The Last Week - Notes on Chapters 1 & 2

For this Lent the people of Prince of Peace and St. Mark's will be looking at this book for a mid-week study.  These are simply my notes for the week.  I encourage you to get the book and read it yourself.  It is excellent!

We talk about Jesus's passion as his death on the cross but Jesus's first passion was the Kingdom of God which meant a deep desire to see everyone have a fair share of a world ruled and belonging to God.  Justice was his passion.  

Changing Palm Sunday into Passion Sunday has removed the context of Jesus last week and this book looks to restore and remind us of that context.  

Chapter One - Palm Sunday

• Mark 11:1-11
• There were two processions that Sunday.  One was a peasant procession the other an imperial procession.  Jesus's procession proclaimed the Kingdom of God; Pilate's proclaimed the power of the empire.  Jesus's procession was a planned political demonstration… a protest of the empire. 
• Remember that the Caesar was referred to as the Son of God, so this was not just political conflict but a religious one as well.  
• It uses the symbolism of Zechariah to make the connection clear for the people.  The king who rides on a donkey will banish war and break the bows.  
• Jesus procession was the political and theological counter to the procession happening on the other side of town.  Both were commenting on the "Domination System" that existed in Jerusalem.  
• Political oppression - ruled by the powerful and wealthy
• Economic exploitation - the wealth was held by the top 10%
• Religion was used to legitimize the system.  
• Sound familiar?
• In David's time it was better distributed but the disparity had grown worse up to Jesus's time.  
• The prophets had often confronted this system.  Isaiah indicted the rulers of Jerusalem as the "rulers of Sodom" for example.  He said, "You call evil good and good evil" and the house has become "a den of robbers" because of the injustice of the leaders toward the people.  
• Still Jerusalem also held onto a place of hope, that people would one day "sit under their own vines and fig trees" in other words have the ability to make their own living and not live in fear. 
• Domination systems were put in place by various conquerers finishing up with the Romans.  Rome ruled with the help of local collaborators.  At first the high priests and later with a king.  Herod consolidated his power by eliminating competing families and grew his wealthy by taking their lands.  He built palaces, cities and rebuilt the Temple which cost huge amounts of money.  This in addition to the annual Roman tribute.  
• So, the Temple was at the center of the local collaboration with Rome.  Mark uses the term, "Chief Priests, elders and scribes" to refer to these collaborators.  The Temple system helped confiscate peasant lands and kept records of debts.  THIS WAS THE JERUSALEM JESUS ENTERED.
• Other voices opposed Rome and the collaborators.  Essenes, Zealots, John the Baptist. 
• ** In Mark's Gospel, Jesus's message was not about Jesus, it was about the Kingdom of God and The Way to live into that kingdom.  
• Kingdom of God is both a religious and political metaphor.  
• "Repent and believe in the Good News" was a call to return to the ways of Justice that God has in mind.  The Good News is a different system where peace and justice dominate.  "To believe in the Good News" is to commit to this different system.  
• The chapters leading to Palm Sunday show what it means to follow Jesus.  It means following him on The Way, The Way leads to Jerusalem, Jerusalem is were you confront the current system and Jerusalem is the place of death and resurrection.  
• The call to the cross was NOT a call to suffering in Jesus time.  It was either a symbol of imperial power OR a symbol of The Way of death and resurrection.  Dying to an old way and rising to a new way.  
• Jesus highlights the difference between the old and new ways with stories that talk about blindness.
• *** Thus we have the twofold theme that leads to Palm Sunday.  Genuine discipleship, following Jesus means following him to jerusalem, the place of (1) confrontation with the domination system and (2) death and resurrection.  These are the two themes of Holy Week, Lent and the whole of Christian life. 
• Jesus was NOT against Judaism.  Jesus was NOT against priests and sacrifice.  Jesus was against a domination system that had used religion to help legitimize their injustice.  

Chapter 2 - Monday

• Mark 11:12-19
• Jesus's triumphal entry was him making fun of the empire's entry on the other side of the city.  It was a symbolic challenge of that authority.  
• In a similar way, Jesus "cleansing the Temple" was also a symbolic challenge to the collaboration by the Temple authorities with the dominations system.  
• Mark uses "frames" to make his points.  A story will start, a second story will interrupt and then the first story will eventually conclude.  Mark intends these stories to inform one another.  
• Fig Tree cursed is the first story, the Temple incident is the second, the Fig Tree story concludes with it being withered.  
• These stories are meant to inform each other.  
• By telling us this wasn't the season for figs, Mark is telling us this isn't meant to be literal, but figurative.  
• The fig tree lets us know that the Temple is being "cleansed" but symbolically destroyed like the fig tree.  BECAUSE IN BOTH CASES THERE IS A LACK OF FRUIT!
• It is NOT Jesus attacking the sacrificial system.  
• Sacrifice was a given in Jesus day.  It was viewed by people as either a gift to a deity OR a meal made sacred and shared to build a relationship.  NEVER about suffering or substitution.  
• Offerers NEVER thought the animal was taking their place, that they deserved to be killed in punishment for their sins, but that God would accept a substitutionary atonement or vicarious satisfaction.  NEVER!
• Jesus was NOT about confronting Judaism.  MANY people confronted the abusive collaborators within the system who held themselves up as Jews, but the confrontation was with the domination system and the collaboration with Rome, not with Judaism.  
• Similarly, Jesus was NOT against the Temple.  He was against the Temple as it had been co-opted into being the center of Roman domination, but not the idea of the Temple.  
• That was not new.  Jeremiah also used prophetic symbolism to object to abuses in his time.  He was the first to call the Temple a den of robbers.  It was where robbers returned to "hide" after they had abused the poor and pretend to be pious and holy.  
• "Since God is just and the world belongs to God, worship cannot be separated from justice because worship for union with a God of justice empowers the worshiper for a life of justice."
• So, Jesus cleansing the Temple was prophetic symbolism.  He "shut down" the Temple symbolically then taught the lesson that if people don't live lives of justice outside the Temple, what happens inside the Temple is rejected by God.  
• AGAIN, think of this as a planned political protest action.  
• Jesus intended to "retake" Jerusalem and the Temple symbolically in a non-violent way to empower justice and reject the violent domination system.  This was Jesus objecting to the domination system AND the religious collaboration  with that system.