In Your Face

In what way or ways do you see the Church confronting the values of society in the world today?

The Catholic media encourages discussion and debate and helps to raise awareness about topical social issues, and provides a platform for communicating the Church’s social teachings in these regards.

The local bishops’ conference has been more vocal in recent times, issuing statements and directives so that Catholics will know that it’s okay to stand up for what is right rather than remain silent in the face of injustices: xenophobia, the situation in Zimbabwe, human trafficking, the NPA’s decision not to prosecute Jacob Zuma, the denial of a visa to the Dalai Lama, political leaders seeking church endorsement ahead of the elections, and general guidance in the proper principles of democracy.

There are also church organisations that make an effort to demonstrate Christian values, like the Mater Dei homes who aim to give practical and material help to unwed mothers who go ahead with their pregnancy – rather than merely bulking up the number of Catholics who are only willing to spend a Saturday morning demonstrating outside an abortion clinic pronouncing judgement on people who so desperately need to hear a word of hope about God’s plan for them and their children.

While in some instances I think the Church is doing a good job of confronting the norms and values of today’s world, there are also many instances where I think we the Church have our work cut out for us in examining ourselves and removing the logs from our own eyes before we tell people about the specks in their ‘worldly’ eyes.

None So Blind

There are two stories of the cure of a blind person in this portion of Mark's gospel, so the cure of blindness must have been important for Mark. What could the cure of blindness mean in your own life?

For me, the stories about the cure of blindness in Mark combined with the understanding that Jesus had to keep demonstrating his values through the things he did and said, and that the disciples kept misunderstanding and hoping that Jesus would overthrow their oppressors with a valiant show of power, tells me that I need to think about the ways in which I might be spiritually blind, or misunderstanding what Jesus is trying to show me about the values I should learn from him and the way I should live as a result of embracing these values, and that the cure for this blindness can come from Jesus.

I must examine my heart and test my values to see if they match up with Jesus’ values, and then give my application of those values a once-over: having faith in God is good; neglecting to act out of a denialist “faith” that God will take care of a problematic situation or relationship is not so good. Forgiving people’s wrongs is essential if we want to build community, but so is challenging people if they continue to do the same hurtful things over and over again. Grace should encourage growth in all of us, not allow us to settle into destructive patterns.

What expectations do I have about how God ‘ought to’ act, and what effect does that have on how I engage with other people? How do I deal with opposition to my own understanding of the Gospel?

Nothing Sweet Nor Fitting

The problems of violence, militarism and oppressive religious practices are still with us. What examples are you aware of in today’s world? In what ways do you see God still working to overthrow these?

The most disturbing example of current day oppressive religious practice that comes to mind for me, is what I see and read (particularly on the Internet) from the “religious right” in the most conservative branches of the traditionalist Roman Catholic Church in the USA: voices decrying the progress of Vatican II and harking back to former “glory days” in the Church’s history, where the Church’s authority was absolute, the people were expected to blindly obey, and women were very definitely second class citizens. This is also the Church where success was measured by the number of ordained clergy, and consecrated people in religious life: all wearing their full habits and ecclesial regalia, heading up in-your-face street processions to proclaim the Triumph of the Cross and the supremacy of Rome.

It’s a real worry when good people want to “show everyone” that their faith (and their particular brand of devotional practice) is “the right way” and that everybody else is “wrong” regardless of their spirituality or experience of God. In this paradigm, a person’s “spirituality” can be measured by the externals of their practice: how frequently they attend Mass and receive the sacraments, what they wear, who they sit next to, whose ideologies they support in discussions on matters of “the Faith”.

I see God still working to overthrow this by quietly but consistently planting seeds of reasonable sensibility in the minds and hearts of sound Catholic theologians who work tirelessly to bring people to a better understanding of God as our loving, merciful, forgiving Father who looks into people’s hearts rather than judges by externals, and who wants good things for ALL people.

Mark Ye Well

I had never formed a particularly independent impression of Mark’s Gospel before now, I have always thought of it in terms of how it matches up to my impressions of the other Gospels: Mark is more brusque than Matthew’s warmly engaging narrative, not as accurately descriptive as Luke’s science-minded account, nowhere near a match for John’s eloquent Christology. So for me it certainly has been “the overlooked Gospel”.

However, I am beginning to realise that Mark is worth much closer inspection than I have given it to date. New and surprising for me is the understanding that Mark structured his Gospel very carefully, and quite skilfully. The text is far more complex than it appears to be on the surface, and a great deal of information is communicated through Mark’s choice of words, his inclusion of particular content, and the ordering of the content in effective rhetorical style (using chiastic patterns and sandwich layers). Mark’s read-between-the-lines material calls for an active engagement with, and interpretation of, the text. And all of this is attributable to Mark’s intention to elicit a response from the community for whom the Gospel was written: fearful souls who were not quite sure that a humble, suffering Messiah was what they wanted in the face of extreme opposition and cruel oppression.