31st SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

“Which is the first of all the commandments?”

Mk 12:28b-34

Taken from Nineham

v. 28. One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”

We know of a number of attempts by rabbis before and after the time of Our Lord, to sum up in the shortest possible form the fundamental principle, or principles, of the Law, the most famous being that of Hillel (c. 25 B.C.): 'What you yourself hate (to be done to you), do not do to your fellow; this is the whole law; the rest is commentary; go and learn it.' Cf. also Gal. 5:14 and Rom. 13:9.

But as Abrahams points out the aim of all such rabbinic attempts was to formulate the basic principle from which the rest of the Law could be deduced as a corollary (cf Matt. 22:40), not to isolate certain commandments as being vital, in contrast to others which were less important or could be ignored.

According to the rabbis, all the commandments must be kept (cf. James 2:10), and because the rabbinic formulations just described tended, despite their authors' intentions, to conflict with this principle, they became suspect and unpopular in many quarters. And Abrahams thinks that what the inquirer in our passage really wanted was 'an opinion as to whether Jesus did or did not share this fear of reducing the Law to fundamental rules'.

The answer he received was clearly entirely satisfactory to him as an orthodox Jew and for that reason we should not perhaps too easily assume that by formulating the ‘first of all commandments’ (v. 28) Jesus implied any more than contemporary rabbis implied by their formulations.

No doubt the importance of the episode from the standpoint of the Evangelist lay precisely in the fact that the Christian Church had drawn the inference which Judaism refused to draw, namely that provided the spirit of the Law, as thus summed up, were kept, all else might be ignored. But how far such an attitude went back in its entirety to Jesus is a further question, and one too far-reaching to be decided here (such. passages as Matt. 5:17-20, Luke 16:17, Matt. 23:23, and James 2:10 would have to be taken into account, as well as on the other side, Mark 7:19).

v. 29-30. Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The first part of the so-called Shemah (Deut. 6:4-9, 11:13-21 and Num 15:37-41) which every pious Jew recites daily and which played a great in late-Jewish piety and rabbinic discussion.

St Mark is the only Synoptist to include v. 29b, so it must remain doubtful whether the early Church saw in it the profound significance. Perhaps in a Gentile milieu, such as St Mark's, an emphasis on the strict monotheism of Christianity was particularly necessary; cf. 1 Cor. 8:5-6.

And with all your mind:

This does not occur in the Old Testament text, though “dianoia” (mind) is often used in LXX as an alternative translation for the Hebrew word here translated heart. The addition no doubt emphasizes the all-embracing character of the required response.

v. 31. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Strictly speaking the inquiry concerned only one commandment (v. 28); perhaps the two Old Testament passages are thought of as constituting a single supreme command.

Neighbor:

Love for one's neighbor is a complex concept. In Lev. 19:18, where the concept stands in contrast to 'taking vengeance or bearing any grudge' against one' neighbor, the idea is clearly of a tender regard for others and a promoting of their good, as active as our promotion of our own. Probably Jesus interpreted the command in the same sort of way, except that, whereas in Leviticus neighbor meant simply a fellow countryman, Jesus gave it the wider connotation it was generally taken to have in his time.

Whatever the meaning of the word in the original Leviticus passage, it seems clear that by Our Lord's time it was taken to include at any rate the resident aliens in Israel as well as the Israelites themselves; whether it was interpreted more widely still is disputed.

Christian commentators almost always assume, on the basis of Luke 10:29-37 that Our Lord here understood it in a completely unrestricted sense, but perhaps caution about this deserves to be considered.

A further point which is often stressed is the essential interrelatedness of the two commandments; true love of the neighbor springs from the love of God, and on the other hand there can be no true love of God which does not express itself in love of the neighbor. Wellhausen goes even further and sees the grounding of the whole matter in the monotheism proclaimed in v. 29b: 'Monotheism is no theory; it is a practical conviction; it is the spring of inward character and of our conduct to our neighbor. It is in other words, the motive of morality'.

vv. 32-34a. The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, ‘He is One and there is no other than he.’ And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.And when Jesus saw that [he] answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

These verses are found only in Mark and their presence produces the unusual result that the decisive saying of Jesus does not form the conclusion of the pericope. Those who think that in the original version of the story the decisive words were spoken by the scribe see in these verses a reminiscence of it, and they point out that Jesus' strong commendation in v. 34 would be most natural if the scribe had said something strikingly novel and bold. If we accept St Mark's version as the original one, perhaps the best explanation is that these verses were retained as driving home the complete identity of view between Jesus and this representative of orthodox Judaism.

