Genesis 3:8-15 Psalm 130 2 Cor 4:13-5:1 Mark 3:20-35
What is your favourite sandwich filling? It’s a big question.
Before I went vegan mine was turkey with stuffing, cranberry sauce, maybe a pig in blanket, splash of gravy – the full Christmas dinner, in a sandwich. Where am I going with this, you might wonder. Well, if all else fails in the next ten minutes you can at least bliss out on your favourite sandwich filling.
But I got to thinking about this, this week, because so many of the commentators on this morning’s gospel reading describe it as a ‘typical Markan sandwich’; apparently something that this gospel writer is well known for… Mark’s sandwiches are less fun than my Christmas dinner bun, but probably far more nutritious.
So I wonder if you might look at the gospel text again, have it in front of you. It begins midway through a sentence with, ‘And the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat’ and continues, ‘When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”’
The bread of Mark’s sandwich is the mention of the crowd, and particularly Jesus’ family among them – Jesus’ family come, in a direct translation, to ‘arrest him’ or ‘take him away by force’ because people are saying he is crazy.
Then we have the scribes and their talk of beelzebul and demons and questions of satan casting out satan and Jesus’ parable of the strong man’s house being plundered – this is the filling of the sandwich.
And then we return to the bread – the talk of the crowd again, with Jesus’ family among them when his mother and brothers send for him and call him and Jesus replies ‘”Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”’
- Bread – crowd and family
- Filling – satan and beelzebul and demons and plundering and sin
- Bread – crowd and family
This is not my favourite sandwich and, honestly, it takes some chewing, but the commentators tell me that the Markan Sandwich allows us to engage with the text and understand it more fully. So how might that be?
Well, I wonder if it points to something else one of the commentators wrote, in her book called Embodying Mark, where the author writes that this passage is ‘like most passages in the gospels’ the whole story of salvation in a nutshell.
That stopped me in my tracks. It feels like the sort of statement that might be true but that certainly needs applying to other passages to check. She says most stories in the gospels tell the entire overarching message of love, grace and salvation and contribute to the bigger picture…but can stand alone. That’s so interesting to me, and sounds feasible and something worth returning to when we read the stories of Jesus.
It’s like my original sandwich – it is the full Christmas dinner but it’s part of a bigger Christmas dinner. Yes? Anyway, let’s apply her theory to this passage and see if it works.
This centre of this text is about Jesus’ victory over all that is dark or evil – his subversion of the strong man, by the One who is stronger and the freedom this brings. The filling in the proverbial sandwich is the reason for the incarnation – light over darkness, goodness over evil, freedom over captivity – and this is framed within the context of people – humanity, community, particularly family.
Jesus came to be a part of humanity, to live as human, among humans, specifically within a family, and to extend that warm welcome, that unconditional welcome of being part of his family to all people – these are my mothers and my brothers – this isn’t at the exclusion of Mary and Joses and his other brothers but at the inclusion of everyone else. You’re all my family – all are welcome – there is no longer those who are counted as ‘in’ and those who are ‘out’ – now all are included. That sounds like gospel to me!
So, the sandwich analogy that was
- Bread – crowd and family
- Filling – beelzebul, satan, demons and sin
- Bread – crowd and family
Now, in a more detailed way, reads…
- Bread – there was this crowd of people, family, all the world – humanity – and Christ was born into it to make things different, to bring about change.
- Filling – humanity was under the banner of darkness and evil but the arrival of the Light of the World meant that all that was dark got tied up, restrained, controlled and banished so that…
- Bread – the crowd – humanity – can be free to be a part of the family of God, with that unconditional welcome.
And so, when we try to locate ourselves within this Markan Sandwich, as we take our place within this gospel narrative, perhaps we are the crowd – the top slice of bread – who are recipients of this gracious eternal invitation. Maybe we are sitting around Jesus, pressing in to touch him, straining to hear what he is saying, wondering if it might just apply to us, to me, and hearing that offer and realising that our deepest need is already being met. Maybe we are taking our place as siblings of Christ, maybe even his mother. Perhaps the invitation of this passage is that we and all humanity no longer need to watch from the doorway but can enter right in – just as we are – as full members of the family of God, fully caught up in God’s mystery and love.
This passage really is the gospel in a nutshell, isn’t it.
Because of the incarnation, darkness is tied up, defeated, light has triumphed and God’s family is an extended and open invitation to all.
This week I had a meeting with our fabulous new tenants from Cana Communities. They describe themselves as a ‘messy family that welcomes those with least options’. That sounds like gospel too. Or as we might say here, in our own attempt to live out the gospel, ‘St Paul’s where everyone is welcome’. God give us the grace for that to always be true. Amen.
Holy Adventures 