This Sunday’s Lectionary readings

November 27 is the First Sunday in Advent and the first Sunday in the new liturgical year. That means we are reading from the Gospel of Mark for the next year (except for lengthy digressions into John).

I love Mark. It was probably the earliest Gospel to be written, so in a sense, Mark invents the genre of Gospel. It’s a challenging and puzzling gospel and not just for 21st century readers. We can tell that Matthew, who usually follows Mark quite closely alters some of Mark’s most difficult passages and seems to misunderstand or deliberately reinterpret him at some points.

Mark is challenging for the 21st century reader familiar with the other gospels because we want to fill out his story with details from the others. But we should avoid that temptation. Mark lacks an infancy narrative and concludes with the empty tomb (the earliest and best manuscripts all end at 16:8). Those two facts in themselves challenge our understanding of Jesus, invite us to explore what Mark is getting at. Even more strange is the Jesus who emerges from this gospel. That is something I will have a great deal to say about in the coming year.

Mark is strange, other. To preach the Gospel of Mark faithfully means confronting and being confronted by that otherness. We have to ask what is the good news for God’s people today conveyed by this text from a radically different context, written for a radically different audience. Because of its otherness, Mark resists attempts to domesticate it or make it more accessible.

Before embarking on our year-long reading of Mark, it might be useful to read the whole gospel in its entirety. Here’s a link to chapter 1 (with links to the other chapters).