Lectionary Commentaries for January 28, 2024
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (Year B)

Mark’s Gospel is not for the disengaged spectator; it is for those caught up in an apocalyptic struggle. In this early text of Jesus performing an exorcism in a synagogue in Capernaum, Mark provides a first whiff of demonic sulfur after all the apocalyptic fireworks that preceded it in Mark 1:1–20.

Mark 1:1–11 shapes the coming eschatological battlefield by making John’s baptism a mini apocalyptic theophany in which Jesus’ beloved identity is revealed through a ripping open (schizomenous) of the heavens in 1:10. The Spirit drives (ekballei is a verb often meaning “casts out”) Jesus into a desert temptation scene with Satan, servant angels, and a few wild beasts for good measure in Mark 1:12–13. Jesus then preaches the apocalyptic notion of God’s Kingdom, the very gospel of God in Mark 1:14.

To wrap it up, he suddenly calls four disciples out of the everyday of their fishing boats in Mark 1:16–20 into apocalyptic urgency. The four men just drop their nets and leave with Jesus—immediately, as Mark is wont to say in verses 10, 12, 18, and 20.

For these reasons, the Capernaum synagogue exorcism scene in Mark 1:21–28 is not one that can easily be turned into something manageable—say, a general bromide about being helpful to strangers in church. It also cannot be easily demythologized into some existential principle for individual living without losing its horizon in the coming reign of God. Its cosmic, apocalyptic urgency in 1:1–20 already frames the exorcism that is to come in 1:21–28.

Apocalyptic urgency

Mark as narrator carries over this urgency indirectly by describing the synagogue exorcism scene with the same koine Greek word meaning “immediately” (verses 21, 23, and 28) that appeared so often in the preceding material. Like the four disciples, we readers had best be ready to respond with some degree of shared urgency.

Mark the narrator also does apocalyptic urgency in a more direct way—by describing the exorcism scene as one of graphic and sonic demonic encounter on the Sabbath after Jesus teaches. In the synagogue dialogue, readers overhear their conversation and see the results of this apocalyptic moment.

In this startling scene, an unnamed man with an unclean spirit speaks first. The fact that the possessed man speaks of himself in the first-person plural—“us”—only amplifies his cry: “What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Then the man with the unclean spirit seems to recognize Jesus’ eschatological purpose of destroying evil, as well as his identity as “the Holy One of God.” For this, Jesus rebukes and silences him, which is typical of exorcisms, but especially pointed here, given Mark’s desire to suppress what some call Mark’s messianic secret. The “we” of this demonic host obeys, but not without convulsions and cries commensurate with such a corporate, embodied struggle.

Jesus’ success then further underlines the authority attributed to his teaching: not just authority as competency or entitlement, but eschatological power. The point of such an early exorcism scene in Mark’s Gospel is not to provide information. It signals the urgency of the coming apocalyptic struggle and invites readers into it.

So, what to do with apocalyptic Mark today?

But what do we do with Mark’s apocalyptic praxis of struggle when the things that threaten our world are not so much demons and ripped-open heavens but regular old broken or demonic systems of human construction? New Testament scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza offers some help in her work on the apocalyptic rhetoric of Revelation.¹ She argues that the theo-ethical rhetoric of the Apocalypse sponsors a praxis of hypomone, or “steadfast resistance.”

Now Mark was likely written at an earlier time, and in a different place, than Revelation. So we need to use her insight about Revelation with some discernment. That said, her notion of steadfast resistance as the purpose or motivation of Revelation’s rhetoric can help to take us out of the realm of symbolic speculation or disinterested scientific reduction to a focus on praxis and the struggles we face from our varied positions of power in light of the horizon of the reign of God. That means we preachers need to ask ourselves the question: Where in our own struggles are we confronted with the demonic, yet laying hold of a divine promise that Jesus preaches as “the gospel of God” (Mark 1:14)?

