January 17 -- Parables in Mark

Grace to you and peace...

“Again Jesus began to teach beside the sea”...at the water’s edge.  That’s how our lesson starts.  These parables that Jesus shares are offered with the sounds of moving water nearby.  The sea of Galilee, specifically, which is actually a giant lake, but I’m sure the sound of water lapping up on the shore, maybe even some small waves, could have been heard.  And in this chapter, Jesus actually gets into a boat -- Mark says -- and teaches the crowds from the boat.  The people listening from the land.  Can you imagine!  These parables about seeds -- good seed and fertile soil -- are rich...but so is the location, the geography of where these parables are told: at the water’s edge.

I’ve been spending some time along the water’s edge, these last 2 weeks.  Not in Galilee, but as most of you know, in Roma.  Along the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.  In Rome, along the edge of the Tiber river.  Along the edge of the great aqueducts of the Empire, along the edge of underground springs and pools.  And like you who’ve been here this whole time San Diego, we had a lot of rain in Rome, too.  So there were always new puddles, and streams of water washing down the hills and the streets.  A lot of moving water in and around Rome too!

And I think that where water is moving, interesting things are always happening.  Life is happening at the moving water’s edge.  Where water is still and stagnant:  death, contamination, mosquitoes, odors, malaria.  But where water is moving, life and energy.  

Jesus is teaching on and at the edge of moving waters in our text today.  Dynamic things are being said, there’s an energy in the air and in the water.  I imagine him bobbing up and down in the boat as he talked about good seeds and good soil, and the people straining to hear his powerful images for the kingdom of God over the lapping of water on the shore.  [pause]

Tiber Island, Early Church Seminar Trip, January 2016

Back to Rome -- Right in the middle of the moving Tiber River in Rome is an island.  To the east of the river and this small island is the Forum, the palaces of the emperors, the Colosseum, the Pantheon -- all the glorious buildings the Roman Empire.  To the west of the River is a rough neighborhood.  Now it’s become a pretty cool neighborhood, but in the first centuries, and even until recently, it was the “other side of the tracks”.  That neighborhood to the west called Trastevere.  And that’s where many of the early Christians lived, and worked.  Because they were immigrants, they were working class, underclass even.  We visited the ruins of some of their underground sanctuaries, and house churches on the other side of the river.  (Grain stores...) When Peter and Paul went to Rome, you can bet they crossed the Tiber River, they went into the rough area, to worship and serve alongside, and teach and eat with and encourage those earliest, brave, struggling Christians...

OK, got it?  Glorious Rome to the east of the Tiber, run-down Trastevere (and Early Church inhabitants) to the west and this island right in the middle: Isola Tiberina.  In ancient times, this is where the Pagan Romans they took their sick...and left them.  This is where they condemned criminals too.  It was terrifying place, and so sad to learn how many sick and outcast citizens of Rome were often just dumped into the river off the island, sometimes even while they were still alive.  No good? Unhealthy?  “Cast them aside!  Throw them into the moving water.  And let them wash away.”  Can you imagine?

But guess who snuck over there to the island to help these poor sick, criminal, lost, forsaken, cast-aside people?  

The early Christians.  For me, this trip solidified, that the Early Church was about 3 things:  Worshipping together, eating together, and taking care of the outcast, the hungry, the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the children -- all those people who the Roman government deemed worth-less.  

Christian compassion right in the middle of the moving water.

It’s like that island was a boat bobbing up and down in the Tiber, reflecting Christ then and now, proclaiming a parable for us today.  Calling us back to true faith-in-action.  That island...was Jesus himself teaching from a boat in the middle of the water!  Can you see it?  Following Jesus message of grace and mercy, the Early Christians didn’t just listen and go back to lives of consumption and exploitation and self-centeredness and indulgence...the Early Christians listened and followed, the seed of the Gospel took root and grew, and they became the very face of Christ for a God-forsaken, God-unknown world.  In a mighty empire, the strongest nation in that world, where ruthlessness and dominance were the law of the land, where the poor were cast aside, these Early Christians gave their lives, and in so doing became the very face of Christ for their world.  Christian compassion right in the middle of the moving water.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, this is still happening today.  Christians today give of themselves, risking even their lives for the sake of the Gospel.  [pause]  Eating together, worshiping together, serving together.  That’s it!  That’s being the church.  

...and it all happens along the moving water’s edge.  

Along the edge of the grand Pacific Ocean in our case, yes, but the real moving water, the real water’s edge, is the water that flows from our baptismal font.  

Now, anyone else, who looks at [that] font only sees a bowl of stagnant water...

[Slowly] But sisters and brothers in Christ, we know that those waters are not stagnant.  We know that life in Christ flows from those waters, drenching us with hope and joy, watering our hearts to grow in faith and love toward God and incompassionate service to God’s planet.  Anyone else who looks at our font only sees weakness, smallness...but along that water’s edge, we eat together and serve together and worship together.  And we know, that in that water is not weakness and smallness (that Empire sees), but the strength of God’s forgiveness, the power of God’s love, the life-altering victory of Christ’s resurrection!  Along that water’s edge, dynamic things are being said and read -- there’s an energy in the air and in the water.  There’s renewal and peace in Jesus’ words, not peace that the world gives, not the Pax Romana, no!  The “pax Christi” (the peace of Christ) is what we live under.  And that peace will carry us through; it will carry us over; it will carry us across to the other side; it will carry us on!  Praise be to God!  AMEN.