Caddywhompus...

It is no secret that, in reading the Christian Book of Concord, I felt as if my whole world turned upside down.  At times, the enormity of the lack of true doctrine in all the years I attended church is too much to absorb, too much to bear.  Even now.  The differences in the meaning of the words of faith are oft as vast as the grand canyon, salvation being chief amongst them.

Add to that problem is the inability to read the New Testament in any way that is not Jesus as the new (and improved) Moses, come to provide a better prescription for living the Christian life.  All the readings from the New Testament, even the Gospels, just had to have life application for the Christian.  What should I take away from this passage?  How can I apply it to my life?

I know, now, that is not how to read the New Testament, especially the Gospels, but I don't know how to read them any other way.  I have tried and tried and tried to say that.  Tried and tried to say that there is so much that I do not know, do not understand.  Words are not the same.  And all of that has become a terrifying chaotic and dark maelstrom in my mind.

What is faith?  Believing and trusting.  What is belief?  I mean, it is not merely knowledge of the historical Jesus, so what does it mean to believe?  To trust?  Well, what is that?  And what do you do if you do not know how to trust?  If trusting is something that was robbed from you as a little child, a skill set impossible to learn?  Well then hope.  What is hope?  To dare to believe?  What is belief?

Michael Card's commentary on Mark is simply not fitting into the mold of Jesus, the new (and improved) Moses.  At all.  Eight chapters of Mark read, and it is still all about Jesus, Jesus' ministry, and what He came to do for us ... not just heal and cast out demons and such ... not those good  things ... but the best of giving Himself for us.  Christ crucified.

Frankly, I am stunned, ever so off kilter.  I don't know what to think. I don't trust my own discernment.  I want so much of what I am reading to be true.  I am caddywhompus ... "crooked, uneven, broken, ass-backwards and sideways."

Take Mark chapter 4.  The way Michael Card presents it ... or the way I read his presentation ... is that Jesus is teaching and training his disciples.  Yes, I am seriously typing that Mark 4 is in no way a charge for Christians to take a personal inventory of their soil and make whatever adjustments they need to ensure they are receptive to the seed being planted in their lives.   The chapter is about the disciples and Jesus preparing them for the ministry they were about to face.

In this chapter, Jesus quotes Isaiah (a rare occurrence of something that takes place in all four gospels), a remembrance that Isaiah's ministry to Israel was a ministry to a stiff-necked people.  All those types of soil?  Well, there are always going to be some who listen, some who get excited only to fall away, and some who refuse to listen.  Just as Isaiah faced when he taught the Word of God—just as the disciples could see that Jesus was facing—some will listen, some will cheer, some will mock and jeer, some will walk away.  Such it is with dealing with the ministry in a fallen world.  However.  However, the good news is that no matter the soil, no matter the one conducting the ministry, the Word of God is powerful and performative and will effect its work.

Jesus does not tell demanding parables so that people will be cut off from forgiveness.  If he is perfect, his words are perfect, the perfect means to communicate the truth of the Gospel.  Jesus wants the ones he will send out to understand that as they speak the Word, like Isaiah they will encounter those who refuse to listen.  It is an object of prophecy.  And it fits perfectly into the flow of ministry.

Wow!  Just ... wow!  You mean, I don't have to figure out what kind of soil I have in my heart at the moment??????

There was no public explanation for the parable of the seed.  Later, Jesus taught his disciples about the parable in private.  It is then that He also talks about the lamp, whether it is meant to be put under something or placed on a lamp stand.  So, as I mentioned the other day, the staggering part about this is I am not supposed to start shining my lamp around, my witness of what God is doing in my life, because that is not what the light is.  The light is the Word of God.  It is meant to shine.  It will shine.

Lights are meant to illuminate, to be set up on stands.  Then they reveal what is otherwise hidden in the darkness.  The purpose of the parables is the same  They are perfect vehicles for illumination.  By their very nature, they will shine.  But there will always be those who shove them under beds or cover them up with bowls.

"Pay attention to what you hear," Jesus says in Mark 4:24, repeating his theme.  It is alway about listening and seeing, understanding and perceiving.  The parables speak, they shine; the Word has power of its own and grows.  Our response, the measure of attention we use, means everything.  If we genuinely give ear, more will be measured out to us. If we stubbornly refuse to engage, even what we have will be taken away.  That is not a statement on the character of Jesus, who longs for everyone to come to salvation.  It is a statement about the nature of truth and the consequences of refusing to listen.

