This week's Primary Passage (Mark 1:1-15) transports me to 8 Mile Road in the industrial district of Jerusalem, circa 59 AD, where revolution's in the air and people are fighting over how best to get the boot of Rome off the necks of the Palestinian Jews. A veritable rap battle is taking place between the Pharisees (the moralizers), the Sadducees (the collaborators), the Zealots (the armed guerilla fighters), and the Essenes (the withdrawers). Out of nowheresville comes a new hip hop artist, armed to the hilt with new ideas and an in-your-face-cut-to-the-chase message, designed to capture the hearts and minds of the dispossessed and down and out dreamers. I got every ingredient, all I need is the courage, like I already got the beat, all I need is the words.
If we could knock the mud of 2000 years of interpretation and cooptation off of our boots, we could immediately see and hear the radical nature of Mark's words; he wastes no time with birth narratives or juvenile parent squabbles; he shoots some freestyle ammo right into the heart of the Jewish/Roman/Christian conflict of the 50s, from the first verse. Mark is the first writer to take all the oral traditions spreading around and put them down into a new literary form, a gospel. This word in itself is radical, for it was used up to that time to denote the glad tidings of victory for Roman emperors who conquered new lands. Mark is saying from the outset that there's a new conqueror to contend with, Jesus, whose credentials far exceed the Roman's claims--he is none other than the Son of God. It's different, it's a certain significance, a certificate of authenticity, you'd never even see, but it's everything to me, it's my credibility.
He goes on to quote Malachi, the last of the prophets, after whom the Jews thought God's voice had been silenced. Mark is claiming that God is speaking again, a new prophetic word. Mark will pull from many sources for his rapping verses, but more than any he will reference the apocalyptic Daniel, whose words encouraged and challenged an earlier generation of faithful struggling to hang on to faith in the midst of a cruel occupying force. So, if you want to really understand Mark, read and study Daniel alongside the gospel. Mark digs in as he continues the prologue to his lyrical narrative, which moves to a fast backbeat rythym, not stopping the action for much commentary. He talks about a new way being prepared--a new way of life, in the face of the occupation--and unlike all the other ways being promoted, this way does not proceed from the center of the power structure--Jerusalem. This new way proceeds from the desert, the wilderness, a symbol of the marginalized, the outcasts, the place where revolutions foment and people engage in mighty spiritual struggles. Yo I won't tell no lie, not a moment goes by that I don't pray to the sky, please I'm beggin you God, please don't let me pigeon holed in no regular job, Yo I hope you can hear me homey wherever you are, Yo I'm tellin you dawg I'm bailin this trailer tomorrow, tell my mother I love her, kiss baby sister goodbye, say whenever you need me baby, I'm never too far. But yo I gotta get out there, the only way I know.
Jesus' way will come from the margins, the trailer parks and underpass tarps, not from the traditional center of power. And then, in another radical move, Mark introduces an Elijah figure, John the Baptizer, the Immerser. Elijah had represented the faithful confrontation with the powers, a confrontation designed to show the futility of trusting in worldly power. John is offering immersion into a new way, a way that trusts the power of God over the powers of the world. This is a baptism of repentance, a turning away from the world system and a turning toward another world altogether, a world of love and grace that will build a new community in the shell of the decaying and rotting old community. His is not a call to reform or revitalize the old system. It is a turning away. And then, in a move that would completely throw off all the hearers who did not know the end of the story, he brings Jesus onto the scene, asking to receive this baptism of repentance. Jesus is not undergoing this because he had committed sins--he was personally sinless. But he had lived 30 years in a world that got everything wrong; he breathed the same air of oppression and lived in the same system of injustice as everyone else. And so he participated in the great symbolic act, publicly rejecting the world of Rome and Jerusalem, and coming out of the water to offer an immersion in a new world--the world of the Spirit. It's time for me to U-turn, Yo it only takes one time for me to get burned.
And then, to avoid any chance of misinterpreting what this new Spirit would look like, no sooner has Jesus heard the confirming words that he truly is God's beloved, than Mark's hip hop has the Spirit literally driving Jesus deeper into the wilderness, for a contest of wills between this beloved Son of God and the power of the world's way--Satan. You gotta live it to feel it, you didn't you wouldn't get it, It's different.
And to further establish the theme of subversion, John gets arrested for his repentance calls, and Jesus immediately takes up the mantle of Public Enemy and preaches the same subversive sermon--turn away from this false world, and turn toward a new way. I got the urge, suddenly it's a surge, suddenly a new burst of energy is occured, time to show these free world leaders the three and a third, I am no longer scared now, I'm free as a bird. Jesus' forty days of engagement with the wild beasts (see Daniel again) and the preaching that followed represent the ongoing confrontation that will continue throughout Mark's rap, culminating in the final battle and surprise ending, with the powers ultimately defeated by the crucifixion. It's gospel--Victory in Jesus, my Savior forever, he sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood, so that we would take up our own crosses and follow him in our ongoing engagement with the powers of the world, our ongoing call for people to live this new way, way of faith and grace. The prologue ends with Jesus pronouncing the time--the beat is on--the time has come--kairos time--the fullness of time. It's time for me to just stand up, and travel new land, time for me to just take matters into my own hands, once I'm over these tracks man I'ma never look back, sorry momma I'm grown, I must travel alone, I ain't gon' follow the footsteps I'm making my own.
Off to work I go, back to this 8 Mile Road
Stan
No comments:
Post a Comment