Many of you already know that in the lectionary patterns we spend one year more or less in the company of one gospel. Year A is Matthew, Year B is Mark and Year C is Luke. The gospel of John is woven in and out of all three years. Now we are in the year of Mark and we will begin to hear who Jesus is; the first chapter sets the stage. It is my favorite gospel because it hits me where I live and it will frame what I say to you today. What I will share with you is only one way of reading Mark. It is from a particular social location that I hear the text addressed to me - as a woman who lives on the margins, who struggles with institutional power over me and others like me.

Last week someone at the 8 o'clock congregation said to me,"who are you?" It is a good question. She may have asked because I had not been properly introduced or because she was not at worship on the one day when I was presented. Who I am as a priest and a person flows directly from my understanding of Mark's gospel.

In the early 90's I served a large downtown church much like this one. While teaching a class on the theology of drama one of my parishioners encouraged me to take an art class, saying that in her opinion there was more creativity in me that needed an outlet. I really wanted to study with her but she died too soon. As a commitment to her and to myself I enrolled as a student at the Worcester Art Museum. My teacher was Tom Lewis-Borberly a member of the Plowshares group. I am not sure if you in Canada know much about them; they are peace activists, often spending time in jail or prison for acts of civil disobedience. They poured blood on the Pentagon files during Vietnam; they hammered Trident missile submarines in Bath, Me. One judge has called the Berrigans - Dan and Phil - moral giants, the conscience of a nation. My classes with Tom were sometimes interrupted because he was in jail. One of his award winning etchings was based on the mayonnaise drawings he did in jail - mayonnaise from the sandwiches mixed with dirt from the floor produced portraits of those he was in jail with.Tom taught me about the biblical witness in a new way; we studied Ched Meyer's commentary on Mark, Binding the Strong Man. Meyer had spent time with the Berrigans as well and his social/political commentary grew out of his time in faith witness.

One crisp fall day I found myself celebrating a street mass for the Catholic Worker House where Tom and other Catholic workers lived, in the poorest section of the city of Worcester. It was called a street mass for the children, that they might live in a future of peace. Not twenty feet away from me was a drug dealer - sneering at us, I thought. Asking at some level the same question in today's gospel. What does Jesus have to do with me? What authority does a street mass and a group of peace activists have in the midst of poverty and crime? Who or what determines how we live?

Meyer speaks of Mark's gospel as the "dawn of the kingdom at the margins of the world." The gospel begins and ends in Galilee, on the margins, among ordinary people. There is in this gospel an"offensive upon the strongholds of oppression and the dawn of liberation, and [it] launches the discipleship adventure. From its very outset, the tone of the story anticipates conflict." [ 1 ]

Mark in opening the gospel tells us there is a new beginning in Jesus. Today's text from Deuteronomy tells us that Israel would need its prophets more than its kings and judges so we are ready for a prophet. John the Baptist fills that role, then he is silenced and killed. Jesus takes over the prophetic mantle and we know that he too will be silenced and killed. At the earlier service this morning the reader asked me why we were reading about the food codes from Corinthians; what did that text have to do with today? We are being prepared for a new word concerning the codes. Jesus will offer a total re-ordering of the tradition. He will confront those structures of "power over" that are oppressive. He will address the power of Rome, of the temple, those in authority and he will call ordinary people into the realm of power with and power for all people. That and more is signaled in this first chapter of Mark. "The advent of Jesus represents a moment when the world order is disrupted." We know we are in for a spot of white water rafting. I like that; maybe you do too.

Jesus comes out of the margins himself, out of the wilderness into the very heart of a provincial city, into Capernaum, into the synagogue, into sacred time and place, into the present ordered world of scribe and teacher and custodians of the law."Jesus' kingdom project is incompatible with local authority and the social order it represents. A demon immediately demands that Jesus justify his attack upon the authority of the scribal establishment...risks of provoking official hostility doesn't deter Jesus from pressing his criticism of every social code that serves to institutionalize alienation." [ 2 ]

He will challenge the priestly control of the purity code, the scribal control of the debt code and the social control of who can come to table fellowship, who can be touched, who can be claimed as whole. Right from this beginning we know that the changes won't come easily. The same crowd who marvels at the authority of his teaching will soon plot to destroy him. We are aware that those who recognize him first in Mark's gospel are those who hold oppressive power, the "unclean" ones who want to know if Jesus is going to liberate people from the bondage of illness and stigma. Jesus claims that their authority is over.

Jesus claims sacred time and space in this encounter; we will pay attention later in Mark to how he sees religious space in the temple and how he sees the purpose of the Sabbath .He will ask questions and he will confront those in power.

In a study group meeting here at St. John's we are engaged in a program that is called "Living the Questions." Through readings and a DVD presentation each week we are given a lot to think about with a good number of contemporary scholars. John Dominc Crossan posed these four questions for the group last week. I am thinking that they might apply not only to us as individuals but also to this year of the gospel of Mark. They are:

What is the character of your God?
What is the content of your faith?
What is the function of your church?
What is the purpose of your worship?

So to reframe these questions a little bit: what is the character of the God we meet in Mark? In Jesus? What does the discipleship adventure look like? What is required of disciples/the faith community in Mark? What does Jesus see as the function of the temple? The synagogue? Why did you come to worship today? What is the purpose of our prayer?

I was called by the Anglican Journal this week to defend myself, my authority as a priest from "away" where they do things differently like ordain gay and lesbian priests and celebrate with those who can marry. I was accused of being a Trojan horse, the first of many who would crawl out of the "gift" to destroy its recipient .I am one of the followers of the Markan Jesus, looking for liberation from oppressive structures and codes which deny any people from their full status as children of God. I am one of the members of the discipleship adventure looking at structures societal and ecclesiastical which challenge me to defend my faith, my ministry, my priesthood and to claim authority to do so. Those I represent, those I serve seek what Jesus offers in today's brief portrait in Mark. This Jesus seeks to restore the social wholeness denied by oppressive structures; he challenges all previous boundaries and barriers.

I was pleased to read in the Ottawa paper about the celebration of Black History month here. In the United States on January 15th there was an honoring of Martin Luther King Jr.; his nonviolent confrontation with a dominant order of oppression helped me to see his witness of a different way to live. This is offered in our communion motet this morning; a text by Carl Daw has been set to music by Gordon Johnson for us. These are two of the stanzas:

Take from us prejudice, hatred and scorn, fear and suspicion of anyone born outside our fences of money and race, help us O God not to shun but embrace.

Open our hearts and our heads and our hands, let us experience how caring expands, past all the labels and limits we learn; Spirit of mercy, enlarge our concern. [ 3 ]

Stay with the questions:

What is the character of your/our God?
What is the content of your/our faith?
What is the function of this church?
What is the purpose of our prayer/worship?

     Amen.
The Rev. Linda Fisher Privitera+

Footnotes:

1 Ched Meyers, Binding the Strong Man, p.136. [Return]

2 Meyers, op. cit., p. 137. [Return]

3 Carl Daw, Friend of the Streetwalker, Beggar and Child, 1996. [Return]