SCRIPTURE: John 15:1-13

“It’s time for reconnection; truly it is. It’s time to see God not as Someone to chase but as Someone to trust. It’s time to see your faith not as a source of certainty but as a place for growing confidence. We can do this together, because God has grafted us into each other’s lives, just as branches are grafted alongside one another into a vine. We just have to remain…and to remain is to simply be in love: with God, our gardener; with Jesus, our Savior and hope; with our brothers and sisters, our companions in this world; and with our neighbors, who are already connected with us, too…even if they don’t yet believe it.”

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Let’s revisit this year’s conversation about (Un)Certainty: what are you learning about the desire to feel “certain” in your life? Where do you feel/sense this most urgently? What are you learning about “confidence” as a kind-of antidote or counter to that desire? Where is your confidence growing?

2. Now, let’s talk through the parable of the vine and the branches (John 15:1-13). What does it mean for God to be the “gardener” in this parable? What does our understanding of gardening help us to see about God?

3. What does it mean for Jesus to be the “vine” in this parable? What does our understanding of how vines work help us to see about Jesus?

4. What does it mean for us to be the “branches” in this parable? What is surprising about how the branch is described here? What is the branch tasked with “doing”?

5. On Sunday, Kenny said that what makes Good Friday “good” is that the cross is where the connection between us and God is made. What does this mean? How are we connected to God in this moment?

6. Kenny said,

   “If Jesus is the source of our life, if Jesus chases us down even in the absolute depths of our despair, what can we do? What does the branch do in order to find its flourishing? It remains. It accepts–every day, every hour, every minute–the new life purchased on the Cross and promised by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The chasm that our sin created between us and God hasn’t been bridged, it has been filled, and Jesus has crossed over it in order to find us and graft us into real and true Life. Are we willing to let ourselves feel it? To be loved? To remain in love? To make our joy complete?”

   What does this mean to you? What is so critical about “remaining”…and how do we actually do it? What can you take away from all of this as we move forward into 2022?

SCRIPTURE: Mark 4:31-32 & 4:26-29; Matthew 13:33,13:44, & 20:1-16; Luke 14:16-24

“Jesus identifies with us, so we can be incorporated into Him. Jesus chooses to experience all the messiness of a human life, including mockery and abandonment and false accusations and even torture and death, so He can wholly and fully identify with His own Creations. We have a God who fully and personally sees us, so that he can then bring us to true and complete liberation from our smallness, our meanness to each other, and incorporate us into His perfection and His story. The Empire-story shares itself–even gives itself–for the Subject-story, the Slave-story.” 

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. This week we are dealing with what can feel like a pretty remote concept: the idea of a “kingdom.” What does that word mean to you? How would you define it? How might it be a relevant idea for you?

2. Kenny said that, in the kingdoms humans make, we incorporate so we can identify with power and control. Can you think of any examples of this? What are the limitations or problems with this kind of “kingdom”? 

3. In the first four parables Kenny discussed, the “KIngdom of God” is presented as a mustard seed, yeast, a treasure in a field, and a harvest. What connects these four metaphors? What do they teach us about God’s Kingdom?

4. Kenny said that the core belief of the kingdoms of this world is that violence can be redemptive. How did you process that idea? Do you see evidence of it in your own life? How is this at odds with God’s Kingdom?

5. In the final two parables, God’s Kingdom is a banquet, where those who are invited refuse the invitation and so the invitation is extended to strangers on the street, and a vineyard, where all workers are paid the same wages no matter when their shift started. What does this tell us about God’s Kingdom? What does it mean for God’s Kingdom to be liberation…and how does this work? 

6. How does Jesus turn the “incorporation for identification” model of earthly kingdoms upside down? 

7. If we really are living in the Kingdom of God…what should we do? How do we live well?  

SCRIPTURE: Mark 8:22-9:29

“Jesus didn’t come to be a social revolutionary, although he continues to upend societal norms and structures. He did not come to reveal a more ethical and moral way to live, although that can be a consequence of following him. He did not come to be the greatest teacher of all time, or the greatest prophet, although he is all that and more. Jesus came to suffer, die and rise from the dead. His words: not mine, nor anyone else’s. To miss this point is to miss the reason Jesus came to earth in the first place.” 