Then more seed parables.

Jesus speaks of the seed having power of its own.  After it has been sown in the ground, it will grow no matter what you do.  He wants his disciples to have confidence in the self-contained power of the seed.  As it is the nature of light to shine, even so it is the nature of the seed to grow and 
produce a crop.  The disciples must learn to trust the power of the message they are spreading.  Otherwise they might be tempted to explain away the parable and rob it of its power.  Though they will meet with difficulties on the road, stubborn disbelief and refusal to listen, they should have faith that some of the seed is falling on fertile ground. The Word has power all its own and will yield results in time.

With the third parable, the mustard seed, Michael Card points out the Word's growth is not limited to the  proportion of is size.  I thought it interesting here that there was a nod to parents in the commentary, encouraging them that they never know how God will use the seeds of the Word they sowed in the lives of their children.

Basically, as I said, the chapter is about preparing the disciples for their ministry and teaching them that the Word of God will be the doer of the ministry, not the disciples.

It ends with the most intriguing note, one that Michael Card has observed before.  When the disciples are confronted with the authority and power of Jesus, they are amazed and afraid.  Jesus calms the storm.  They are amazed and afraid.

Whenever Jesus reveals himself in new ways, the result in the disciples is fear.

In this, I wonder.  I wonder if really that is what fear of the Lord or awe of God really is.  The moment when you get the merest glimpse of God's might, the scope of His authority.

Another of the "Mark-only" notes is that only Mark speaks of persecution because of the Word of God (4:17).  Michael Card observes that, again, given the Mark's audience were believers who were facing persecution under Nero, this is a timely and germane instruction.

Michael Card did in Mark 5 the same as in Mark 2.  By that I mean he wove together the three stories in such a way that makes sense to me.  He beings:  Each individual described in Mark 5 is being held captive:  one by demons, one by disease, and one by death.  In each situation, we see the absolute authority we've seen in Mark.  At the end of the chapter he summarizes:  Three people fall at his feet. A frantic, demon-possessed man, a dying woman and fearful father.  All find exactly what they need at Jesus' feet.  

I had never seen or heard that connection.  And that, really, is one of the points of Michael Card's commentary on Mark.  It's all connected and it's all connected to Jesus.

For those who saw Jesus' authority over the demons possessing the man, they, too were afraid at what he accomplished and begged him to leave.  For those who knew that Jairus' had died in the interim between his setting out for help and arriving back home with Jesus, they also told Jesus to leave, but because they thought his authority was only over life, not death.  In each instance, Jesus' authority and the power of His word was not limited by human understanding or perception.

Of the three stories, the one that provided the greatest caddywhompus was that of the woman who sought healing from Jesus by touching the hem of his garment.  A little kernel of a story within the larger story of Jairus and his daughter.

This story I remembered.  This one I knew.  In fact, I will admit, that in the past year or so, before I became so lost, I often wondered if I was the tiniest bit like her. I mean, she believed that merely touching Jesus' garment would heal her, heal her when nothing else worked.  I believe ... still ... if I could hear the Word, a word for the wounds in my body, mind, and spirit, I will be healed ... even as my body and mind, at least, continue to fail.

Read the Living Word to me, especially the Psalter, and it physically calms me, soothes my body, mind, spirit ... even when I am an unwilling or a reluctant listener.  The power and efficacy of the performative Word has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with me ... with my strength or my mind or my heart.

But I did not understand the whole of the reason why the woman was so afraid to come forward, to admit that it was she who touched Jesus' garment.  Michael Card pointed out that this was the second case where the direction of cleanness was reversed.  This woman was unclean.  I don't think I have ever thought of that or heard that before.  I had not taken in that she had been unclean, and therefore cut off from her community and her synagogue for twelve years.  Under the Law, the fact that she reached out and touched Jesus made him unclean.

[I wonder if she dared because she heard about the leper.]

In any case, what courage it must have taken to admit that it was she.  To admit that she, the unclean one, had touched Jesus.

Knowing she cannot get away, the woman comes to Jesus and falls at his feet.  She is pale, trembling and afraid she will receive punishment for rendering him unclean.  She begins to blurt out the sad details of her story only to hear Jesus' gentle response: "Daughter" (Mk 5:34).  It is an affectionate family term, and this is the only time we here Jesus use it.  He deflects attention away from himself, say that it her own faith that has healed her.  But of course we know it was her faith in him.

