READING BETWEEN THE TEXTS: MINOR CHARACTERS WHO PREPARE THE WAY FOR JESUS

Encounter, Winter 2005 by Gardner, A Edward

There are minor characters not included in this case study. I am confident that the motif of "preparing the way for Jesus by being the occasion for removing obstacles" also applies to them. In the healing of the paralytic (2:1, 12), four men overcome the obstacle of the crowd to uncover the roof and let down the man on a pallet to Jesus. The deeper obstacle facing the man was a culture that considered sin the cause of sickness. It was believed that the sick deserved their plight because they had sinned. Jesus addresses this belief by saying, "Your sins are forgiven." Jesus runs into the brick wall of religious leaders who believe that it is blasphemy for anyone but God to forgive sins. Jesus proceeds, however, that they may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sin and says, "rise, take up your pallet and go home."

Jesus's riddle that, in the Kingdom of God, "many that are first will be last and the last first" (Mark 10:31) can be applied to the role of minor characters. By their faith, "the last" (minor characters, sometimes outcasts, demon-possessed, and unnamed people) prepare the way of the Lord and make straight his paths by being the occasion for removing obstacles in the way. The converse, "the first" (religious and political leaders, the rich and the powerful, and even the disciples) are "last" in the Kingdom of God because they resist the saving purpose of God. In terms of pastoral care, it is to the ordinary, unnamed, and marginal persons, in and out of our congregations, that the Kingdom of God belongs.

What has been proposed in this paper is that, in terms of literary criticism, the style of the Gospel of Mark does not simply unfold its story in the explicitly narrated context; rather, for the careful reader, it supposes a synchronic comparison of analogous episodes and of word-play that offers additional implicit meanings that enhance the reader's understanding of the text. The possibility of "implicit meanings" can open the interpreter to the charge of "subjectivity." However, the reader-exegete must refer his or her interpretation back to how adequately it illumines the text. These insights may be conceived as existing between text and text.

Finally, literary criticism may look directly at the text, the story, the plot, the settings, the characters, and literary devices. Another form of criticism may look behind the text. Historical criticism seeks to establish the "real" events as they happened behind the text. Still another form may look in front of the text; that is, the reader-response criticism looks at how the person who reads the text may be persuaded or influenced by the story. I have argued that meaning exists for the careful reader by comparing text and text. As the writer of Ecclesiastes put it, "For everything there is a season and a time for every matter [or method] under heaven" (3:1).

1 Joel F. Williams, Other Followers of Jesus: Minor Characters as Major Figures in Mark's Gospel, Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement, vol. 102 (England: Sheffield Academic Press, Ltd., 1994), 36.