Mark 12:28-34 (NIV)

The last several passages in Mark have involved representatives of various influential groups in Judaism confronting Jesus with questions after he disrupts the status quo in the temple courts. Each of these groups had distinct ideas about what Messiah would do and look like when he arrived, and with Jesus bringing his ministry to Jerusalem in this public way, they have to figure out how Jesus might fit into their agenda. But Jesus is here ready to confound them all. His action in the temple and his answers to their questions indicate a new way of thinking about the Kingdom and the people of God.

Today’s passage revolves around a universally known Jewish prayer called the Shema. This is a prayer taken from the book of Deuteronomy and has been prayed multiple times a day by generations of Jews throughout history. Passage after passage, these groups have been coming to Jesus and asking him questions, but they can’t quite see what Jesus is doing—that is, fulfilling this very prayer that they all prayed daily—and thereby establishing a new way of relating to God. But the teacher of the Law in this passage is not far off...

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1. What moment in this passage stood out to you the most?

2. Jesus’ answer gives us a picture of what his mission is all about: that this kind of Love for God and Love for People is what he’s calling God’s people to be known for. So what about us today? How well does the church today live this out? Where are we not far from the Kingdom? Where are we a good ways off?

3. What is one thing that would need to change for you today, to step closer to the Kingdom? In love for God and in love for people?

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Mark 12:18-27 (NIV)

Have you ever thought about what life will be like… after death? We all have, of course. And every religion and culture has a story of what it will be like. The Jewish people believed in a bodily, physical, eternal life of resurrected and restored bodies in a New Heavens and New Earth. But even amongst themselves there was disagreement about this. There was a group called the Sadducees, who apparently thought the idea of bodily resurrection too radical to believe, and in today’s passage we meet them. They have joined in the effort to try to trap Jesus into saying something that would justify his arrest, even in spite of their philosophical differences with the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders.

As you listen to the passage read aloud, again step into the scene. It’s tense. You can imagine the look on the faces of those trying to trip Jesus up. Try to picture the look on his face as he responds. What do you see?

----------REFLECT----------

1. Did you find anything in the passage interesting, odd or surprising?

2. Jesus’ response to the Sadducees calls out both their lack of Scriptural study and their lack of experiencing God, affirming the resurrection by quoting directly from Moses’ writings—the only ones they held as authoritative. In what ways can you see a lack of Biblical knowledge and/or the power of God in your family, church or community?

3. As you consider your thoughts and feelings about “the afterlife,” what questions do you want answered? Are you willing to trust Jesus to answer those questions?

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Mark 12:13-17 (NIV)

In our culture we often separate our faith from “the rest of life.” Sometimes this means being a Christian on Sunday but not knowing how or not allowing our faith to come with us on Monday to work, to school, or into our social life. Today’s passage has often been used to justify the separation of religion and society or church and state. And while we’ve seen some pretty terrible things happen when religion and human government become enmeshed, Jesus’ point in this passage is not to make an overarching statement about the relationship between religion and politics or society.

Ironically, in thinking this way we can end up trapping Jesus' words in the way that the Pharisees try to do in this passage. The Jews don’t want to pay taxes or acquiesce to Roman rule, but they also are hearing Jesus say that faithfulness looks like non-violent resistance. They try to catch him compartmentalizing. But he cunningly calls them out as he calls them back to their original role as God’s image bearers.

As you listen to the passage read aloud, again step into the sandals of one of the listeners. Try to imagine the scene and the characters around you.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What did you hear in the passage? What stood out to you?

2. In what ways have you separated your faith life from other spheres of your life, whether on purpose or without really thinking about it?

3. Jesus gets out from under this trap by turning it back onto those who set it. Think about it. The image of Caesar is on the coin, but on what is God’s image imprinted? Yeah. Us. How insignificant do taxes seem then, when compared with our whole life? Do you believe that your whole life belongs to God? Is there any part of your life that you know you’re holding back from him? Consider that now and take it to the Lord in prayer.

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Mark 12:1-12 (NIV)

“I will sing for the one I love

We are in the middle of an extremely tense scene. Jesus has overturned the temple trade system, rebuked the chief priests and teachers of the law, and in today’s passage, he continues to not-so-subtly call out the failure of the Jewish leaders. The passage I just read is from Isaiah, chapter 5. The people listening to Jesus would have known it well, and its meaning is far from unclear. Jesus takes that image and reconfigures it just slightly for the present moment.

As you listen to today’s passage, again imagine the scene. Feel the tension. How would you have responded if you were one of the religious leaders? How would you have reacted if you were in the crowd?

----------REFLECT----------

1. What details stood out to you in the parable Jesus tells?

2.  Israel’s role was to be a blessing to the nations—to be a doorway of entrance and welcome for the world to come into covenant relationship with their Maker, not a community creating walls to keep others out. As the church, as the people of God in our generation, what rebuke do we need to hear collectively from the Lord through this story?