Micheal Card emphasizes that the reason Jesus asked who touched him was not because he was angry, but because He came to give Himself to this world.  She did not merely receive physical healing, but spiritual healing as well.  She was restored to her community and to her synagogue.

As for death, I found this interesting:

When Jesus refers to death as sleep, no one ever understand (see Jn 11:11).  it is not a euphemism, it is a redefinition.  In him death has become merely a sleep from which we will someday be awakened by the sound of his voice.

I think reading this commentary is radically changing the way I viewed not only the book of Mark (at least the first half that I have read), but also Jesus.  By this I mean, Michael Card, as any good teacher would do, lays out his themes and then reminds the readers of them again and again:

• Jesus came to give Himself to us (Jesus the Messiah; Jesus the Son of Man)
• The perfection of Jesus
• Jesus' ministry (and characteristics thereof, such as using rabbinic form in responding to critics)
• The Word of God is powerful and efficacious  
• The authority Jesus assumes and uses
• Jesus teaching and training His disciples
• Understanding Jesus' world
• The importance of hearing/listening
• The importance of the wilderness
• The needs of a broken world

The emphasis on ministry is not an emphasis on healing and helping folk, but on spreading the good news that would bring them salvation from eternal death.  I have heard so much about Jesus the Teacher, but Mark emphasizes Jesus the Trainer.

To put it another way, Jesus' ministry did not begin with him, but with John the Baptist.  And He knew it would not end with Him.  It's funny.  All the "equipping the saints" bible studies I heard on discipling had to do with the epistles, not the gospels.  Yet, really, one can get such a solid understanding of ministry by looking at how Jesus prepared men to continue His ministry.

Beginning with Mark 3:13-15, Jesus has been actively, even aggressively discipling his disciples.  He has taken them on a series of hands-on ministry experiences.  They have seen Jesus in conflict with his own family and with religious leaders.  They have seen Jesus heal.  They have heard Jesus preach the Word.  They have witnessed his power over demons.  Now the time has come for the Twelve to be sent out on their own missions.

In Mark 6, the caddywhompus was born in the feeding of the 5,000, as opposed to the feeding of the 4,000 later.  Michael Card notes the importance of the size of the baskets in each feeding, the Greek word for the first instance (5,000) meaning small baskets and the latter (4,000) meaning large baskets, as in lower-a-man-over-a-wall size basket.  It is the size of the basket that points to the miracle behind the miracle, a greater one we miss.

The disciples have returned from their mission and are eager to report to Jesus about their (really His) teaching of the Word and about their (really His) miracles, but there are the crowds that follow (or gather) everywhere.  Crowds of people upon whom Jesus has compassion and so speaks/teaches the Word of God.  Crowds of people with needs.  Crowds of people who do not always fit in to the agendas of the disciples.  After the teaching of the crowds is out of the way, the disciples tell Jesus to send them away to eat.  Instead, He instructs the disciples to give them something to eat.  They then ask him about buying food, given where they were.

Their statement echoes Moses' frustration when he cried out in the wilderness, "Where can I get meat to give all these people?" (Num 11:13).  For Jesus, the wilderness is where extraordinary things occur.  Though he earlier refused to make bread appear to feed himself in the wilderness (Mt 4:3-4), as an expression of the compassion he feels for his flock, the Shepherd exercises his authority and feeds them—in the wilderness. (emphasis mine)

A little later in telling the story of the feeding, Michael Card notes:

Jesus always calls upon his disciples to do the impossible:  to forgive without limit, to love their enemies.  His impossible commands force us to learn to depend totally on him.  His call is always precisely to the level of our inadequacy.

Selah.

Good stuff there.  But back to the feeding.  Only, well, the feeding itself is not the important miracle.  Huh???

For one, no one really notices that a miracle has occurred.  Huh???  Not the people at least.  They are just going about the business of having a meal.  However, when all is said and done, Jesus has the disciples scour the green grass (another Mark-only detail, reminiscent of the 23rd Psalm) for the left overs.  There is enough to fill twelve of those small baskets.  Twelve individual meal-sized baskets.  Twelve disciples.  Wow, I never noticed that!

