prayer very often. Jesus is a busy person who prays when he is disappointed by the performance of his associates. It is the prayer of abandonment--"trust in God when human resources, especially that of the understanding of friends, fail" (91).

A Story of Multiple Conflicts

Richard A. Horsley, who comes from outside the biblical scholarly guild, sees Mark not so much as a story of Christian discipleship (as modern readers often take Mark). Rather, Mark is a story of multiple conflicts:

   That is why it is so exciting to read and why it has such a
   compelling message. In the dominant conflict that builds to a climax
   throughout the Gospel, Jesus' challenge to the high priestly rulers
   and their Roman imperial overlords escalates from his preaching
   and practice of the kingdom of God in the village gatherings of
   Galilee to his dramatic demonstration against the Temple and
   confrontation with the rulers in Jerusalem. That results in his
   torturous crucifixion by the Romans as an insurrectionary. In
   Jesus' exorcisms, moreover, God is winning the struggle with Satan
   and the demonic "unclean spirits" that have taken possession of the
   people like an occupying Roman legion. Surprisingly, however, a
   conflict between Jesus and the very disciples he designates as
   representative of the renewed people of Israel also develops in the
   course of the story. Although Jesus teaches them the mystery of
   the kingdom, they persistently fail to understand what he is
   teaching and doing, and at the end they betray, deny and desert him.
   By contrast with the misunderstanding and faithless disciples,
   women who play an increasingly prominent role in Mark's story,
   serve as models of faithfulness [56].

A somewhat similar but maverick reductionist understanding is found in John Dominic Crossan's portrait of Jesus, a Jewish peasant with a direct sense of God's immediacy who shatters all social restraints. Crossan's naturalistic assumptions, however, lead him to certain pre-conclusions ("I presume that Jesus ... could not cure ... disease"--he dismisses the virgin birth and the passion/resurrection narratives as historically invalid). John J. Vincent (370) summarizes Crossan's consistently repeated message as follows: "Jesus was a provincial people's leader and teacher who championed the lifestyle, expectations, relationships and viewpoints of the agrarian artisans of Galilean small towns, and opposed this to the structured power of Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians and Romans, and declared that the Kingdom was now precisely present in just such common mutuality and interdependence of the poor. That he declared this at all ensured his condemnation by all other kingships--of Rome or Herod. By naming Jesus Imperator/kyrios, early Christians continued this claim."