A look at the gaps in the lectionary.
This week: the gap between
The text: Mark 6 (for review) and Mark 7:9-13,16-20
It has been over five weeks since we were in the gospel we attribute to Mark, so it is quite likely we’ve forgotten a lot about where we were.
We jumped out during the Feeding of the Multitudes to explore that same story in John and its ensuing Bread of Life Discourse, which, if we’re being honest, really does need several weeks to untangle. I just get a little salty about short-changing our time in Mark—especially given the fallout for the disciples after the miracle (it is they who get tangled up about the bread!).
When we left Mark, we see the Jesus movement in a place of flux. Jesus returned home for the first time and it didn’t go super well.
Then he sent out his disciples into the world to do the work of Jesus, which reads as a direct response to that rejection in Nazareth.
We then have an interlude about the death of John the Baptist—because King Herod heard about the disciples doing miracles in the name of Jesus and Herod thought it was John back from the dead.
And after all of this, Jesus sought to get his disciples and himself some needed time off.
Of course this didn’t go exactly the way he hoped it would. Because the crowds were so pathetic.
Getting a handle on this storyline helps ground us. I think this is especially necessary given how we were last presented with this stuff in Mark.
The lectionary cut out the feeding of the multitudes in Mark (saving it for Proper 12B), keeping us on pace through the gospel, but literally removing the part of the gospel in which the evangelist describes the (little) rest the disciples got—the rest Jesus commanded them to get.
In fact, reading it straight through the way we do for Proper 11B, we may have had the impression that Jesus wanted them to get rest, but wouldn’t let them, because they come to the other shore to find crowds of people and Jesus is like, Get back to work! This is the opposite of what Jesus sets up.
The background in this narrative is invaluable—but often disregarded by both the pragmatic and theologically-focused alike. Precisely because how Jesus wrestles with the Sabbath is so important to his ministry and his teaching.
Picking it up in Mark
Now we find ourselves back in Mark with a passage that itself jumps around. I’ve linked above to the whole thing, with the gaps in brackets for ease of reading.
Jesus is once again confronted in a synagogue by those who don’t appreciate his teaching/approach. The last time was at the end of chapter two and beginning of chapter 3 (which we covered in Proper 4B). This time, the critics argue with Jesus about maintaining purity laws.
The two sections left out of the reading are helpful, but I’ll admit, don’t illuminate a great deal.
The first part reads like a clapback at the critics, pointing out their own hypocrisy around maintaining and interpreting tradition—in this case, the honoring of parents. This is useful for the modern reader to help deal with the ways we selectively choose to value things. Of course, this is a bit of whataboutism, which is not my favorite rhetorical technique, but the point stands.
The mode of this passage is to show Jesus offering instruction that is novel—and consistent with the breadth of tradition, even if some try to use tradition to counter it. This makes it different from whataboutism in its most craven cases, which simply attempts to slither out of trouble. Here, it is about instructing about purity.
The second gap in the story involves more exposition detailing the defiling character of what comes out of us, linking the ingestion of food to waste products. Again, this does better explain Jesus’s teaching, but we probably get the point without it.
While “less is more” is often true, I often worry that we use it as an excuse to avoid uncomfortable truths that we may (conveniently) label extraneous. In this case, as in most cases, reading deeper leads to richer understanding. And probably a more generous response, too.