Rev. Jean's Bible Study

Week Two:  Confrontation:  Mark 12:1-17 Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard.” Jesus’ hearers would know that the vineyard was Israel and that it belonged to God—a common allegory in the Hebrew scriptures.   Ironically, in the lives of the Galilean peasant, they were the abused tenants and the rulers in Jerusalem the absentee landlords.   In the parable, it is the Jerusalem landlords that are reminded of their tenant status before God and their responsibility to care for the vineyard and give the owner rightful dues.                      When they realized that he had told this parable against him, they wanted to arrest him but they                                    feared the crowd. So they left him and went away. The scribes and chief priests, the rulers in Jerus...

Why do we need Good Friday?  Can’t we just have Easter?  During Lent we will look at the last days of Jesus life on earth, what led to the cross and how we can bear our crosses and get to Easter.  These reflections rely on the work of Marcus Borg and John Crosson, The Last Week as well as Ched Myers Binding the Strong Man.   Week One:  Palm Sunday  Mark 11:1-25 Whenever you pray, forgive so that God might also forgive you. Marching into Jerusalem on a donkey, cursing a fig tree, overturning tables in the temple, moving mountains.  What was Jesus doing? The people who first lived and heard these stories knew their Hebrew scriptures much better than most of us.   Our scholars remind us that others over the centuries had staged marches into Jerusalem both in triumph and in rebellion.   Mark’s first readers lived when the temple was about to be (or just had been) destroyed.   The temple was on THE mountain.   The fig tree wa...

A Study of Mark Week 6 Mark 7   All have fallen short—even Jesus! Did Jesus, the human Jesus, avoid the reality of original sin?   When I hold a newborn grandchild in my arms I don’t for one minute believe that child to be sinful, but I do know that they will grow into a three year old who will push away a younger cousin and grab all the toy cars for themself. The brief story of Jesus’ encounter with a foreign woman (Mark 7:24-30) tells us that maybe he was more human than some people want to believe.   It seems he had to be pushed to get beyond his prejudices. Photo by Danny Lines (unsplash) Jesus had been consistently challenging the social and economic systems of his time.   He challenged not the teachings of the Hebrew scriptures but the systems into which they had evolved.   The laws of the Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy) and the temple cult in Jerusalem had been intended to create a society that connected the Jewish people to God and to each other. ...

  A Study of Mark Week 5 Mark 6:1-29   You win some; you lose some; you keep going The Mission of the Twelve Then he went about among the villages teaching.  7  He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.  8  He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts;  9  but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics.  10  He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.  11  If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”  12  So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.  13  They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. photo by Ashkan Forouzani (unsplash) If we can agree that the gospel challenges many...