"The Good News of God" (Mark 1: 1, 9-15)

In his book The Power of Parable, John Dominic Crossan points out that when Julius Caesar triumphantly ended Rome’s agonizing Civil War, he became a military hero.  For decades to come, Caesar’s praises were sung.  Paulus Fabius Maximus, governor of Asia Minor, wrote that “the birthday of the most divine Caesar we might justly equate with the beginning of everything… since he restored order… and gave a new look to the whole world.”

An inscription written a few decades after Caesar’s death reads: “He who put an end to war and brings peace – Caesar – who exceeded the hopes of those who prophesied good news…”

Julius Caesar was so successful that he was the first Roman Emperor to be officially deified.  He was officially declared a god.  He was referred to as the divine savior of the world, the bringer of peace who brought about a new reign of peace; and the story of Caesar’s accomplishments was labeled “good news” for all the people.

For the past several weeks, I have preached about how the parables of Jesus were mostly presented as challenges to prevailing mindsets.  The parables challenged common ways of thinking; they challenged people to look at the world in a whole new way.

When the gospel writers we know as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their gospels, they didn’t set out to record history.  History is certainly a part of what they wrote, but their more important concern was to write their own parables: stories about Jesus that challenged prevailing mindsets and preconceived notions. 

And chief among these mindsets that they challenged was the view society had of Caesar. 

By the time of Jesus, Julius Caesar was gone and Caesar Augustus was now emperor.  And the labels given to the former were applied to the latter: Caesar was the divine savior of the world, the giver of bread, the bringer of peace; and stories of Caesar and his accomplishments were good news for all people.

However, the peace of Rome – the pax Romana – came at a price.  Incredibly high and burdensome taxes were levied on the people, and most especially on the poor, in order to support the large and mighty military that a powerful empire required.  And, in order to maintain peace in the empire, Caesar made sure to squash any and all rebellions that might threaten the peace of Rome, which meant oppression and persecution.  Nothing was allowed to threaten the pax Romana.

So Caesar is the divine savior, the giver of bread, the bringer of peace, and news of his reign is good news for all the people. 

It is a mighty powerful challenge, then, to tell the story of a child born to poor peasants in a tiny town, parents so oppressed by Caesar that they had to travel a long distance just days before the child was born to satisfy Caesar’s requirements for a census.  It is a mighty challenge to label that child divine savior, bringer of peace, and to call the story of his birth good news for all the people.  It is a mighty challenge to say that this child was the one to establish a new kingdom.

The gospels take the world of Caesar and Roman Empire, and turn it completely upside down.

Let’s start with the gospel according to Mark.

The gospel of Mark begins with these words:  “The beginning of the good news of Jesus, the anointed one, the son of God.”  At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus says “Repent.  Turn away, and turn to the Kingdom of God which has now arrived.”  When Jesus casts out a demon, the demon is named “Legion,” the name given to a battalion in the Roman army. 

But the challenge does not end there.  The pax Romana is enforced by a strong military.  But Jesus says that this new Kingdom of God will not come about through military might.  And those who had followed this story of a new, alternative to Caesar would stop at this point and say, “Unh?”  Because how else, they wondered, would the kingdom come?

The kingdom Mark presents challenges any and all preconceived notions of what a kingdom is.  It is such a great challenge that no one in Mark’s story seems to understand this, because it is so different. 

One of the patterns parables use is to present repetitions in 3; think of the 3 passersby who encountered the man on the side of the road in the parable of the Good Samaritan, or the 3 servants who had been given talents for safekeeping by the master.  In the story Mark tells, Jesus proclaims three times that his kingdom involves taking up one’s cross, that it involves being last of all and servant to all, being like a child, which, in those days, meant being like a nobody, and that it will not come about through force or military might.

But that’s not how it is in the kingdoms of the world.  And even the disciples didn’t get it.  They argued over who would sit next to Jesus, in places of honor.  They tried to make a name for themselves by being leaders of the movement that developed around Jesus – especially Peter, James, and John.  And they sought to rain fire down upon those who were against Jesus.

But remember what we learned a few weeks ago about those who are named and those who aren’t?  Remember the parable of the unnamed rich man, and the poor man named Lazarus?  In society, it’s the rich and powerful who are named, and everyone knows their name.  But in the gospel of Jesus, it’s the nobodies, the nameless, who are lifted up.  And indeed, in Mark’s gospel, the named disciples fail, even at the end; they are confused and frightened at the crucifixion and bewildered at the resurrection; but in chapter 14 it is an unnamed woman who believes; and in chapter 15, it is an unnamed man who believes; and in the upside-down world of the gospel, it is they who are the real heroes. 

And for anyone who has ears to hear, the challenge is there.  John Dominic Crossan writes: Christianity’s “named leaders come and go, and much that they leave behind them is not to Christianity’s credit.  How few of them down through the centuries have exercised power, authority, and leadership as Jesus told the Twelve to…”  as slaves and servants.

The gospel of Mark was the first of the four gospels written, and that is the challenge parable he crafted.  It’s the challenge of a new kingdom, but one that is nonviolent, one in which unnamed slaves and servants are exalted over named leaders and rulers.

Matthew and Luke used Mark’s story as a source when composing their own versions of the gospel.  But Matthew and Luke also incorporated material from other sources.  I talked about this a little with our high school youth a few weeks ago, about how Mark was one of several sources for Matthew and Luke.