It is a remarkable, though apparently unrecognized miracle. But there is often a miracle behind the miracle. That is what verse 43 is all about.  In John 6:12, Jesus gives a very rabbinic command to pick up the pieces "so that nothing is wasted."  In Judiasm, food is sacred; it is the gift of God.  Similarly, eating is sacred because it preserves life.  It is an insult to God to waste the crumbs of food.  So Jesus instructs the Twelve to canvass the vast area, probably several acres, and look among the blades of grass for the leftovers.  From the enormous field the Twelve recover only twelve small baskets of pieces.  This is a miracle not of abundance, but of perfect provision. (emphasis mine)

Okay.  Honesty time.  I read this and thought: Man, I no longer need to feel guilty because I still, at 47, lick the syrup off my plate and have been doing the same with every single crumb from those lemon bars.  But I also thought about how much I have enjoyed and been buoyed by Mary's encouragement to me to enjoy food.  In my opinion, there is entirely too much law-making and guilt-laying over food these days.  The joy of eating and the wonder of a tastiness on the tongue seems lost.  I liked the idea of eating being sacred because it preserves life.  And then I thought of how, in the Old Testament, there is a verse (Deuteronomy 8:10) about giving thanks after one eats and is satisfied.  I wish, when I eat with others, we did that.  That I could give thanks with others, celebrate the tastiness provided.

Anyway, Michael Card continues with his thought about the miracle behind the miracle:

The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is perfect provision.  The leftovers are meager, but they perfectly provide twelve lunch-sized baskets for the twelve disciples.  It is a fulfillment of Jesus' own prayer to "give us our daily bread" (Mt 6:11).  It is an unmiraculous miracle, the same sort of miracle we often fail to recognize today when we receive our "daily bread."  We celebrate abundant provision, but rarely are we equally amazed at the God who so intimately knows our needs that he provides perfectly—no more, no less than we need.  When we take into account this intimacy, the miracle of perfect provision might well be the greater of the two.

Again ... Selah.

Michael Card later finishes:

Mark concludes the story [of Jesus walking on the water] with the key—the key to understanding just why the disciples do not recognize Jesus as the one walking on the water.  Why?  Because "they had not understood about the loaves" (Mk 6:52).  But why hadn't they understood?  Was the feeding so unmiraculous that they failed to recognize that providing bread (manna) in the wilderness was a characteristic of God?  Just as walking on the water was something only God can do (Job 9:8)?

Mark's answer:  their "hearts were hardened" (Mk 6:52). That is why they miss the miracles.  That is why they fail to recognize the one who walks on the water.  It is a characteristic they share with the Pharisees:  stubborn disbelief.  Even though they've received private instruction.  Even though they've been out on their first successful mission. How could they have been so blind?  How can we be so blind?

Why am I so blind?

You know, the feast in the wilderness was told in the same chapter as the feast in the king's court.  How odd.  And yet not.  This is our fallen world.  The sins of greed and gluttony alongside the compassion and mercy of Christ.  If you think about it—especially given the historical background given of Herod's twisted family—that opulent banquet room was as much a wilderness as a vast field.

I am just blown away by the idea of the miracle behind the miracle, the perfect provision of Christ, the literal daily bread.  I do not believe I have ever heard that pointed out ... or the hardened hearts of the disciples.  The story always seems to be about the greatness of a miracle as if the miracle itself is the point, when it is not actually noted in the text itself as being a miracle anyone in that crowd of 5,000 recognized.  There was no fear at Christ's authority to create a meal for so many.  There were no exclamations at His work.  There was no charge to keep quiet about what took place.  There was not racing off to proclaim the wonder of the meal.

Twelve baskets.
Daily bread.
Perfect provision.

I wonder, in the darkness of John's prison cell, in the moments just before the axe fell, what John's perfect provision was.  If ever there was a tale of the suffering saint to tell, John's was it.  But there is no tale.  No tale of singing praises to God as he was led to his death.  No tale of forgiving the one who was about to murder him.  No tale of giving thanks for the joy of the fellowship of suffering.  However, I am certain that, despite the lack of tales, John the Baptist was given his perfect provision for that moment.

Is that belief or knowledge based on empirical evidence?  SIGH

I admit that I have peeked ahead.  There is an interactive index and I peeked.  I peeked because, aside from the most glorious first five verses of the book of John, the book of Mark has almost all of the comforting-to-Myrtle verses across all of the Gospels.  I did not consciously think of that when I chose it.  But having thought of some of those verses, I wanted to see what Michael Card would say about them.  Would they remain comforting???

In peeking, in skimming about, I repeatedly see Michael Card stressing how Jesus was turning the world upside down for everyone, from the religious leaders to the disciples, from the rich to the poor. Jesus' ministry was caddywhompus.