As you pose the question for yourselves, dear working preachers, please pay attention to your bodies. What does the embodied reality of your shared life of faith tell you about the intractability of the demonic and the riven fabric of human life in 2024? Whatever it is, it invites you to preach through this text to a gospel of God capable of sustaining steadfast, embodied resistance.

Two hermeneutic insights for the apocalyptic road ahead

Yet Mark also helps preachers today with Mark’s own hermeneutic insights. I can think of at least two worth mentioning here.

First, Mark never lets his readers forget that all of Jesus’ eschatological vision and apocalyptic miracles need to be understood in light of the cross. Mark’s cross, of course, is not just another cipher for substitutionary atonement. It is, as Luther points out, a way of calling things what they really are. Preachers who preach from weakness (and not dominance) and suffering (not having it all together) will have Mark’s gospel of God as a friend. Apocalyptic rhetoric is not about escape, but naming the world, its pain, and its promise aright.

Second, this very apocalyptic gospel of God (1:14) is also the gospel of Jesus Christ (Mark 1:1). And who Jesus is matters for the way in which we would practice steadfast, embodied resistance to the demonic, right? This Jesus is not self-aggrandizing but silences demons when they speak of his identity. He is, from the beginning of his ministry in Galilee, self-effacing even as his reputation grows. We do not need to establish Jesus’ dominance through exorcism but rather note his self-awareness throughout the Gospel of Mark that he is on his own steadfast way to the cross. If that seems difficult, please remember it is the dying, crucified Jesus in Mark for whom the sun grows dark, for whom the curtain of the temple is ripped open, and whom even a centurion proclaims “the Son of God” (Mark 15:33–39).

This little exorcistic scene from Mark 1:21–28, set in a synagogue on the Sabbath, is a sign of God’s reign for the real bodies in the room. It is, moreover, spoken by a Jesus who wants nothing to do with dominance schemes and good publicity. He aims with urgency to enlist his disciples, and anyone else with ears to hear, in their own local praxis of apocalyptic struggle.

Notes

1. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 129ff.

Epiphany is my favorite season in the church. It means “light dawns,” as we slowly recognize who God is in Jesus Christ. Each text suggests a farther pushing-out of the good news from God’s own beloved Israel all the way to us gentiles, those inherently farthest from God. God always has a set-aside and preferred people—Israel, and then us religious types. But God can’t stand being stuck just with us. God always longs for those outside our number, those whom we may have disregarded.

All that is going on in Epiphany, and most people, including most Christians, are completely unaware. It’s like we’re in on a secret: here’s the weird way God saves the world.

This outward push of divine longing is present here in Deuteronomy. There is no prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 34:10–12). Our Jewish neighbors agree and go all in on the claim, with their form of life based on the commands of Torah. And yet, our existence as a church suggests God has reached even beyond his first choice of a people to include even us, the non-chosen. The church should always have a sense of ourselves as interlopers, plan B, just lucky and happy to be here. When we forget our secondary status as God’s people, we start to take our standing with God for granted and to wonder why God chose the Jews in the first place—or whether God indeed did.

So much religious faith is so habitually backward-looking, it can sound like the best days are past and only gloom is to come. Deuteronomy resists this conservatism. As great as Moses is, another great one will come, God promises (18:15). Our Jewish neighbors see a collective in this prophet. Sure, the language in Deuteronomy 18 is of a single prophet to come. But we Christians agree that all God’s people can be made into prophets—look what happens at Pentecost. And God does indeed continue to raise up prophets (multiple), from Samuel to Huldah to Elijah and more. There can be a detriment to interpreting this prophet singularly—our Muslim cousins say this is a reference to Mohammad.

So why do we Christians apply these words to Jesus? Because the New Testament does.

