June 2018

Join us this Thursday at L!VE Café, 163 S. Oak Park Avenue in Oak Park. Doors open at 7:00p, the study begins at 7:30p. If you can’t be with us in person, join us via Facebook Live.

Summer is the perfect time for a “walking tour” of Mark’s Gospel. The oldest and shortest of the Gospels, Mark is full of amazing details that capture the life and ministry of Jesus in fascinating ways. Mark’s Jesus is a man on a mission without much patience for folks who can’t keep up. He says exactly what’s on his mind. And the writer tells the Jesus story in an action-packed style overflowing with mysterious touches. Why is there no Christmas chapter? Why is Jesus so tough on the disciples? Why can’t they see who he really is? Why are the women afraid to tell the news of the Risen Christ? And what’s up with that naked man in Gethsemane (among other peculiarities)?
Join us every Thursday from June 7-August 30, as we spend the summer touring Mark’s Gospel. It will be a trip well worth taking!

The Jesus Crowd

Shea: Big week this week.
Tim: You bet. On Thursday night, we’re digging into the realities of Jesus’s ministry as reported in Mark—what this “kingdom of God” actually looks like, how it works, and why it’s so problematic for people who think they’ve got everything figured out. Then this coming Sunday we join the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches for the 2018 Pride Parade. As always, the Coalition will show up in a big way and it’s going to be a thrilling first step into public ministry for Gather.
Shea: Speaking of public ministry, the Mark passages we’re looking at are all about the Jesus crowd. They also show up in a big way very early on and they make big trouble for Jesus. Why is that? It would seem that Jesus’s ability to draw lots of people would give him some street cred. Everybody loves an overnight success story.
Tim: The problem with the Jesus crowd is that it’s the wrong kind of people. There’s a perfectly good Greek word  for “the people.” But Mark uses a word that actually means “mob.” The original readers immediately got it; he was describing alleged sinners and social outcasts, supposedly unfit people and every imaginable kind of “unclean” person. Yet there they are, crowded around Jesus, becoming his supporting cast while he confronts evil, heals diseases, and challenges the Religious Right of his day. In fact, he shames his critics for questioning why he’s hanging out with this crowd!
Shea: So you think Jesus would have no problem marching in the Pride Parade.
Tim: It’s more like a Pride Parade keeps popping up wherever Jesus goes. These folks aren’t trying to prove anything. They get what Jesus is up to. Sure, some of them are in profound need. And some of them are there for the show. I imagine quite a few show up because they heard a party always breaks out when Jesus is in the house. But Mark never criticizes them the way he dishes the disciples and religious fanatics.
Shea: Why is that?
Tim: Because Jesus makes it very clear that he’s come for them—not to belittle or condemn them, but rather to forgive and embrace them. And he’s okay if that upsets the fanatics. “You don’t put new wine in old bottles,” he says. Jesus never turned down a reason to celebrate.
Shea: And that makes a lot of folks nervous.
Tim: They should be nervous—for lots of reasons we’ll get into this coming Thursday.
Shea: I can’t wait to see where this goes!

Join us this Thursday at L!VE Café, 163 S. Oak Park Avenue in Oak Park. Doors open at 7:00p, the study begins at 7:30p. If you can’t be with us in person, join us via Facebook Live.

Summer is the perfect time for a “walking tour” of Mark’s Gospel. The oldest and shortest of the Gospels, Mark is full of amazing details that capture the life and ministry of Jesus in fascinating ways. Mark’s Jesus is a man on a mission without much patience for folks who can’t keep up. He says exactly what’s on his mind. And the writer tells the Jesus story in an action-packed style overflowing with mysterious touches. Why is there no Christmas chapter? Why is Jesus so tough on the disciples? Why can’t they see who he really is? Why are the women afraid to tell the news of the Risen Christ? And what’s up with that naked man in Gethsemane (among other peculiarities)?
Join us every Thursday from June 7-August 30, as we spend the summer touring Mark’s Gospel. It will be a trip well worth taking!