But Luke has his own agenda.  Luke came to be a follower of Jesus from a group of people who weren’t a part of mainstream Judaism.  Therefore Luke wanted to see the Jesus movement expand beyond Jerusalem, to welcome others who were a part of the Roman Empire. 

Luke wants Christianity to become a world-wide movement, and therefore Luke portrays Christianity as progressing geographically from Jerusalem and Galilee all the way to Rome.

Yes, Rome.  In Luke, the challenge isn’t so much against Rome as it is to Rome.  Luke isn’t quite as hostile toward Caesar as Mark is.  Instead, Luke challenges Rome to take a second look at Christianity, to give special accommodations to Christianity in the same way that Rome had given special accommodations to Judaism. 

So because Luke is appealing to Rome to look sympathetically upon Christianity, Luke is much kinder toward Rome than Mark is.  At Jesus’s crucifixion, the role of the Roman government is downplayed, and more of the guilt is cast upon the Jewish leaders.  In fact, the Roman leaders find no fault with Jesus.  “I find no fault with this man,” says Pilate, the Roman governor, in Luke’s gospel.

So Luke’s challenge is a challenge to Rome, to look at the Christian movement in a new, more hospitable way.

Matthew originates more within the Jewish community; but in Matthew, Jesus does speak in ways that Mark would probably condemn.  Jesus engages in a bit of name-calling, especially towards the leaders of the Jewish people, who Matthew thinks have missed the point.

Then we have John’s gospel, the last of the four gospels written.  John’s gospel is very different from the other three.  Whereas Mark was virtually free of words of accusation, and Matthew and Luke were willing to attack the Jewish leadership, John does not hesitate to generalize and attack the Jews as a whole.  Instead of criticizing the Pharisees and the “chief priests,” John criticizes the Jews in a way that almost makes one forget that Jesus and his companions were, themselves, Jews.

There are many other differences in John.  Every act in John has a symbolic, spiritual meaning.  And at Jesus’s death, Jesus is in complete control. 

In Mark, the crucifixion is a traumatic experience for a suffering Jesus, who is distressed, agitated, and grieved; but in John, Jesus is totally in control.  In Mark, Jesus cries out, “My God, why have you forsaken me!” 

But in John, Jesus declares, “It is finished.”

That is a very different portrayal.  So different, in fact, that John Dominic Crossan says that the challenge in John’s portrayal is a challenge to the other gospels.  It’s as if John took the stories told by Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and said, “No; let’s look at this in a whole new way.”

Given that John was the last of the four gospels written, and that John is so violently anti-Jewish (even though Jesus himself was a Jew), it is easy to dismiss John altogether.  It does seem that John’s portrayal of Jesus is probably quite different from the actual, human, Jesus of Nazareth who roamed the earth in the early part of the first century.  In other words, John’s Jesus is probably the furthest from the truth when one defines truth as actual, historical fact.

But isn’t there another kind of truth?  A deeper truth, a truth of meaning, that manifests itself when a story is told?

Why did John tell the story of Jesus the way he did?  John Dominic Crossan suggests that, probably, John was himself a Samaritan.  Keep in mind that even though tradition says the apostle John wrote this gospel, the actual author is anonymous, and probably was someone other than John.  If this anonymous author was indeed a Samaritan, and if he had experienced first-hand the prejudice and discrimination directed at Samaritans by the Jews, then doesn’t it makes sense that the story he wrote would be so anti-Jewish?

I don’t mean to condone or approve of the anti-Jewish sentiment in the gospel according to John… but I do think that, perhaps, we can understand why it’s there.

Also, writing quite a few decades after Jesus’s death, the story John told was filtered through at least one or two generations of people trying to make sense and figure out the meaning of it all. So doesn’t it makes sense that John’s gospel is more symbolic and more spiritual than the others, that it would focus more on metaphorical truth and deeper meaning, rather than actual, historical fact?

And taking all four gospels together, recognizing that none of them is 100% literally true, but that each has an important story to tell… can we find a deeper understanding and a greater truth in all of them?

Perhaps more importantly, as we consider the relationship between these four stories – their different perspectives, the reasons they tell the stories the way they do – can we find meaning and truth for our times and our lives?

Can we, for example, see the treatment of Samaritans, the common prejudice and discrimination against them, John’s anti-Jewish reaction to that prejudice and discrimination; and Jesus’s challenge to overcome prejudice and discrimination?

If so, can we then see, perhaps, the modern parallel of a Christian church that has long harbored prejudice against the gay community, the anti-church reaction of many in the gay community, and the present challenge we have today to overcome those prejudices?

I suppose that if – hypothetically speaking – a gospel story were to be written by the gay community, it would present the story of Jesus, in a way that lifts up meaning and truths from his life and his teachings.  I also suppose that it would speak harshly and negatively about the modern church, which has done so much to hurt and abuse people who are a part of that community.  And perhaps it would present a new vision, an alternative vision, challenging the church to a new way of living, a way that overcomes prejudice and discrimination and which sees in the story of Jesus good news for all the people.

It would be a parable for our time, a story that challenges us to a new vision, to life in a new kingdom. 

It would be a story that makes us go, “Unh?”