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Mark 8:22-26: How do you feel about Jesus healing the blind man in stages rather than instantly? Do you see this as some kind of sign of limitation on God’s power?

2. Mark 9:14-29: Have you ever struggled with your faith regarding a specific event? Would you be willing to share? Is there a difference between unbelief and doubt? How can the two play a combined role in actually strengthening faith?

3. Mark 9:2-13: Place yourself in the sandals of the disciples. How would you have reacted to Jesus’s transformation? The Bible talks about Jesus being both man and God–how does Jesus’s divinity affect your everyday life? 

4. What is your answer to Jesus’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” 

5. What’s your reaction to Jesus’s emphasizing his suffering, death, and resurrection? 

6. Has God ever done something that made you want to yell at him?

SCRIPTURE: John 15:1-13

“It’s time for reconnection; truly it is. It’s time to see God not as Someone to chase but as Someone to trust. It’s time to see your faith not as a source of certainty but as a place for growing confidence. We can do this together, because God has grafted us into each other’s lives, just as branches are grafted alongside one another into a vine. We just have to remain…and to remain is to simply be in love: with God, our gardener; with Jesus, our Savior and hope; with our brothers and sisters, our companions in this world; and with our neighbors, who are already connected with us, too…even if they don’t yet believe it.”

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Let’s revisit this year’s conversation about (Un)Certainty: what are you learning about the desire to feel “certain” in your life? Where do you feel/sense this most urgently? What are you learning about “confidence” as a kind-of antidote or counter to that desire? Where is your confidence growing?

2. Now, let’s talk through the parable of the vine and the branches (John 15:1-13). What does it mean for God to be the “gardener” in this parable? What does our understanding of gardening help us to see about God?

3. What does it mean for Jesus to be the “vine” in this parable? What does our understanding of how vines work help us to see about Jesus?

4. What does it mean for us to be the “branches” in this parable? What is surprising about how the branch is described here? What is the branch tasked with “doing”?

5. On Sunday, Kenny said that what makes Good Friday “good” is that the cross is where the connection between us and God is made. What does this mean? How are we connected to God in this moment?

6. Kenny said,

   “If Jesus is the source of our life, if Jesus chases us down even in the absolute depths of our despair, what can we do? What does the branch do in order to find its flourishing? It remains. It accepts–every day, every hour, every minute–the new life purchased on the Cross and promised by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The chasm that our sin created between us and God hasn’t been bridged, it has been filled, and Jesus has crossed over it in order to find us and graft us into real and true Life. Are we willing to let ourselves feel it? To be loved? To remain in love? To make our joy complete?”

   What does this mean to you? What is so critical about “remaining”…and how do we actually do it? What can you take away from all of this as we move forward into 2022?

SCRIPTURE: Mark 6:30-8:21

“We have to experience God routinely…because if we don’t, the gap between what our fear leads us to believe about God and the God who truly is will keep growing. We need to keep seeing Him with a soft heart. We need to be eager to have our assumptions challenged, to have our ‘minds blown’ by Him! What we have in Jesus is unimaginable access to an utterly overwhelming God, and what is so wild and excessive and inconceivable about God? It’s His grace. It’s his unthinkable and unrelenting willingness to pour Himself out for the people and the world He has made. Every time we try to put a limit on His kindness, He blows past it. Every time we try to say, “this far, and no further! Surely a God as mighty and as just and as powerful as You will stop here!” He says to us, ‘Do you still not understand?’”

DISCUSSION/REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

1. Let’s take stock: what are you learning about Mark’s gospel in this series?

2. In our passages for this week, Jesus and his disciples travel back and forth across the Sea of Galilee several times, alternating between trips to the western shore (Jewish territory) and the eastern shore (Gentile territory). He even performs two versions of the “same” miracle in each place: feeding large crowds with a few loaves of bread. Why do you think Mark includes so many of these stories? What point is he trying to get at, as he presents Jesus’s story?

3. What do you think the disciples “don’t understand about the loaves”? Why does Mark says this specifically about their failure to recognize Jesus when he is walking on water?

4. Kenny said that these chapters are about the “feel-able mystery of Jesus.” What do you think he meant by that? What do you think is the “mystery” of Jesus?