John speaks of Jesus as the prophet about whom Moses wrote (John 5:46–47). And Peter in Acts cites this passage specifically as a reference to Jesus Christ (Acts 3:22–26). Already we can see some polemic in these passages, as Jesus argues with his fellow Jews that they should believe in him if they heed Moses, and many do not. But we should always interpret the New Testament in light of the Old (not just the reverse). Deuteronomy points forward. God will be faithful. You will not be without prophets. God just keeps raising them up. One Christian theologian, asked if he were pessimistic about the future, answered with another question: “How can I be? The future includes the eschaton.”

Deuteronomy is keen to lay out guidelines by which we will know that a so-called prophet is actually from God. First, it is the Lord’s own activity that raises up any true prophet: “I will raise up for them a prophet,” God insists (18:18). There are always those who claim to speak for God on their own initiative. But God’s prophet rises at God’s initiative, not anyone else’s. And this prophet will be known especially for speaking God’s word (18:18–20).¹

Speak anything else at deadly risk. The passage just before this speaks of the divination practiced by Israel’s neighbors (18:9–14). Trying to summon godly power for one’s own will is an invitation to disaster. Many practitioners of religion do this, including us Christians—treating God like a butler who must run errands for us. No—biblical faith rests on God’s initiative in raising the prophet, and on that prophet speaking nothing other than God’s own word. Anything else is counterfeit—and dangerous.

There is a charming note of grace in this passage. Pay attention when the Bible talks to the Bible: in 18:16 God quotes the people refusing to look at Moses, to hear God’s voice, to see the great fire, “or else we will die.” God hears this request, and the recourse is modest: Moses can go for us, mediate for us, and then even cover his face once he’s down the mountain.

But God also hears this prayer request in a much more generous way than we intended. We just wanted the terror to stop. But God hears a request for another prophet: one who won’t terrify. This one shall be from our own people, shall speak God’s words, giving us everything God commands (18:18). To speak in a more explicitly Christian vein, we ask God to make the terror stop, and God responds by giving us Jesus, a prophet like us, who speaks God’s own words without terror.

We pray broken, self-serving, near-sighted prayers (“Lord, we just ask you to …”), and God responds by taking flesh from a virgin and dying our death to create the world all over again. I am sometimes ashamed at the self-interestedness of my own prayers (for this or that amelioration in my life circumstance, or in those of someone I love). But God hears my pitiful prayers and jujitsus them into blessing, not just for me but for the whole world, my enemies included.

There is often a binary logic applied to the mathematics of this passage: Is this singular prophet actually plural, or more singular? Are we right or are you? Or is someone else? But here’s the math God uses: We offer something paltry, selfish, singular. And God offers back something plural, gracious, universal. God never runs out of prophets. Out of words. Out of gracious commands by which to live. Out of goodness in response to our triviality. And the result is life for us and for the world.

Notes

1. I take these two criteria from Patrick Miller, Deuteronomy, Interpretation (Louisville: John Knox, 1990), 152–153.

If anyone ever asked for a rubric to understand God’s identity, and how we sing God’s praises, the answer is found in Psalm 111.¹

This liturgical hymn of praise begins with a “hallelujah” (Hebrew: hll YH), which is the second-person plural imperative, “Praise the Lord!” This particular psalm is a preface to a small series (Psalms 111–118, except 114) that emphasizes “hallelujah.”

This collection within the Psalter is among the psalms thought to be from the postexilic period. In particular, Psalms 113–118 are considered integral to Israel’s Jewish festivals.² As such, they seemingly reflect Israel’s understanding of God’s capacity to honor covenant and deliver God’s faithful from destruction and displacement. So, it seems fitting that in the preface—Psalm 111—we find instruction for the when, where, why, and how of praising the Lord.

In this text, the author proclaims to the people the need to collectively praise YHWH. He then follows his pronouncement by offering himself as an example of how one might praise, remarking, “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart” (verse 1).  Biblical expressions of the heart have often been misunderstood in the modern world because we commonly understand the heart as the seat of emotion and the head as the domain of intellect and rationality. This was not true in the biblical world.

