3.7-6.6a OIA

Observations:

• Who: Jesus, crowds, 12 apostles, scribes, Jesus’ family, Sower, Soils, Satan, demoniac, demons, pigs, townsfolk, Jairus, Woman with illness, Peter, James and John, Jairus’ daughter, mourners, home town folks
• What: great crowds pursue; 12 apostles appointed; scribes accuse Jesus of demon-possession; Jesus’ family tries to muzzle Jesus; Jesus redefines family; Jesus tells parables explaining the kingdom; Jesus gives, and explains, the secret of the kingdom; Jesus performs four spectacular miracles; Jesus teaches in and is rejected by his home town folks.
• Where: the sea, the mountain, at home, again by the sea, public teaching/private explanation, in the boat, country of the Gerasenes, the Decapolis, again beside the sea, on the way to Jairus’ home, at and in Jairus house, again in Jesus home town, in the synagogue
• Connections: crowds respond; disciples called and obedient; conflict: with scribes, family, home town; faith is described and expanded; miracles; teaching; kingdom of God; unclean spirits
• New: 12 apostles; parables; secret of kingdom; insiders/outsiders; public teaching/private explanation

 Interpretation:

In the first section we see Jesus introducing the kingdom of God with himself as the central figure in this kingdom with authority to call, heal, exorcise demons, and challenge accepted religious practice.

In this next section we see some continuation of the theme of Jesus authority: he establishes a new 12 patriarchs for his kingdom; the response to this is that the religious leaders declare him possessed by Satan, and his family decides he is out of his mind. In the context of these conflicts Jesus takes the opportunity to declare, again on his own authority, that there is one unforgivable sin and the scribes, and perhaps Jesus’ family, have just committed this sin: when they see God at work, they mistake His activity for demonic activity. He also uses this occasion to redefine family. Jesus has just overturned two of the foundations of his contemporary culture and society: religious authority, and the family.

In this section we have some new developments: Parables of the Kingdom, and Demonstrations of the Kingdom, chapters 4-5; and yet another example of rejection: 6.1-6a, this time in Jesus’ home town as compared to the rejection by the Pharisees and Herodians in 3.6.

PARABLES

Jesus describes, in parables, several key dynamics of the kingdom of God. His metaphors are agricultural, from the natural world: seed, sower, slow and mysterious growth. In the midst of these parables Jesus introduces an entirely new understanding of how and why people understand who and what he, and the kingdom are all about. This is the eyes to see, ears to hear, and the obliqueness of parables: the secret of the kingdom!

This secret is central to Mark’s definition of discipleship: it explains the mixed responses Jesus has so far received, and sets the foundational pillars for the coming chapters that continue to describe a variety or responses to Jesus, as well as establishes the dissonance Mark describes between Jesus and the very 12 he called.

It is also important to note a particular literary technique Mark often employs: a story within a story. This is called the sandwich technique, “…an A1 – B – A2 sequence, with the B-component functioning as the theological key to the balancing halves” (Edwards: 11). The central story is the ‘meat’ of the sandwich that makes sense of the bread; i.e. Jesus’ teaching about eyes, ears, secrets, more/less, inside/outside are the theological key to understand the parable of the sower, growing seed, and mustard seed. (This technique happens again in 3.20-35; 4.1-20, 5.21-43, 6.7-30, 11.12-21, 14.1-11, 14.17-31, 14.53-72, 15.40-16,8 {ibid}).

DEMONSTRATIONS

It is possible to see the four stories – storm, demoniac, Jairus and his daughter, and the woman ill for 12 years – as demonstrations of the kingdom. Just as the parables theologically explain God’s kingdom, for those with eyes to see, so these four miraculous events demonstrate the actual presence and power of the kingdom in real life. Mark makes no dualistic distinction between the spiritual world and the physical world: the kingdom is holistic in its intent and practice. We with a modern/Western world view have conveniently isolated God in the realm of the spiritual, and live in the world of science, where we can know and manipulate the world for our own benefit: the modern dream of perpetual human progress. But Mark, and most of the non-Western world still to this day, know and experience the facts of these four stories; sometimes all our technology is insufficient to restore us to normal life. Then, and now, God’s kingdom has the power to redeem and restore.

Application
More to know and experience about the kingdom of God:
• Has apostles
• Has bound the strong man
• Has specific dynamics: sower, seed, mustard seed
• Has a key secret
• Impacts real life
Faith has immense implications, both positive and negative
Discipleship is dynamic, frightening, an unexpected
Jesus’ kingdom is in conflict with traditional understanding of family, religion, and science