Wellhausen comments: '(morality,) according to ... the scribe, belongs to the service of God and is the true way of worshipping him; it is of more value than all sacred actions which are specially rendered to God and are of no use to anyone else.'

Such ideas are by no means novel - cf. e.g. 1 Sam. 15:22 and Hos. 6:6; and there are rabbinic parallels. The words do not exclude ceremonies and sacrifice, and just how much they meant would have depended on the tone of voice in which they were uttered. Jesus clearly found them acceptable, though the precise terms of his answer raise a problem.

Taken at their face value they seem to represent the Kingdom as something already present. J. Weiss points out that there are other New Testament passages where we find the image of the kingdom as a goal towards which men must make their pilgrimage—some being neater to it than others. But he adds that does not alter the fact that in its basic idea, the kingdom of God is something which comes down to men from on high.

The present passage should not be pressed against the general impression of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom which St Mark gives. We cannot be sure that we are dealing with Jesus' precise words, and even if we are, they may easily mean: 'You come near to possessing the qualifications requisite for entry into the kingdom when it comes' .

Despite their negative form, the sense of Jesus' words is no doubt to stress the scribe's nearness to the kingdom and we probably should not ask what he still lacked which kept him from a still closer approach. If,  however, St Mark did have any such question in mind, no doubt his answer was that 'what is lacking is the acknowledgement of Jesus, imitation of him, arid admission to the company of his disciples (cf. Mark 10:21 and Matt. 11:11 // Luke 7:28).

29th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

 Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?

Mk 10:35-45

v. 37. They answered him, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”

The positions on either side of a ruler or host were the most honorable.

In your glory:

St Matthew, probably rightly, takes this to refer to the future messianic kingdom (Matt. 20:21). If so, and the story is authentic, it perhaps points to a time when the disciples were expecting the imminent arrival of the kingdom.

But the request could envisage equally thrones of judgment (cf. Matt. 19:28, Luke 22:30) or the glories of the messianic feast (14:25) and we cannot rule out the possibility that the disciples expected Jesus on his arrival at Jerusalem to inaugurate a temporary earthly paradise and that the reference is to this.

vv. 38 – 39. Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to him, “We can.” Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.

As we have seen, there are a number of Old Testament passages which might have made the equation [cup and baptism = suffering] intelligible, and there is a second-century papyrus in which 'baptized' is used to mean 'overwhelmed with disasters'.

However, the Old Testament contains no really exact parallels, and the imagery here seems more likely to have originated with early Christians reflecting on Christ's life and death as a whole in the light of such sayings as 14:36 and Luke 12:50.  

In St Matthew's parallel version, 20:23, the reference to baptism is missing, and St Mark may have added it to his source to make the saying correspond more closely with the sacramental practice of the Church. The idea would be that, in the conditions of St Mark's day, to accept baptism and become a partaker of the eucharistic cup is to take a step which might well lead to martyrdom; let would-be converts count the cost!

As for the reason for the insertion of these verses into the original story, the usual assumption is that they were added at a time when the martyr deaths of the two apostles were giving rise to reflection in the Church. 'They were known to have been ambitious for high honor. Their wish is now fulfilled, but quite differently from the way they had intended ... and the actual terms of their request have been recast in such a way as to correspond with this fulfillment [i.e. they now ask only for pre-eminence in the next world]. The narrator, by making Jesus say you do not know what you are asking, means us to understand the apostles' request as an unconscious prophecy of their own death, but Jesus interpreted to them how it would be fulfilled' (J. Weiss).

This is a perfectly possible explanation, though it has to reckon with the difficulty that Christian tradition, while reporting the martyr death of James (Acts 12:2), ascribes to John a ripe old age and peaceful death at Ephesus. However, this tradition is not unanimous and may be inaccurate.