The heart was seen as a host for emotion, morality, spirituality, determination, and intellect.³ Take, for example, Solomon’s request of God in 1 Kings 3. In verse 6, Solomon designates David’s heart as righteous as a means to describe Solomon’s perception of David’s morality. Later in the same chapter (1 Kings 3:9), Solomon asks God for a heart to judge the people fairly. Such an articulation is a request for discernment and wisdom.

Consequently, when we see the psalmist’s declaration to give God thanks with his whole heart, we bear witness not only to an emotional proclamation but also to a statement of intellect and intention.

Further, this edict is offered within community, in front of the congregation. Such an articulation is both a means of challenge to the people to declare the Lord publicly and freely and a means for accountability. Here, “God’s people” are established as a unit in their willingness to acknowledge God’s goodness among one another.

And so, once the audience and community are established, the psalmist’s focus is on praising God for God’s deeds, with a focus on God’s work in creation, redemption, provision, and instruction.

There is some debate about whether this psalm—like the others in its collection—should be linked to the Torah.⁴ I think that its liturgical structure, combined with its attention to the memory of God’s work through and in covenant, provides ample reason to draw connection with the Torah and, more specifically, with the exodus.

In verse 5, when the psalmist points to God’s provision of food, we as readers might be drawn to consistent images of God’s promises and provision in the midst of famine in the book of Genesis—both with Abraham in Genesis 12 and 13, and with Joseph and his family in the Joseph novella (Genesis 37–50). However, from the perspective of festal worship, this text might also conjure the Passover meal in Exodus 13 and the manna from heaven in Exodus 16. God’s bestowment of food is an indication of God’s desire to physically and spiritually sustain God’s people.

In verse 9 the psalmist references God’s redemption and eternal decree of the covenant. Here, the author seems to be referencing the Mosaic covenant. Examining the decalogue (Exodus 20:3–17) gives us fodder for comprehending the scope of praise the psalmist professes.

The decalogue mirrors a treaty in the ancient world that establishes rules for the relationship between lord and subjects. The treaty requires the lord or master to protect the lesser party and provide for their needs. In return, the vassals, or subjects, are required not only to pledge a certain allegiance to this master but to reflect the will of their lord in the world. Consequently, the decalogue is commonly understood to establish God’s responsibility to Israel, and to outline Israel’s responsibilities in turn.

In Psalm 111, the author seems to be acknowledging God’s faithfulness in deed to the contract established in Exodus 20. Further, he seems to remind the people that they have an obligation to respond to God’s actions not only in praise and adoration but in righteousness. They are to be the “company of the upright” (verse 1).

In the same manner, we are called to praise God. However, we must remember that our praise is not simply the shouting of words. Our praise of God is a remembering of God’s redemptive and salvific activity in the world; it is a recollection of God’s provision. Further, our praise is a living into covenant such that we honor family, community, humanity, and all of creation. We are called to live out God’s commandments. In doing so, our praise is best reflected in our ability not only to name God’s work in the world but to participate in God’s work as a reflection of who God is.

Notes

1. Commentary first published on this site on Oct. 13, 2019.
2. Marc Zvi Brettler, “The Riddle of Psalm 111,” in Scriptural Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination: Essays in Honour of Michael A Fishbane, ed. Deborah A Green and Laura Lieber (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009), 64.
3. Kauffman Kohler and Tobias Schanfarber, “Heart,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. Adolf Guttmacher et al. (New York: Kvat, 1964), 265.
4. Brettler. “The Riddle of Psalm 111,” 66.

The Corinthian community is a good example of the early church being far from perfect. Discord was all over within this faith community by the time Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. Paul, the founder of this church, sent this letter to the Corinthians to offer his advice on the matters that the Corinthians were struggling with. 

First Corinthians 8:1–13 addresses one of the subjects over which they were experiencing disagreement and conflict: whether or not to eat food sacrificed to idols. This topic may look obsolete and thus not intriguing as a preaching or teaching topic for the church today. But I want to invite readers to take this passage as a message of pastoral care, not necessarily as a lesson in systematic theology, and this shift can lead us to a timely and timeless lesson on community-building.

