A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (7)

“When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick;

I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (Mk. 2.16-17)

     Between two accounts of Jesus visiting the seaside to teach/heal the ever-present and ever-growing crowds (2.13; 3.7-12), Mark shows us the collision of Jesus’ vision of holiness with that of the Pharisees.  Mark accomplishes this by means of 4 short episodes, each of which contains a question that serves to reveal the underlying motives of these competing visions, the first three being asked by the Pharisees of Jesus/his disciples (concerning eating) and the fourth being asked by Jesus of his opponents (concerning the sabbath; cf. 2.6-9).  Jesus’ unconventional ways about the town of Capernaum now begin to make waves.

     The first episode (2.13-17) begins with Jesus calling Levi son of Alphaeus to follow him (cf. 1.16-20).  The fact that Levi is a tax collector (collaborator with the Romans) means that he is seen to be a traitor to his nation.  Not only that, but he has a large entourage of “sinners” who not only enjoy his hospitality, but are rather fond of Jesus and are even described as “following” Jesus.  Jesus enjoys table fellowship with these “undesirables”.  The Pharisees put their first question rather bluntly: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (2.16).  Their query is obviously rhetorical (and carries the force of an exclamation of disgust!) – in first-century Jewish culture, by sharing a meal with people, one identified oneself as a member of the same socio-religious group as one’s table companions.  As he had done during his baptism (1.9-11), Jesus here identifies with the “tax collectors and sinners”; and yet, he does not become absorbed into their “world”, but rather “calls” them out of the world they know into the kingdom of God.

     The second episode (2.18-22) concerns the matter of fasting.  People put the question to Jesus: “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” (2.18).  Fasting was a common expression of Jewish piety; Jesus himself fasted in the desert following his baptism (cf. Mt. 4.2; Lk. 4.1-2; cf. Lk. 18.12).  As Jesus responds to the question, he describes the meals he shares with his disciples in terms of a wedding banquet, with himself being the bridegroom.  A wedding banquet was a common image for the kingdom of God (cf. Lk. 14.15; 22.30; Mt. 8.11).  The kingdom-celebration has already begun!  Jesus then adds a cryptic comment about the time “when the bridegroom will be taken away”; when that occurs, says Jesus, his disciples will indeed fast (2.20; cf. 3.6).  In the Scriptures, Israel is often referred to as the “bride” of Yahweh, her husband (cf. Isaiah 54.4-8).  As usual, Mark’s Christology is subtle and not obvious to modern readers.  While the word “God” easily catches our attention, expressions such as “son of man” (2.6-10) or “bridegroom” do not immediately communicate the idea of “divinity” to us.  And yet this is how Mark is telling us that Jesus is the very embodiment of Yahweh – he is doing things that only Yahweh can do (forgiving sins, identifying himself as the husband/creator/redeemer of the people of God: cf. Is. 54.5).  The sayings about the cloth and the wineskins underscore the point that what Jesus has come to do is radically new and is incompatible with the inherited religious categories of his contemporaries (cf. Mt. 5.17-20).  The time of fulfillment has arrived; it can no longer be “business as usual” (cf. Mk. 1.15).  The king is here – it’s time to celebrate (cf. Lk. 15.7, 10)!

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