But the difficulty is avoided by the ingenious suggestion of Lohmeyer, who thinks that the verses were inserted in the course of controversies over the leadership of the early Church. In view of the way things had developed and of such a tradition as Matt. 16:18, it seemed impossible that James and John were meant to be the leaders. This passage was seen as evidence that this was in accordance with the will of Jesus. But though he had not been able to offer these two primacy in the Church, he had prophesied for them the honor of a martyr death very like his own. This interpretation is very much strengthened if we follow the MSS. which punctuate the end of v. 40 differently (allois instead of all'ois), so that it means: it has been prepared for others.

v. 45. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The Greek is a little stronger than R.S.V. suggests. The Son of man himself ... (who is by nature the greatest in the kingdom and therefore the example of what greatness in the kingdom implies).

A ransom:

The Greek word has a variety of meanings in the Greek Old Testament, among the most important: a monetary compensation paid for a crime (e.g. Num. 35:31-32), or for a life that would otherwise be forfeit (e.g. Exod. 21:30), the money paid for the release of a captive or slave (e.g. Lev. 25:51-52, Isa. 45:13), or the equivalent accepted instead of certain sacrifices (e.g. Num. 18:15).

The kindred verb and verbal noun (redeem, redemption) are used of God 'delivering' his people without any special emphasis on the idea of ransom in the narrow sense. In view of all that, it is probably wrong to press the word here as meaning more than 'means of deliverance' or 'redemption'.

For:

The Greek word (anti) normally means 'instead of'; 'in place of', and some commentators find that meaning here. The word 'suggests that in the act of deliverance "the many" not only benefit, but receive what they cannot effect'.

But there are passages where the word means no more than 'on behalf of' and it is doubtful how far we should press the more exact meaning.

Many:

A semitic use of the word which does riot necessarily envisage the exclusion of some.                

28TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!

Mk 10:17-27

v. 17. As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The first phrase, by setting the incident in the context of a journey, provides a formal link with the surrounding material.

Good:

Such an address was quite contrary to the Jewish convention. As Lohmeyer says, it would almost have been tantamount to 'holy' or 'divine', and like the accompanying gestures would have seemed altogether too much for one whom the man thought of, after all, as no more than a Teacher (i.e. rabbi).

Life:

The kingdom of God to come'

Inherit:

Or 'gain entrance to' were current usage among the rabbis.

v. 18. Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good?* No one is good but God alone.

Undeniably a very puzzling verse which has never been wholly satisfactorily explained; it has caused difficulty to Christian readers at least since the time of St Matthew, who felt obliged to alter it radically (Matt. 19:17).

The suggestion has often been made - e.g. by the Jewish scholar Montefiore - that the words testify to a sense of sin, or at any rate sinfulness, on the part of Jesus, but even if that were true, it would not explain how, or in what sense, the words came to be included by St Mark; for certainly he, and those from whom he got the tradition, believed in the sinlessness of Jesus.

How did they understand the words? One popular line of approach has been to stress that Jesus was looking at the matter from the questioner's point of view, and saying, in effect: '(Though I am good) you have no right to call me good, for, as far as you know, I am simply a man.' Though that puts the point too crudely, there is probably some truth in it, and, bearing in mind what was said about the word good in the last note, we shall 'perhaps get nearest the truth if we suppose that what alarmed and offended Jesus was the indiscriminate bandying about of divine or quasi-divine titles.

 Any serious religious quest must be based on the recognition that the one God is the sole norm and source of all goodness, even of the goodness of Jesus in the days of his flesh. It sorts well with this that Jesus immediately goes on to point the man to the Law as the expression of God's righteous will.

v. 19. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.’”

As shown in the exposition, Jesus did not suppose that the Law could supply the full answer to the man's question. His words are a challenge.

The commandments cited are a rough summary of the so-called 'Second Table' of the Ten Commandments, the Fifth Commandment being placed last, and the Tenth summarized in the words Do not defraud, perhaps because fraudulence is a special temptation of the rich. No doubt these commandments were meant to typify the Law of God as a whole, but it is perhaps characteristic of Jesus' emphasis that those actually quoted deal with man's duty to his neighbor.

v. 21. Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Loved him:

That is the normal meaning of the Greek word (agapao), but here we should perhaps think rather of some definite outward gesture of affection - 'caressed him' or 'put his arms round him'.