5. Why do we (like the Pharisees) so often treat God as someone we have to impress with our good behavior before He will come to our rescue?

6. What can we learn from Jesus’s description of the crowds as “sheep without a shepherd”? How does this shape the way he treats those crowds?

SCRIPTURE: Mark 2:23-3:35

“Do we really believe Jesus is most interested in those of us who are still in the midst of sin, of rebellion against God and against him? Or do we think, ‘yes, he loves those people…but he most loves me because I pray and read my Bible and go to church every week’? The Bible tells us that Jesus is the kind of shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep in order to go find the 1: from the perspective of those 99, is this really good shepherding? And if you believe that you are really a Jesus follower…do you spend your own time and invest your own passions in the same way? Do you spend more time with the sick or the well? My hunch is that we are more like the Pharisees than we think we are, and that’s a bigger problem than we think it is. This is our topic for tonight: what’s the real danger of staying inside the religious bubble we tend to create for ourselves? What does it cost?”

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. The Pharisees in this week’s passage continue to be perplexed by Jesus’s apparent willingness to break the religious laws about the Sabbath in order to feed people or work miracles. Put yourself in their shoes: why is what Jesus is doing so frustrating for them?

2. Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." How do you interpret this statement? How might it challenge you, as it challenged the Pharisees?

3. Kenny said that although Jesus is clear about his willingness to seek out the one lost sheep, even if it means leaving the ninety-nine!, we don’t often think about this from the perspective of the sheep who are “safe.” How does it feel to know that Jesus is most interested in those who are not already following him? When have you been the “lost” sheep? When have you been one of the ones who are safe? 

4. The point of the intercalation section of Mark 3 seems to be that our “family” is actually stronger when the boundaries we use to define it are left open. Wrestle with this idea a bit: do you think this is true? How can it apply to your life? To our church?

5. What are some ways you can work to “expand your circle” this week?

SCRIPTURE: Mark 1:29-2:22

“This is the very heart of what we have so often gotten wrong in the American church: we’re supposed to be aiming at something. We’re not supposed to be trying to go backwards, to a point when we used to be healthy! Jesus is here for the sick, and if Jesus really is the Messiah, that means we have to rethink our Savior in Jesus’s terms: is the goal to restore Israel…or to grow Israel? Is the goal to restore me, or to grow me? This is our good news: every day, God wants us to get closer to the Kingdom of God. He wants us to go deeper in our relationships with Him, which are relationships He has made intimate through His Son and through His Holy Spirit. He doesn’t want us to always be seeking “do-overs” and “clean slates” and second, third, or hundredth chances to follow the Law: He wants us to His heart…which the Law merely reflects.” 

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. This is the first weekend of the Lenten season. Talk a bit about your past experiences with observing Lent, if you have had any. What did you “give up”? What positive changes did you experience, if any?

2. In the passages for this week, we keep seeing a tension between who Jesus says he is–the Messiah!–and the expectations the religious leaders of his time have for that figure. Discuss this: what were the Pharisees looking for? What does Jesus say his mission in the world is? Why are they in conflict?

3. We often say Jesus “lived without sin.” The Pharisees would disagree: he does several things in these passages which made him ceremonially unclean. Why is this a big deal? What does it teach us about how Jesus views cleanliness?

4. We also often say that God “cannot bear sin in His presence.” Have you ever thought about how Jesus challenges that belief? What does Jesus’s ministry teach us about who God is and what God wants for His children?

5. Do you sometimes feel tempted to think about purity as something you start with…and are trying not to lose? What would it change in your life if you flipped that around: what if you’re becoming more pure, as a follower of Jesus? Does that change the ways you think of your past? Your future? Your present?

SCRIPTURE: Mark 1:1-28

“The Gospel of Mark is meant to invite Christians to keep their questions in front of them, because it will ultimately be those questions that see us through our own trials. If we think our faith is just about what we have declared we believe about Jesus–“Jesus is my Savior!”–we are still keeping ourselves at the center of things and putting our hope in our own strength. But the Christians in Rome are at this very moment learning the limits of their own courage in the pits of the Colosseum! Ultimately, what they need–what we all need–is a hope that comes not from what we can do but from what Christ is still doing in us, despite our weaknesses. Like the disciples, we have been invited to put down our nets and to follow Jesus in wonder.”

