A Tough Text

 Third Thursday after Pentecost

St. Columba of Iona--Color: White

Lectionary Texts:

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

Mark 4:30-34

I wrote a good bit about St. Columba in my travelogues on Iona. We celebrate him with a Saint's Day.

Glenn noted the difficulty of a lectionary text from earlier this week, Mark 4:10-12. Here's the text:

"When [Jesus] was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, 'to you has been given the secret of the Kingdom of God, but to those outside, everything comes in parables, in order that 'they may look but not perceive, and may listen but not understand, so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.'"

First, let me note that the word translated "turn again" could be translated "repent." Glenn asks," Can you comment on Mark 4:11-12 which is part of the Lectionary Texts for Monday? I do not understand why Jesus would not have the people to understand and turn to be forgiven."

 

To be sure this is a very tough text to interpret. Matthew (13:14-15) and Luke (8:10) both of whom use Mark as a source, both leave out the last part of verse 12, "so that they may not turn again and be forgiven."  Most likely, neither one of them thought that Jesus actually said this. That is certainly a possibility. 

I have consulted three major commentaries I have on hand, Alan Culpepper in The New Interpreter's Bible, Joel Markus in The Anchor Bible Commentary Series, and Adela Yarbro Collins in the Hermeneia series. They are all helpful but don't completely solve the problem for me. 

All note that v. 12 is a loose quotation from Isaiah 6:9-10. Matthew provides the entire quotation and cites it as from Isaiah. The last part of the Isaiah quotation is "so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn--and I would heal them." Mark's turning the Isaiah text into "so that they may not turn again and be forgiven" is quite a change. 

Assuming that Jesus said this or something very similar to it, did Jesus intentionally change the end of the quotation from Isaiah or did Mark intentionally or mistakenly change it? We'll hold that question for the moment. 

If Mark's quotation stands, it implies a strict doctrine of predestination. The folks outside Jesus' close circle are damned no matter what they do. Since neither I am nor John Wesley was a predestination believer, I'm not going with that interpretation. 

Before going further, we should look at the larger context of this passage. It's the filling of a Markan sandwich. That is, it is sandwiched in between two halves of another story. That story is the Parable of the Sower right before and the interpretation of the Parable of the Sower right after. The Sower is not precisely identified in either the parable or the interpretation. It could be God. It could be Jesus. It could be pastors or laypeople who witness to the gospel. The sower throws out the seed (the Word) rather randomly. Depending on where the seed lands, it may or may not take root and produce grain. I don't think the predestinarian model works very well here, because of the random way this sower sows.

 

But what does work? If anything. Or should we take this text at face value and say that Jesus really doesn't want everyone to be forgiven and thereby saved. Again, a predestinarian would have no trouble thinking this. Or, are Matthew and Luke right in thinking that Mark is mistaken in his quotation here. Mark is certainly mistaken, if Jesus is quoting Isaiah 6:9-10. Or is there another way out of this dilemma. Any ideas? I'll do my best to resolve it tomorrow.

 

Jesus of the Scriptures,

Help us to discern not only what you said but what you meant, and what it might mean for us today, Amen.

 

Faithfully

Christian