Will have treasure in heaven:

The phrase is rabbinic, and so, in one sense, is the whole saying which precedes it. According to the rabbis, God would reward righteousness with treasure in heaven,

and in later Judaism almsgiving, for those who could afford it, come to be regarded as a - if not indeed the - principal ingredient of righteousness.

On the other hand, it is one thing to give regular alms out of one's income (no doubt the man did that already) and quite another to be asked to give up the sources of the income itself. And, as we have seen, even the latter demand does not stand by itself; it is the prelude to the further demand: come, follow me.

v. 24. The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

Some MSS. (the 'western text') have v. 25 before this verse, and this s probably the original order. The disciples' growing astonishment  (cf. vv. 24 with 26) then corresponds to the way Jesus' insistence on the difficulty of salvation grows and widens its scope. In the R.S.V. order, v. 25, referring only to the rich, is something of an anti-climax after e general statement of v. 24. If  R.S.V. order is right, the words for “a rich man” in v. 25 may be an interpolation, but there is no MS. authority for such a suggestion.

In v. 24 the western text includes the words relegated by R.S.V. to the margin. As the exposition has shown, they are a perfectly sound comment on the difficulties of the rich. If they are genuine, the passage as originally concerned exclusively with riches as a barrier to salvation, but a number of extremely important MSS., followed by the majority commentators, omit them, and R.S.V. is no doubt right in doing so.

v. 25. It is easier for a camel to pass through [the] eye of [a] needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Sayings of other Jewish teachers have survived which speak of the possibility of some vast object (e.g. an elephant) getting through the eye of a needle, so the comparison was clearly proverbial, and there is no substance in the suggestion that camel (camelos) is a mistake for amilos (' cable'), or for the medieval fancy that there was a gate in Jerusalem, known as the needle, through which a camel might just squeeze. The fact that such minimizing interpretations have been brought up is itself an eloquent comment on the passage! The expression is of course a hyperbole meant to be memorable by reason of its very grotesqueness, but it would be a mistake on that account to ignore the utterly serious truth it expresses.                ,

27th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife]. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.

Mk 10: 2-12 

v. 2. The Pharisees approached and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him.

Pharisees:

The reference to them is omitted by a number of important MSS., probably rightly. In that case the verb is an impersonal plural of the type so common in Mark, and we should translate: 'the question was put to him….'

Test:

The Greek word (peirazein) can mean simply to 'test' in the sense of seeking to elicit the truth about something or it can mean 'tempt', i.e. test in the hope of eliciting some damning admission. St Mark no doubt understood it here in the second sense. Jesus was to be brought into open conflict with the Law or discredited in the eyes of Herod. But just possibly the question which gave rise to the incident in its original form was a quite straightforward one designed to elicit Jesus' views on a much-debated question in contemporary ethics.

On the content of the question it will have been a particularly pertinent one in Rome, where divorce was easy and constantly occurred. But the wording suggests that in the present form of the question it originated in Jewish-Christian circles, for it does not seem to contemplate a woman divorcing her husband (contrast v. 12). This was possible according to Roman Law, but not according to Jewish Law.

v. 5. But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment.

Hardness of heart (sklerokardia):

Some commentators take “hard” here to mean 'rough' or 'coarse' and think of 'the rude nature which belongs to a, primitive civilization'. The implication then is that the words express a merciful concession for the woman's sake. But perhaps we should think rather of unteachableness, stubborn refusal to obey God's will as revealed in Genesis. The implication is that the Mosaic Law was in certain cases a kind of second best. The highest law could not, or would not, have been obeyed. So there was a concession made to human weakness or 'hardness'. The divorce enactment was not a law but a dispensation.

Did Jesus suppose that with his coming this dispensation lost all its validity, or did he think that where men - even the sons of the kingdom - failed to live up to the divine will in its fullness, some such dispensation was still the best way of dealing with the situation? It is difficult to say how far his view may have been influenced by his belief that this world of 'marrying and giving in marriage' had only a very short time to last (9:1). Much will depend on whether we regard vv. 11-12 as detailed legislation or whether we take it as a vivid way of expressing God's absolute will in this matter.

v. 7. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife].