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What are some of the ways people might answer the question, “Who is Jesus?” How would you answer that question? 

2. Why do you believe what you believe about Jesus? When and how has that belief shifted over time? What could cause it to shift in the future? 

3. If the structure of Mark’s gospel mirrors that of a courtroom trial (where Jesus is being “accused” of being the Messiah), what evidence “against” Him do we see in the first chapter? Walk through it together: what is Mark’s “case”?

4. Kenny spent some time talking through the calling of the first disciples. What can we learn from this part of the story? Why does Jesus call them? What do they have to do in order to follow Him? What do you think they knew about Jesus, at the moment they decided to go with him? What keeps them in His entourage, over time? What can we learn from this? 

5. At the end, Kenny said that the demon asks the right question: “what do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Why don’t other characters in the first chapter ask this question? What does Jesus’s answer seem to be? How does this question affect your own view of who Jesus is…and why you might (or might not) believe in Him?

SCRIPTURE: Mark 4:3-20

“The Parable of the Sower makes us wrestle, but we are richer for that wrestling. We grow. Which, in the end, is exactly how the parable says things work: when we are planted in a place that is deep, when we reach down into the difficulty of things, we begin to flourish. Shallow understandings wither, or are snatched away. Emotionalism and sensationalism don’t endure. The Kingdom of God is a place where seeds scattered in dark places, even ones far from the path, can take root and be nourished.” 

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Have you ever experienced a change in the meaning of something? What was it? What meanings did it have? Do you know why the change happened?

2. Why do you think Jesus spoke in parables? Do you ever find this frustrating? Why?

3. Read the Parable of the Sower (Mark 4:3-9): what is your initial sense of what the parable means? What might another interpretation of it be? 

4. Now, read Jesus’s explanation of the parable to His disciples (Mark 4:13-20). What does this clarify? What new questions does it present? 

5. The “first rule” of reading a parable is to have “ears to hear,” which Kenny defined as a willingness to shift our perspective from what the parable teaches us to what the parable reveals about God and His Kingdom. Try to apply this rule to the Parable of the Sower. What do you see? 

6. The “second rule” of reading a parable is to “look for more, not less,” which Kenny defined as a willingness to see how a story changes over time and from different perspectives (he compared this to the changing view from a window). Try to apply this rule to the Parable of the Sower: what do you see? 

7. This week, our challenge was introspective: when it comes to your faith, are you hoping to know a thing more or to know more things? What’s the difference? In reference to the Parable of the Sower, what kind of “soil” is your heart? Are you content with the answer?

SCRIPTURE: Luke 2:16-18, John 4:28-42 & 20:11-18

“I want to challenge you to let go, little by little, of the desire to control your faith, to hold your beliefs in a clenched fist, and then I want you to experience the wonder of an infinite and loving and personal God. Then, as you experience it, you can let yourself share it the way you share anything that causes you to feel wonder: not in an effort to convince someone of anything, but out of a conviction that what you have seen is simply, and absolutely, worth seeing.”

REFLECTION/DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. When was the last time you really experienced wonder? What happened? What did you do? 

2. Sometimes, “evangelism” can feel a lot like making a sales pitch. Have you ever had a conversation about faith with someone that took that sort of a turn? 

3. The big idea this week is that wonder is an antidote to this problem. Do you buy that? What do you think Kenny means by this? 

4. Kenny talks about 3 ways of allowing wonder to reshape our witness. The first one is drawn from the story of Mary “treasuring” and “pondering” the visit from the shepherds: we, too, can start by treasuring what we have seen and experienced of God. Try to talk this through as a group: what comes to mind?

5. The second one is drawn from the story of the Woman at the Well: we can share what amazes us…even if it doesn’t seem like the most important part! How does this lesson connect to the story? How can it apply to your example in question 4? 

6. The final one is drawn from Mary Magdalene’s witness to the disciples on Easter morning: we can trust that what amazed us really is amazing…which means we don’t have to argue about it or prove it. Our responsibility is simply to invite others to see it. What do you think of this challenge? 

7. Evangelism is a difficult topic to discuss! What are your thoughts on it more generally? Why is it important? Why is it hard? How can we be more genuine and authentic witnesses to the wonder and mystery of God?