Stuff about Stories:

• We read stories and let them have their way with us and then we read them again and again and marvel at how they work. The Gospel of Mark is just such a story and deserves to be honored in this way.
• Mark too has a plot. After the Baptist is arrested, Jesus begins preaching; after John is put to death, Jesus announces he must go up to Jerusalem to suffer, die and be raised. In the story, people plot against Jesus, how to put him to death: will they succeed? Jesus will appear in Galilee and the story will continue.
• Mark too has characters; the chief of these is Jesus. Another character is the group called “disciples”. Will they get the point of following Jesus?
• Mark has a narrator who is our reliable guide and mentor. We, as readers, are in a privileged position because the narrator takes us into his confidence and shares with us his insight into what is happening. The author does this to persuade us to his point of view.
• Mark too uses location to structure the world of the story: we go up the high mountain, across the lake, into the house or synagogue, through the garden, out into the courtyard.
• There is more. Read the book by Rhoads and Michie mentioned in the resource list. People have found this book to be very helpful.
• Have you read the Gospel right through yet?

Some of the things I noticed while reading the text right through:

• The writer creates a sense of urgency; The Marcan Jesus is constantly on the move: he doesn’t just “hang out”. We hear words like “immediately”, “as soon as the left”, “straightaway”.
• The writer gives us little transitional summaries (1:14-15, 3:7-12, 6:53-56) and a typical day (1:21-45) that sketch out the success of Jesus preaching.
• There are three passion predictions in the centre of the story and they seem to be quite carefully structured. We will need to look at this closely when we get to it.
• The passion narrative (chapters 14-15) is a connected story in its own right.
• We will often sense there is a “sandwiching” of material (“intercalation”) going on so that two incidents take place at the same time and interpret one another. A good example is Peter’s denial being sandwiched into Jesus trial.
• The story ends very abruptly at 16:8b

Mark amongst the Sunday readings:
1:1-8 Advent 2
1:9-15 Lent 1
1:4-11 Ordinary 1
1:14-20 Ordinary 3
1:21-28 Ordinary 4
1:29-39 Ordinary 5
1:40-45 Ordinary 6
2:1-12 Ordinary 7
4:26-34 Ordinary 11
4:35-41 Ordinary 12
5:21-43 Ordinary 13
6:1-13 Ordinary 14
6:14-29 Ordinary 15
6:30-34, 53-56 Ordinary 16
7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Ordinary 22
7:24-37 Ordinary 23
8:27-38 Ordinary 24
8:31-38 Lent 2 or
9:2-9 Lent 2
9:30-37 Ordinary 25
9:38-50 Ordinary 26
10:2-16 Ordinary 27
10:17-31 Ordinary 28
10:35-45 Ordinary 29
10:46-52 Ordinary 30
11:1-11 Palm Sunday
12:28-34 Ordinary 31
12:38 – 44 Ordinary 32
13:1-8 Ordinary 33
13:24-37 Advent 1
14:1 – 15:47 Palm Sunday Marcan Passion reading
16:1-8a Easter 1

Breaking the story up into parts:

• As we note from the previous posting, those of us who will be hearing, or preaching on, the Gospel of Mark this year will only be exposed to part of the story. The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) has picked the “low hanging fruit” for reading in church on Sunday, as often happens.
• I have made a decision to teach and preach systematically through Mark so that my parishioners can get a sense of Mark’s story. It also means that this resource will at least be available for the next “Year of Mark”.
• I will comment on the text using the divisions followed by Donahue and Mahon