For this reason:

Refers in Gn. 2:4 to the woman's origin from Adam's rib, but by a piece of exegesis reminiscent of the rabbis Jesus makes it refer to something different - the fact (in Gn.1:27) that the human race was created from the beginning in two sexes. It was because God originally made them male and female that a man will leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh. There is reason to think that Gn. 1:7 was currently quoted in support of monogamy, as opposed to polygamy. But it appears to have been original to Jesus to see it as prohibiting divorce. His argument no doubt was that if marriage makes a man and his wife one flesh, it clearly creates a relationship between them as real and as indissoluble as that which binds a man to his relations by blood (v. 8b and cf; Gen. 29:14).

v. 9. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.

Man:

In antithesis to God, this could mean simply any human authority. But in fact is is no doubt the husband who is contemplated, for neither in Jewish nor in Roman law were the parties divorced by any extraneous authority. In Jewish Law the man divorced his wife, in Roman law either party could divorce the other.

vv. 11-12. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

St. Mark probably understood these verses simply as crystallizing in clear-cut terms the truths inherent in vv. 2-9, though strictly interpreted they add something new. To divorce your wife is a sin, but it is not adultery. If in addition to divorcing her, you marry another woman, then you add the sin of adultery to the sin of divorce.

26th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna 

Mk 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

From D. E. Nineham

v. 39. Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.

It throws an interesting light on the contemporary outlook that Jesus is not represented as shocked or incredulous at the suggestion that his name could be used to effect cures in a semi-magical way unrelated to any personal knowledge of, or faith in, him.

v. 41. Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.

Because you belong to Christ:

Or “because you bear the name of Christ” and literally “in (the) name that you are Christ's” - a phrase as odd in Greek as it is in English. Because you are Christ's is Pauline terminology (cf. Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 1:12, 3:23; 2 Cor. 10:7). The word ‘Christ’ is nowhere else in the Gospels or Acts used as a proper name without the article. So it seems clear that in its present form the phrase must be the work of the early Church.

v. 42. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe [in me] to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”

A Roman form of punishment, though not quite unknown among the Jews. Great millstone is literally 'donkey millstone' and is usually explained as meaning a millstone turned by a donkey, as distinct from the lighter handmill served by a woman.

v. 43. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.

Gehenna (Hell):

Hell is a word with so many irrelevant associations that it is probably better to keep to the original word, ‘Gehenna’. This was a valley west of Jerusalem where at one time children were sacrificed to the god Moloch (2 Kings 23:10, Jer. 7:31, 19:5f, 32:35). After being desecrated by Josiah it came to be used as a refuse dump for Jerusalem, a fact which explains the imagery of worm and fire borrowed from Is. 66:24 in v. 48. The suggestion is of maggots preying on offal and fires perpetually smoldering for the destruction of refuse.

Because of all its bad associations, the Jewish imagination had come to picture Gehenna as the place of future torment for the wicked.

v. 48. Where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched’

Whether, as many commentators believe, this addition to v. 47 is the work of St Mark or of the first compiler of the passage, or whether it goes back to Jesus himself, it is important to remember that it is not an original saying expressly designed to convey the Christian view about the fate of the 'lost' but a quotation of traditional language (Is. 66:24 - itself based on the imagery of the earthly Gehenna) designed to call up an image of utter horror.

25th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all. 

Mk 9:30-37

v. 31. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death he will rise.”

Handed over to men:

The Greek word handed over (paradidonai) can be used of handing a person over to the authorities for arrest or imprisonment, so there may be a reference here to Judas' act of betrayal. 

But the word was a favorite one with Paul, and in view of such passages as Rom. 8:32 or 4:25 (literally 'was delivered for our transgressions'), we should probably find here the: furthe: idea that the whole Passion of Jesus had its ultimate ground in God’s initiative and his concern for the salvation of men. If so, the play on words “Son of man ... men” is no doubt deliberate. In a fallen world men had become so hostile to God that when, as the culmination of his plans for their salvation, he sent to them the Man, their Savior and ultimate model, they regarded and treated him as their worst enemy. Men and the Son of man stood on opposite sides in God's eschatological battle against the powers of evil.