[Waiting for lightning to strike.]

So, shouldn't that be a comfort to me given how disconcerting I find reading this commentary?  Uhm, no.  It is not.  Not at all.  I am afraid to read and I find it hard to stop reading.  I hunger so much and I doubt even the comfort I have found in the absolute dearth of commentary in which the gospel is about Christian living.

My pastor came by today.  I cannot speak of my confusion and lostness much anymore.  Mostly, because in trying to speak I end up defending what I know inside to be true.  Mary so totally doesn't agree with me about being Saul, but at least she believes that I am terrified about salvation.

In the time leading up to his visit, I fainted several times, threw up, and lay across the vent on the kitchen floor.  Was it God's perfect provision that Amos chose the GREEN Froggy Long Legs as his offering of a baby for comfort?  I couldn't help but burst with laughter, even as I lay trembling and weak at the thought of the clock striking 3:00 PM, watching Amos drag his beloved over toward me, legs hanging past his own, tripping him up a bit, determined to bring a baby to me.  What an utterly ridiculous puppy dog I have.

As afraid as I have been to go to church ever since I sat before the altar and found no response within me, because I did not want to be struck by lightning for lying to God with my presence there, I have been equally afraid that having my pastor come would bring on the smite.

[Yes, I do remember that Becky pointed out that God did not smite by lightning. However, if you look up the ways God did smite folk (consumption, fever, fiery heat, sword, blight, mildew, tumors, scabs, itch, madness, blindness, and bewilderment of heart), then lightning becomes the easier thought.]

My pastor said that he wasn't going to wait on me to ask for help any longer, but was just going to keep coming for a visit each month.  He said he would come to read psalms, teach something from the New Testament, sing a hymn, and pray for me.  He also said that he'd like to read to me from Gerhard's consolations book and that the way to look at that was that I would be doing him a favor by giving him an opportunity to read it since he has so much else to read and do.

When I was eleven, and heard the Word of God and believed, was that the reception of faith or a desperate, terrified girl longing for something better than the life she lived?  When I first read the Book of Concord four years ago, was my wholesale acceptance of the pure doctrine the reception of faith or a desperate, terrified woman longing for something better than the life she lived?  I was in the darkest place of my life, the walls I had built to survive the past crumbling despite my best efforts to keep them erect.

I don't know.
I don't want to live any more lies.
I don't want to pretend that things are different than they actually are.
And I don't really know what it means to believe.

Fainting, vomiting, trembling at the thought of my pastor coming.  That's me.  I didn't want/don't want him to get burned in the crossfire.  After listening to my terrified talk of chaos and confusion, he repeated his plan and asked if there are any psalms I wanted to hear.  Seriously, there are simply no bad psalms.  However, before I could open my mouth, he mentioned Psalm 77, of course.  I added  Psalm 27.  He chose Psalm 138.  My tears dried up.  My fear abated.  I wonder..............

The hymn he sang was perfect for me, except for the last verse.  But before the fear of it could ensnare me, my pastor pointed out that that last verse was a bit too much for me and we were just going to wipe it from the moment.  Gone.

When my pastor went to pray for me, as I started to interrupt him, he said that he understand that I have stopped praying for myself or others ... trying really hard to wish for God's ... perfect provision, I guess ... instead of dare pray and that that was why he was there so that I could have prayer for me.

It did not help that when he went to actually pray for me, something again I questioned the wisdom of, thunder rattled the house and the skies opened up.  Literally, a storm was breaking over our heads.  Was he as worried as I at that moment?

My pastor read to me from Matthew, not Mark.  A story I did not remember.  He made it a Word for Myrtle and I kept thinking about Michael Card's adjective for the Word of God:  luminous.  And that the purpose of the light is to "reveal what is otherwise hidden in the darkness."

Could you ... could you also say that that the purpose of light is to reveal what is otherwise hidden by the darkness?  That sort of makes saying Jesus as the Light of the World ... greater ... broader ... deeper ... mightier.

Yes, when the Word was upon my ears, I had more peace than I have had in months.  It wasn't there because I chose it, but because an undershepherd of Jesus Christ decided that it should be there.  No guilt. No worry.  No fear.  No ducking.

Being caddywhompus or being nauseous.  Which is worse? you ask.  I simply do not know.  Both are wretched.

Why?
Why do I keep reading this commentary???