3. Sometimes we can be like Israel’s leaders, God gives us a role to play or a gift to steward and we take it and twist it and corrupt it until it becomes something that serves us alone. How might Jesus be offering you freedom from that today?

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Mark 11:27-33 (NIV)

Many of us have had the uncomfortable experience of being wrongfully accused. Maybe our teacher thought we were cheating on a test, but we weren’t. Maybe our boss accused us of taking money from the drawer, but there was another reason the nightly cash count came up short… We know the shame and indignation of being accused of something we were innocent of. But most of us also know, or hopefully know, the experience of being rightly rebuked. We did something wrong. We acted unjustly, hurt someone’s feelings or reputation, and we needed to be corrected. But the true test of our character comes in how we respond to that rebuke. Do we deny it? Attack the other person’s reputation instead? Or do we apologize, repent, ask for forgiveness, and learn from our mistake?

In today’s passage, Jesus gives this opportunity to the “elders,” the teachers of the law, and the chief priests—the religious and political leaders of Israel. Each group had their own motivation for protecting their reputation—whether to maintain the status quo with Rome, maintain their power over the religious temple system, or keep the peace among the people. Let’s listen to the passage and see what we can learn both from Jesus and those he rebukes.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What stood out to you as you pictured this scene?

2. From the beginning of the Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ authority has been front and center. His healings, driving out demons, teachings and miracles… The people saw and proclaimed his authority. But now he’s exercising authority in the temple, in the “religious” space, and those who control that space don’t want to recognize it—so much so that they risk denying the authority of Yahweh to maintain control.

Sometimes we know that Jes us is right about our lives, our thoughts or actions, but in our desire to maintain control, we deny his authority, and consequently that of our Maker. Where in your life do you feel the urging of God’s Spirit to release authority over to him?

3. Belonging to God, following Jesus, walking in his Spirit means walking in that same authority. Where do you see injustice, disease, brokenness or pain? In what ways might God be calling you to exercise authority in those places?

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Mark 11:12-25 (NIV)

Today’s passage in Mark 11 has Jesus cursing a fig tree, overturning tables in the temple courts, and talking about moving mountains with prayer. What in the world is going on here? It’s these kinds of passages that tempt us to break up the story and try to wring out meaning from what seem like random details. But Mark is trying to get us to see something about Jesus.

This moment with the fig tree actually serves as a metaphor for what Jesus does in the temple. Figs were not in season but there should have been early fruit on the tree, and trees that had leaves but no fruit at this time of year were not going to produce anything that season. In the temple, Jesus confronts the money changers and boundary markers that were taking advantage of the poor and excluding people from participating freely in the feast of passover. Originally, within the temple the only distinction was supposed to be between priest and people, but by Jesus' day it was segregated by race and gender for "purity reasons."

So what’s this metaphor mean? Israel's vocation was to be a blessing to all nations. A place where people could come and receive the fruit of God’s covenant love for Israel through the temple. But Israel and the temple itself has become like a fig tree with no fruit. It has leaves, but it bears no fruit. Jesus cursing the fig tree indicates at least two things. One, is that the temple would be destroyed, which actually ends up happening in 70 AD. And second, that there needs to be a new Israel, a new temple. And Jesus will do it, on a mountain outside the city, on a withered tree.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What about Jesus in the passage comforts you and your community?

2. What about Jesus in the passage challenges you and your community?

3. Jesus sees the failure of Israel to live up to what it was called to be and he plans to intervene. He plans to allow himself to be cursed and wither in order for us to have free and equal access to the fruit of God’s covenant faithfulness. Take a moment and reflect on this good news.

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Mark 11:1-11 (NIV)

“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!

Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!

See, your king comes to you,

righteous and victorious,

lowly and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Today’s passage brings us to a scene that might be familiar to you. But the backstory might be less familiar. Jesus comes into Jerusalem riding a young donkey. Everyone is singing “Hosanna.” If you’ve been in church much, you know this as “Palm Sunday.” But why the donkey? Why the procession at all? Jesus is embodying a picture of Israel’s king from the book of Zechariah. And in so doing, he is making the boldest statement yet about what his kingdom looks like. The prophecy in Zechariah describes the entrance of a king—righteous, victorious, but humble. He is not on a war horse. He holds no battle bow. In fact, in this picture, the instruments of war are undone, and peace is proclaimed to all nations. Can you see it?

As you listen to the passage read aloud, try to place yourself in the scene. This is the entrance of the Messiah everyone’s been waiting for. What are your thoughts, feelings, questions, as you witness what’s happening here?

----------REFLECT----------

1. What details caught your attention in this passage?

2. Popular expectations of messiah included some kind of overthrow of the powers of the oppressive roman state. How does the image of Jesus riding a peace donkey square with these expectations? If you had expected a war horse, how might you respond?

3. Zechariah’s picture of the King is one who brings the Shalom the world has been waiting for - peace and restoration, the laying down of weapons in the pursuit of wholeness and justice. In what ways do you long for that Shalom? Or in what areas might the Holy Spirit be asking you to lay down your weapons and walk with this humble King?