SECOND PREDICTION OF THE PASSION

 The second of Jesus' three solemn predictions of the sufferings in store for him (cf. 8:31 and 10:32-34). 

St Mark sets it in the context of a secret journey through Galilee, which he appears to have regarded as the beginning of Jesus' final journey to Jerusalem (cf. 9:33, 10:1, and 10:46), but here, as in the case of the other two predictions, there is no really essential connection between the prediction and the surrounding events.

What St Mark has in fact done - with great skill - is to distribute the three predictions through the narrative in a way that has been aptly compared to the solemn tolling of a minute bell [a bell tolled at intervals of a minute, as to give notice of a death or a funeral] as the party makes its way from Mount Hermon in the far north towards Jerusalem in the south.

The predictions thus serve as a commentary revealing the significance of the accompanying events and also serve to assure us that, as was to be expected of the Son of God, Jesus had no illusions about the destiny in store for him, and was not surprised by it when it overtook him.

v. 33. They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”

The question presupposes that Jesus knows by supernatural insight what had been going on in the disciples' minds; so explicitly Luke 9:47, but contrast Matt. 18:1.

v. 34. But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.

There is some evidence that the rabbis were in the habit of discussing who would be the greatest in the new age. If the disciples' discussion is historical it must be seen in that context, but the verse reads much more like a free composition of the Evangelist designed to set the scene for what follows.

v. 37. “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.

In my name:

Either simply 'for my sake' or 'on the ground of my name', i.e. because of his connection with me. Some commentators take the meaning to be 'because my name has been invoked over him (in baptism)' - cf. James 2:7.

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT GREATNESS

 Literally translated, the words mean: 'if anyone wants to be great he will be last' The words should not be interpreted as a threat of what will happen at the Judgment to those who have displayed the temper of ambition, but as an indication of how really to become great, and of the essence of true greatness—that it consists in service. 

'That is probably substantially true, though we must beware of unduly modernizing the Gospels, and the possibility cannot be ruled out that the saying contained an element of threat, cf. Matt. 23:12 and such rabbinic sayings as: 'God will exalt him who humbles himself, God will humble him who exalts himself.'

The introduction of the child (v. 36) would be more natural if he were used, as he is in Matthew's parallel version (Matt. 18:3-4), as an example for the disciples to copy. (Except you adopt the same attitudes as this child…') But in the Marcan version the point lies not in the child's attitude, but in the attitude of the others towards him—the connection presumably being that the true disciple achieves greatness not by holding great offices but by doing services to insignificant people such as the child.

What exactly is meant by 'receiving' a child - an expression as obscure in the Greek as it is in the English? St Mark presumably understood it as meaning ‘show kindness to' or even possibly as referring to the reception of children in baptism; but the fact seems to be that Jesus was in the habit of describing certain of his followers as 'little ones' or 'children' and that as a consequence a certain amount of confusion arose in the tradition between sayings of his about children and sayings about disciples.

If our present saying referred originally to Jesus’ disciples, 'receiving' them would be a perfectly natural expression, especially as the Aramaic verb ‘gabbel’ meant both 'to receive' and ‘to hear’ in the sense of ‘to obey’. Cf. Mat. 10:11ff and Lk 10:5ff.

It is noteworthy that both Matthew and Luke have versions of this saying in Jesus' charge to his disciples as he sent them out on missionary work (Matt. 10:40, Luke 10:16) - a setting which seems more likely to be original. The sense would then be fully in line with the well-attested principle of Jewish life that ‘One who is sent (by a king) is as the one who sends him', and it is probably a mistake to read a ‘mystical’ meaning into the idea of 'receiving' Jesus and the Father. If such language were used in the fourth Gospel it would no doubt refer to receiving the indwelling of God's spirit through love and self-sacrifice, but such ideas are hardly present in Mark.

24th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

"Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

Mk 8:27-35

(From Nineham's commentary)

v. 27. Now Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”

The villages of Caesarea Philippi: An obscure expression generally taken to mean the villages in the area around Caesarea Philippi. For the town itself, formerly called Paneas, and rebuilt by Herod Philip.

v. 28. They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.”

