Output.v

(That's right - still playing catch up.)

The Gospel of Mark

On Maundy Thursday we held a reading of the whole of Mark's gospel. It was brilliant, the only thing was there were just six of us there, and four of those were reading! For this reason we'll do it again, and soon.

It's really good to get a picture of the whole flow of Mark - the way the stories roll together and reference one another - gradually building a portrait of Jesus, his ministry and the ways he is misunderstood, even by those closest to him (ouch!). For me personally one of the things i'm most appreciative of in doing this is the implied seriousness with which we're invited to take each gospel on it's own standing. It alleviates the pressure that can be there to mash the four gospels together in a bid to force them to make one coherent, linear whole.

I could only see doing this as a good thing and those there all said similar things - and all with slightly different reasons for the value of it. How peculiar then that we don't do this, and things like it, in church more often. I guess it's part the fault of me and folk like me, and part the expectation of church communities as to what a service looks like. An event like this, is it worship? Yes. Is there teaching / learning taking place? Yes. Is it prayerful, or is there space for prayer to take place around it? Yes. Is there space to hear from God? Yes. There seems such a broad palate from which we can devise what a service is and yet it seems we almost insist on using such a narrow part of it. Even when we do something different, it's exactly that: 'different', and when it's over, even if it's been seen as good, there's a huge sense of "can we go back to 'normal' now, please?".

I guess that's just part of the draw of the status quo...