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Mark 10:46-52 (NIV)

Today on Daily Read our passage illustrates what can be lost when we are forced to break up the gospels into smaller parts. These passages are a part of a bigger narrative that was really intended to be seen as a cohesive unit. Each has depths to plumb, but each is also only understood as deeply as what comes before and after.

Today Jesus repeats a phrase from the previous passage, and that phrase indicates a contrast that Mark is trying to draw between the disciples and this blind man named Bartimaeus. Remember how we’ve talked about one of the themes in Mark being that the people who should be able to see the Kingdom struggle to see it, if not outright fail to see it, and the people who shouldn't see it do?

In the previous passage, Jesus asked James and John, who brought a request to them, “what do you want me to do for you?” They proceed to ask for him to give them a seat of honor and power next to him when he comes into his Kingdom. Today, in contrast to these disciples who have had ample time to grasp what Jesus has been saying about himself, he asks Bartimaeus the same question. And I believe that it’s his response that should become a model for us today.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What word or phrase stood out to you in this passage?

2. Mark includes the detail of Bartimaeus throwing aside his cloak, which he would have had laid out before him to collect money as he begged. What do you think it means that he threw it aside as he came to Jesus?

3. The disciples were in proximity to Jesus and were actively doing the “right kind of stuff” with and for Jesus, but on several occasions he calls them out for lacking faith. In contrast Bartimaeus hasn’t done anything for Jesus, and yet is told by Jesus himself that his faith has healed him. How might Jesus invite you to be more like Bartimaeus today?

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Mark 10:32-45 (NIV)

In today’s passage Jesus again refers to himself as the Son of Man. We haven’t yet talked about this image, but it’s an incredibly important picture in Jewish history, coming from the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel. First Daniel describes four beasts, like, crazy creatures. They represented the four kings and empires that would oppress Israel. Then he sees this figure—a Son of Man, meaning—a human. He’s presented to “The Ancient of Days,” and he is given ultimate dominion—a never-ending kingdom for all peoples, nations and languages. It is this figure that Jesus references over and over in Mark and again today.

However, juxtaposed with the image of the Son of Man with all his power and glory is that of the “Suffering Servant” that Isaiah wrote about. While the disciples never would have imagined it to be so, wJesus’ knew that these two radically different images were images of the same thing. He himself is fulfilling these prophecies, he is the new human who is becoming king above all kings by becoming the servant of all, giving his own life to rescue the world.

----------REFLECT----------

1. What surprised you about this passage?

2. The request of James and John reveals that the disciples still don’t understand the upside-down nature of Jesus’ kingdom. The way of God isn’t just slightly different from the way of empire, it’s completely antithetical to empire. How does this challenge you? How might it give you hope?

3. All of us have an idea of what we want God’s kingdom to be like, of what we want Jesus to be like, and of what we want following Jesus to be like. How do you think your desires compare to the way Jesus talks about these things? And can you invite the Spirit to make your desires the same as his?

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Every time I think of today’s passage, a particular and somewhat peculiar image comes to mind. It’s the image of trapping a monkey. Have you ever heard of this? In parts of the world where monkeys are common, one way to trap them is with something like a box, or a gourd, or a coconut husk. What you do is cut a hole that’s just big enough for the hand of the monkey to slip inside. You place some kind of fruit inside and when the monkey reaches in and grabs the fruit, they can’t get their fist and the fruit back through… they’re trapped… until they let go.

In today's passage, Jesus challenges a rich man to let go of his great wealth in order to inherit the Kingdom. Unfortunately I’ve most often heard this passage used to single out rich folk in our context as those for whom it’s difficult to enter the kingdom. Now, I don’t say that because I think we should somehow soften this hard word for people with wealth. I say it because I think many of us can disassociate with the man who comes to Jesus in this passage if we don’t have a ton of wealth, or because wealth isn’t something we’re attached to.

But, I want to push our listeners on both of those fronts. First, if you view yourself as someone with little wealth. If you are a human in western civilization with access to this podcast episode…. In comparison to the rest of the world and to humanity throughout time, you have extreme wealth. Second, as you’ll see at the end of this passage, Jesus isn’t just talking about money, he’s talking about family, and land, and possessions. He’s talking about any of our attachments. So you are included in this invitation.

We are a society that is held captive by our attachments. Like the monkey who can’t let go of the fruit, we definitely struggle to let go of our money. But what about our ideas of family, success, security, or influence? We hold on to our dreams and desires and whatever we imagine will give our life meaning. But when our fists are tight around other things, how can we take hold of the kingdom of God?

----------REFLECT----------

1. What word or phrase surprised you in this passage?

2. Both the rich man and Peter come to Jesus having done very different things in the interest of inheriting the Kingdom. The rich man has all the right answers, yet is unable to give up something he’s really attached to. Peter has given up a lot to follow Jesus and might struggle with feelings of loss over what he’s set aside. Can you relate to either of them?

3. If you were to come to Jesus and ask him a question like this, what might he point to in your life, and invite you to let it go and trust that he will provide that for you in the present age?

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