Cf. 6: 14-15  may well have influenced, or been influenced by, this verse.

v. 29. And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Messiah.”

If vv. 27-29 existed before St Mark's time as an independent unit of tradition, the unit will no doubt have contained further verses making plain the significance of the event. Since St Mark has omitted these in the process of building up his longer unit, we can no longer tell how the pre-Marean Church understood the incident. They may have seen its significance as showing that the decisive confession of the Church had already been made in the lifetime of Jesus.

v. 31. He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days.

“The elders and the chief priests” could be simply a way of referring to the lay and clerical aristocracy in Jerusalem who, with “the scribes”, formed the Sanhedrin. But even if so, the question has naturally been raised whether so detailed a forecast is not a prophecy after the event, ascribed to Jesus by the early Christians. We have no means of deciding for certain, but if Jesus did foretell disaster for himself, it seems unlikely that it was in terms as precise as these; in particular, if he had several times referred to the resurrection as explicitly as is suggested here (and in 9:31.and 10:34), the behavior of the disciples after the crucifixion is almost impossible to explain. On the other hand, if he did foresee disaster he must presumably also have looked forward to ultimate vindication in some form or other.

Chief priests: Greek “archiereus”, elsewhere (e.g. 14:47 and 54) translated high priest. The plural is at first sight surprising, as there was only one high priest at any given time, but it occurs frequently in the New Testament and also in Josephus, and the usual explanation is that, in addition to the ruling high priest, deposed high priests and other male members of the most prominent priestly families were included.

After three days: cf. 9:31, 10:34, and Matt. 27:63. Elsewhere in the New Testament we have 'on the third day'. It is often held that, at any rate in popular usage, the two phrases were synonymous, 'after three days' meaning 'when the third day had begun". But this is difficult to reconcile with the evidence of such a passage as Matt. 12:40, and the fact seems to be that the tradition on the matter was influenced in rather different directions by two Old Testament passages, Hos, 6:2 and Jonah 1:7. In light of the Hosea passage it would seem that such a phrase could be used simply as a conventional expression meaning 'after a short while'. On the assumption that the words go back to Jesus himself; it has been suggested that it was in that conventional sense that he used them; clearly, however, that was not St Mark's understanding.

v. 33. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Looking at his disciples: 'The reproof which follows is for their benefit as

well as Peter's'.

You are thinking not as God does (Or You are not on the side of God): The Greek here is one of those expressions too rich in meaning to be fully represented by any single translation. The RSV may well be right in hinting at a political metaphor, but the basic meaning of the verb (phronein} is 'to be minded' and there is certainly the idea of sharing, or failing to share, another's point of view and intentions.

v. 34. He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

Take up his cross: The Romans required a condemned criminal to carry part of his own cross to the place of execution; hence the metaphor. As the words stand, they seem to presuppose that 'the Cross' is already a familiar idea. No doubt Jesus' audience would have been familiar with crucifixion as a Roman method of execution, but it was normally reserved for criminals condemned by due process of law and it remains very doubtful whether, before Jesus' own crucifixion, they could have caught the allusion here. .Probably the present formulation of the saying is the work of the early Church.

v. 35. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.

And that of the gospel: These words, omitted by Matthew and Luke, and by Jolm at 12:25, again suggest that the present formulation of the saying dates from a time when Christians were being martyred 'for the sake of the gospel'.

ON THE NECESSITY OF SUFFERING

 Neither here nor elsewhere in Mark is any theory offered as to why it should be God's will that the Messiah and his disciples should suffer, but in this connection we need to remind ourselves of the eschatological mould in which the thought of the early Christians was cast. For them God's realm in heaven entirely conformed to God's holiness, and stood in the sharpest contrast to this age or world ruled by forces of evil and governed by their evil values and designs. One day God would judge this world and bring this age to an end, transforming whatever in it was capable of being transformed, and transferring it to the conditions of his realm. But meanwhile, so long as this world lasted, anyone in it who represented God's realm and its values must look for misunderstanding and persecution from the evil powers and the human beings under their sway. 'The Old Testament itself says of the children of Israel: "They mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets" (2 Chron, 36:16. Cf. Ps. 34:19). For later Jewish writers it was axiomatic that the people of God were basically opposed to whatever really emanates from God, and that therefore they had, always persecuted God's true servants and ambassadors and always would'. Such ideas would thus seem natural to Jesus and his early disciples. For evidence that they shared them, see such passages as Luke 11:49ff, Acts 7:2ff.