Living the Good News

Tim: Growing up Pentecostal, I often heard of Jesus’ many miracles. Whether it was casting out demons or healing the sick, Jesus is busy helping people in Mark’s gospel.
Shea: He wastes no time; there is no downtime in Mark.
Tim: But let’s talk about this. Why all the miracles?
Shea: Well, for Mark, it is important to establish Jesus’ authority from the get-go. It’s why after calling the first four disciples, Jesus moves into his local synagogue and teaches with authority. That authority is then exercised when he casts out the unclean spirit from the man. The people notice Jesus’ authority, even over spirits, even a power to heal, yet they do not know where the authority comes from.
Tim: And as one with divine authority, it doesn’t take long before Jesus gets in trouble.
Shea: Nope! Right after Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, Jesus heals after the Sabbath sunset – a huge no-no! We will see, time and time again, that Jesus gets in trouble for doing the right thing at the wrong time. (Of course, the lesson here is that there’s never a wrong time to do the right thing!)
Tim: It also seems to me that Jesus can be read as socially restoring people with these acts?
Shea: Exactly. Notice the first man has an “unclean spirit.” We often think evil, even demonic, but unclean here is a buzzword that would pique one’s interest. There were very strict rules in Judaism within a paradigm of clean/unclean. As such, Jesus follows up this first cleansing with healing a leper (someone seen as unclean), that is, touching someone who was considered untouchable. It is clear, then, that from the beginning, Jesus, as the one inaugurating and enacting the Kingdom of God, has come to remove physical, spiritual, and social boundaries. That which was once unclean is how clean. There is no “outside” of God’s love.
Tim: I love that Jesus tells the once-leperous man to not say anything to anyone but the priest. In that way, it restores the man’s ability to worship God and to do so as someone that is clean, one that has dignity, one that is restored.
Shea: Love that! Yet, the story tells us the man went out and “declared it freely.” Jesus, the man from Nazareth, has compassion for these people, but he has no time for the religious rules that categorize clean/unclean or create rules that control and restrict others under the auspices of piety. People come to him in droves, desperate for this good news.
Tim: So Jesus: healer, exorcist, and rule breaker?
Shea: And so much more. Jesus is showing us the Way to new life in the Kingdom, to a personal connection with God, to relationships with others. I cannot wait to jump back into Mark’s fast-paced storytelling this Thursday night!

Join us this Thursday at L!VE Café, 163 S. Oak Park Avenue in Oak Park. Doors open at 7:00p, the study begins at 7:30p. If you can’t be with us in person, join us via Facebook Live.

Summer is the perfect time for a “walking tour” of Mark’s Gospel. The oldest and shortest of the Gospels, Mark is full of amazing details that capture the life and ministry of Jesus in fascinating ways. Mark’s Jesus is a man on a mission without much patience for folks who can’t keep up. He says exactly what’s on his mind. And the writer tells the Jesus story in an action-packed style overflowing with mysterious touches. Why is there no Christmas chapter? Why is Jesus so tough on the disciples? Why can’t they see who he really is? Why are the women afraid to tell the news of the Risen Christ? And what’s up with that naked man in Gethsemane (among other peculiarities)?
Join us every Thursday from June 7-August 30, as we spend the summer touring Mark’s Gospel. It will be a trip well worth taking!

Action Hero

Shea: It’s no secret that Mark is your favorite Gospel.
Tim: I love all the Gospels. But I guess Mark is my favorite because of how direct Jesus is. He’s on a mission and he’s not messing around.
Shea: And yet people can’t recognize who he is. The disciples don’t seem to know. The Pharisees and Religious Right can’t figure out what to do with him. For the longest time, nobody puts it together and realizes Jesus is the Christ.
Tim: Well, Mark knows. He’s tells us as much is in the first sentence of his book. And, rather interestingly, evil spirits recognize Jesus. They know they’re in big trouble whenever he shows up. They cry, “What do you want with us?” Then Jesus sends them packing.
Shea: Compared to the other Gospels, Jesus doesn’t talk much in Mark.
Tim: That’s right. You won’t find long discourses and convoluted debates in Mark. Even the parables are quick and to the point. The writer is using a journalistic approach, showing us how this Jesus Movement got started, how it nearly got shut down, and why it ultimately couldn’t be stopped. God was working out a new kind of idea, a bigger, better plan for the world, a way of living unlike anything before it.
Shea: The Way was how the first believers described their devotion as Jesus followers.
Tim: And that’s Mark’s big theme. Prepare the way of the Lord, a revolutionary, all-encompassing idea that led not only to God but also to a new way of life that subverted everything the Roman Empire stood for: power, greed, materialism, militarism, slavery, exploitation of poor people, corrupt leadership, and excesses of every kind, including religious overkill.
Shea: Yet in the middle of so much wickedness Jesus declares, “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.”
Tim: In Mark’s Gospel, the reign of God is all of a piece. You can’t do the God thing without the justice thing. And justice won’t work if you leave God out of it. To repent is to change direction, to reject what passes as justice and embrace what’s truly just. God is establishing a new order, and Jesus is leading the charge. That’s why we follow Jesus, why we sign on to be radical disciples. God’s up to something and we want to be part of it.
Shea: We need this Gospel now more than ever.
Tim: All you have to do is open your newsfeed to see how far we’ve strayed from the Way. Mark has never been timelier.

Join us this Thursday at L!VE Café, 163 S. Oak Park Avenue in Oak Park. Doors open at 7:00p, the study begins at 7:30p. If you can’t be with us in person, join us via Facebook Live.

Summer is the perfect time for a “walking tour” of Mark’s Gospel. The oldest and shortest of the Gospels, Mark is full of amazing details that capture the life and ministry of Jesus in fascinating ways. Mark’s Jesus is a man on a mission without much patience for folks who can’t keep up. He says exactly what’s on his mind. And the writer tells the Jesus story in an action-packed style overflowing with mysterious touches. Why is there no Christmas chapter? Why is Jesus so tough on the disciples? Why can’t they see who he really is? Why are the women afraid to tell the news of the Risen Christ? And what’s up with that naked man in Gethsemane (among other peculiarities)?
Join us every Thursday from June 7-August 30, as we spend the summer touring Mark’s Gospel. It will be a trip well worth taking!