Sermons on Mark

Proper 6 Year B – June 16, 2024Mark 4:26-34          This morning we’re hearing the parable of the mustard seed. Eugene Peterson, somewhere, has called parables “narrative time bombs” and that is certainly what today’s parables are.  They are meant to undermine our assumptions of what we think are the “givens” and even the “realities” that we accept without question and offer us a vision of something different.          So, let’s look at our parables today. In the first parable,…

3 Pentecost, Proper 5 – June 9, 2024Mark 3:20-35          It is still early in Jesus’ ministry; but already, he has driven out unclean spirits, healed the sick, eaten with sinners and chosen his disciples when we come to today’s story. He has mesmerized every crowd he’s come into contact with, stirring up such hope, excitement, and yearning in people’s hearts that they just can’t leave him alone.  So they follow him to Nazareth and pour into the house where he’s…

2 Pentecost, Proper 4 – June 2, 2024Mark 2:23-3:6 Jesus and his disciples are walking along on their way to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. They are apparently hungry and so they pick some wheat as they walk through a grainfield and eat it on the way to synagogue. The Pharisees observe this and ask Jesus why he lets his followers break the laws of the sabbath. Jesus tells them a story they already know and likens himself to…

Easter 2024          Happy Easter!   So, this Easter we hear the resurrection story from Mark’s gospel, which I usually avoid, but using John’s version, because the ending to Mark is notoriously odd.  In Mark, the tomb is empty (apart from the messenger), but nobody gets to see Jesus or touch the nail holes in his hands. There is no great commission, no recounting of the Hebrew Scriptures or a meal shared with travelers to Emmaus, and no intimate conversation with…

2 Lent – February 25, 2024Mark 8:31-38          Just before this part of the gospel of Mark that we hear today, Peter stumbles onto the truth about his teacher, about Jesus – “You are the Messiah”, Peter realizes. And now, whatever great aspirations the disciples attribute to the Messiah, Jesus shuts down. He tells them he must undergo great suffering and be rejected and be killed. But he will rise again. Peter wants none of it and takes Jesus aside…

1 Lent Year B – February 18, 2024Mark 1:9-15          This Sunday’s gospel consists of three episodes: Jesus’ baptism, his temptation and his inaugural preaching.  Mark is brief and to the point.          We are now in the church season of Lent, which began this past Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, when I shared about dust. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return”. It’s a statement about God’s faithfulness to us, about God’s love for us, God’s promise…

Last Sunday after the Epiphany: The Transfiguration – Feb 11, 2024Mark 9:2-9 Jesus is transfigured. Moses and Elijah appear and then strangely disappear. Peter is perplexed. James and John are silent. God speaks. The disciples are overcome with awe. Jesus tells them to say nothing about what has happened! Mystery and divine presence are pervasive in our stories for today.  So, what is the message for us?          On Transfiguration Sunday, we come to the end of another church season,…

 5 Epiphany – February 4, 2024Mark 1:29-39               Our gospel selection for today has three parts: a healing story, a description of the multitude brought to Jesus and the many who are healed and exorcised, an account of Jesus going to the wilderness to pray and, when found, expresses his resolve to go to proclaim the message in the towns throughout Galilee.          The scenes alternate between “private” and “public,” an encounter among a few people in a “house,” then…

4 Epiphany Year B – January 28, 2024Mark 1:21-28          So, I think today’s gospel story may be difficult for many of us to relate to. It sounds like an exorcism story and many of us have no direct experience of that. But there is so much we can learn from it.           Mark tells this story about unclean spirits, and he tells it up front; in other words, at the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark.  Keep in…

3 Epiphany Year B – January 21, 2024Mark 1:14-20          Let me repeat:  “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.”          The time is fulfilled. The Greek for time here is kairos….meaning this is significant time; the moment of truth; a decisive moment; God’s time.   Jesus says the time is fulfilled…

2 Advent – December 10, 2023Mark 1:1-8          John the Baptist is best known as the forerunner of Jesus, the one who calls on people to prepare the way of the Lord’s coming. He is the messenger, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. Forerunners are often unseen figures and unsung heroes. And their back stories are unknown. The details of their lives are underimagined or undervalued. They garner minimal attention, because they are forerunners—those who plow the…

1 Advent – December 3, 2023Mark 13:24-27          Happy New Year. Happy Advent. It is the beginning of the new church calendar year and isn’t it interesting that the new church year is roughly one month before the secular new year? There is a lot that rides on the turning from December 31 to January 1 — new resolutions, new starts, new beginnings. I suspect there is less consideration given to this move from the season of Pentecost to Advent.…