The passage begins with “And concerning” (peri de), which denotes that the following—“food sacrificed to idols”—was a topic known to, possibly broached by, the Corinthians (7:1; 7:25; 12:1; 16:1). Paul starts his response by directly quoting the Corinthian slogan, “All of us possess knowledge” (verse 1). He continues to expound this knowledge: “No idol in the world really exists” and “There is no God but one” (verse 4), both of which Paul himself and his readers already know as he continually says, “We know” (oidamen).

Understanding the social context of eating food—technically, meat—sacrificed to idols is seminal. Meat was not easily accessible; many Romans would have been vegetarian because meat was expensive. Cults, which often included animal sacrifices, provided the most common occasions when many had access to meat. Archaeological evidence shows that some temples had dining rooms. In Corinth, the Asklepeion, a temple dedicated to Asclepius, the god of healing, located right outside the agora (marketplace), and the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore on Acrocorinth had rooms used for dining. 

In the ancient Mediterranean world, religious life was not quite separate from civic and social life. It is likely that some Corinthians joined those cultic events without hesitation as an extension of their civic and social life and consumed food there; they had knowledge that their monotheistic faith would not be impeded by such activities. Then, Paul’s primary concern in this passage (and also in 10:23–30) would not have been about whether the meat is holy or unholy. It was the eating of meat because it could have involved certain forms of attendance in cults, such as joining suppers in those temples. 

It is to those possessing this knowledge that Paul is addressing the words “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (verse 9). Paul is well aware that some Corinthians “still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol” as they “have become so accustomed to idols until now” (verse 7). The Greek word for “liberty” in 8:9 is exousia, literally meaning “power” or “authority” (the New Revised Standard Version translates the same word as “right” in 9:12, 18). It is noteworthy that in 10:29, where Paul again discusses whether to eat food offered in sacrifice (“For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?”), Paul uses eleutheria, which more straightforwardly indicates “freedom.” 

Paul’s use of exousia in 8:7 suggests that at issue here is the power dynamic that the eating was creating within the Corinthian community. Eating food sacrificed to idols becomes controversial when some Corinthians, who have considerable knowledge, inconsiderately exercise their power to the degree of destroying those who have not yet possessed the knowledge, those with a weak conscience. Paul is worried that those whose consciences are weak might join those with knowledge in eating the food and still believe there are other gods and idols (verse 10). For this reason, Paul believes it is better to refrain from the eating of meat sacrificed to idols. In Paul’s words, “If food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall” (verse 13). 

It is also interesting that for Paul, those who do not yet have the knowledge about one God are weak in conscience, not in faith. Their weak conscience does not mean a lack of faith. Syneidēsis, translated as “conscience,” being a compound word of syn, “with,” and eidēsis, “seeing,” has a connotation of knowing or awareness. Paul uses this word in several places (Romans 2:15; 13:5; 1 Corinthians 10:27, 28, 29; 2 Corinthians 4:2; 5:11), but nowhere does he explicitly associate it with faith. Anti-intellectualism is not a message this passage conveys. 

Paul’s solution to this conflict is not to encourage those with a weak conscience to grow more in knowledge and agree that there is only one God. Instead, he asks those with the knowledge to grow in love. He equates offending members of your family (adelphoi, “siblings”) with sinning against them and, moreover, with sinning against Christ (verse 12). It is love that binds and strengthens a community. As Paul puts it, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (verse 1b). Paul wants the Corinthians to understand that the church will be united when those with knowledge are careful in choosing what they can do when they choose to care for siblings with a weak conscience. 

Paul is speaking here as a pastor, not as a theologian. We may be reminded today by Paul that the key to community-building is love—to love those who do not agree with me, those whom I cannot understand easily. Harmony is not the state of agreeing with each other on certain knowledge, but of loving each other amid disagreement.