The true servant of God would not be disconcerted by such suffering, but would realize that in some mysterious way it was a means by which the redemptive purpose of God for this world was carried out. Isa. 53 is the classic passage for this idea but it by no means stands alone. In view of the remarkably few references to the Isaiah passage in the Gospels, It is probably better to think of a general background of ideas than of direct influence from that particular passage. 

Against this background, the true character of the disciples' reaction to Jesus' prophecy of suffering can be recognized. What the disciples had to learn was that until the kingdom came with power (9:1), the law of suffering applied at least as fully to the Messiah and his followers as it had done to earlier representatives of God see (9:13 and 6:17-29).

23rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.

MK 7:31-37

v. 31. Again he left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis.

The reference to Decapolis is somewhat strange. Literally the words mean “in the middle of the Decapolis district”. Whatever the exact sense, the point of this reference is probably not so much to suggest that the deaf-mute was a Gentile as to provide a Gentile setting for the feeding in 8:1ff.

v. 32. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him.

Lay his hands upon him: i.e. heal him. The gesture so frequently accompanied the act of healing that it came to be used as a metaphor for it.

v. 33. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue.

v. 34. Then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”)

He took him off by himself away from the crowd: On the original motive for such privacy see on 5:43; but St Mark may have interpreted it here with reference to the messianic secret.

The order and character of the gestures vary slightly in different MSS. and versions; in any case, all of them are known to have formed part of the healing technique of contemporary wonder-workers. Touching, and manipulation of the affected organ, are too obvious to need comment; the use of saliva is widely attested (cf. John 96 and the story of Vespasian healing by means of his saliva in Tacitus, History, IV, 81): so are ‘the look towards heaven', which sought and obtained power, and the sigh, or groan (v. 34), which is recommended in several magical texts as a potent action. 

On the motives of preserving the operative word, Ephphatha, in the original tongue: Ancient wonder-workers often used formulas in a foreign tongue and Origen tells us that such words lose their power if translated into another tongue.

The vividness with which the act is described may well suggest that St Mark had seen patients treated in this way by Christian healers (cf. 1 Cor. 12:9) and it was perhaps for the guidance of such healers that the details were preserved in the tradition.

v. 35. And [immediately] the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly.

His speech impediment was remove: Literally, 'the fetter on his tongue was loosed'. Does this way of speaking imply an understanding of the story according to which the man was ‘bound' by demonic powers (a common idea in the ancient world)? Such an understanding would certainly be in line with St Mark's understanding of Jesus as battling with the powers of evil in order to release their prisoners.

v. 36. He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it.

They proclaimed it: The Greek word refers in Mark, directly or indirectly to the Messiahship of Jesus.

v. 37. They were exceedingly astonished and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and [the] mute speak.

Exceedingly astonished: As described in the Greek the emotion is so very strong that something more than one successful act of healing would have been required to provoke it.

See First Reading: Is 35:4-7a

 A point to notice is the relation of the story to certain Old Testament passages and particularly to Isa. 35:5-6. The last sentence v. 37 seems a clear allusion to that passage and it has even been suggested that the comment “He has done all things well” means "He exactly he fulfills the prophecies!” 

The story has been affected by the Isaiah passage in another, and more subtle, way. The phrase in v. 32 “had a speech impediment” represents the exceedingly rare Greek adjective (mogilalos), which means literally 'speaking with difficulty’ or ‘hardly able to speak’. St Mark almost certainly derived the word from the only other place where it occurs in the Greek Bible, Isa. 35:6 where it translates a Hebrew word meaning ‘dumb'. Then, seeing the incident as the fulfillment of the prophecy, and influenced by the literal meaning of the Greek word, he took the miracle to consist making the man speak plainly (v. 35). No doubt the original story told of a deaf-mute who, before the miracle, could not speak at all (cf. dumb v. 37).