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СКАЧАТЬ as the victor in any verbal contest, and alters – almost removing entirely – the abusive treatment of Jesus found in Mark’s passion narrative. Instead of naked and shamed, the evangelist has Jesus die elegantly clothed.7

      In the concluding section, I suggest the reasons for the alterations that Luke makes to Mark. The study will invite us – contemporary disciples concerned about the present situation that confronts our churches – to a spirit of openness, reflecting critically on the endemic that has plagued Jesus’ followers from earliest years, and to act, in so far as we are able, on behalf of those who are abused as we continue to explore ways of ministerial accountability and transparency.

      Mark’s Gospel

Mark’s Gospel offers a portrait of Jesus that would speak into a Jesus household chronologically distant and culturally different from the world of the Galilean Jesus.8 Mark portrays Jesus as misunderstood and, as the story unfolds, someone who is gradually abandoned even by those closest to him. The ultimate moment of the sense of Jesus’ abandonment comes in his death scream of dereliction, ‘My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?’ (Mark 15.34). This is a highpoint in Mark’s Christological portrait, especially in what frames it – the lead-up to the death moment (Mark 15.21–33) and the centurion’s declaration that comes immediately after Jesus’ death (Mark 15.39), a point to which we shall return shortly.

      Mark’s Gospel begins in the wilderness with John the Baptist’s teaching; from the wilderness Jesus appears calling his listeners to ‘repent’. Jesus’ first words in Mark are: ‘The time is fulfilled and the reign of God has drawn near. Repent and believe in the Good News’ (Mark 1.15).

The injunction, ‘repent’ (metanoeō), is more than a declaration to the disciples and all gospel listeners of a conviction of God’s presence and moral living. It is a call to a fundamental openness of heart to what is about to unfold in Jesus’ ministry. Metanoia is an invitation to perceive what is happening from a different point of view. As Mark shapes the narrative with a view to the final chapters, we remember the often-quoted words of Martin Kähler, who declared that the Gospels are ‘passion narratives with a lengthy introduction’.9 Mark’s ‘lengthy introduction’ reveals Jesus alone and misunderstood as antagonism begins in Mark 3 and heightens as the narrative moves forward, reaching its crescendo in the Gospel’s final chapters. All the time, the injunction metanoeō remains.

      The Gospel auditor must listen beneath the surface of what happens to Jesus, at a second, deeper level that places the story against the backdrop of Mark’s cultural and historical situation. The evangelist writes not with a desire to freeze the memory of the Galilean Jesus in time and place, but, instead, with the intention of expanding the faith insights for a later Greco-Roman Jesus movement that the Gospel addresses, shaping its Christology to address the realia of Mark’s audience.

      And what is that realia?

      Mark’s Christological portrait offers a window into the situation of the Gospel’s audience. The way the evangelist portrays Jesus speaks into the situations that Mark’s householders face. One of these is sexual abuse. This emerges in the passion narrative, but it is subtly anticipated in the Gospel’s preceding chapters. There are, among many others, two indicators that flag or prepare the Gospel audience for the abusive treatment that Jesus will receive: the way the ‘little ones’ are treated by Jesus’ disciples, and the verbal interchange between Jesus and his antagonists. This intensifies as the story nears the Gospel’s denouement.

      The ‘children’ in Mark’s Gospel

In the beginning of the second half of the Gospel, as Jesus begins to journey towards Jerusalem with his reluctant disciples, he sets a child (paidion) into the midst of his posturing entourage (Mark 9.36). He encourages a change of attitude, a metanoia, to receive the child, the quintessential symbol of social nothingness, into their midst.10 Their reception of the child becomes the touchstone of their openness to God (Mark 9.37). Not many verses later (Mark 9.42), Jesus reiterates his teaching about the protection of these ‘little ones’. It is evident, though, that the disciples have yet to absorb this message and have a different attitude to these ‘little ones’.

As some bring children (paidion) for Jesus to touch (Mark 10.13–16), the disciples ‘rebuke them’ (Mark 10.13b). Mark’s language here is revealing. The ‘rebuke’ (epitemaō) is the language of exorcism.11 The disciples see the presence of something or someone evil in a request that needs to be exorcised. They ‘rebuke them’. To whom is the disciples’ rebuke directed? Is it directed to those who bring the children to Jesus, or is it the children themselves? It seems the latter. Mark notes how Jesus reacts with indignation at the disciples’ belligerent response to the request (Mark 10.14). He instructs them to let the children come to him, ‘for to such belongs the kingdom of God’. The scene ends with Jesus wrapping the children in his arms and laying his hands upon them (Mark 10.16). The disciples need to undergo a radical metanoia if they are to receive and enter God’s kingdom (Mark 10.15).

The arrogance of the disciples or, to use an anachronistic expression, their ‘clericalism’, permits them to see the children or their carers as demonic and therefore deserving of rejection. The disciples see themselves as ‘entitled’ to treat them abusively. If this is how Jesus’ own disciples treat the ‘little ones’, what awaits the one who welcomes them with open arms? Mark prepares the auditor for this through the verbal exchange that takes place between Jesus and his adversaries. As the Gospel unfolds, the interchange directed at Jesus becomes more abusive until, finally, in the last chapters of the Gospel it reaches its expression that is more physical and sexual.12

      The verbal interchange between Jesus and his opponents

From a cultural perspective, as the verbal disagreements and attacks on Jesus unfold, some interpret this as the classic verbal sparring of challenge and riposte.13 The overall intent, according to this interpretation, is an agonistic engagement intending to gain greater honour. The Gospel’s narrative audience to this engagement ‘gossip’ about Jesus, in a positive way, and speak well of him.14 There is a cyclical pattern in the interchange with Jesus’ antagonists: his honour is challenged; his critics are finally defeated; Jesus not only regains his honour but grows (through ‘gossip’) in the estimation of the audience who witness the contest; his antagonists are humiliated; their desire to kill Jesus only ferments more deeply.15 This pattern repeats in the chapters leading up to Mark’s passion narrative.

If we were to see a verbal contestation only in terms of a use of wit and who can outsmart the other, then we would miss an important element that anticipates Mark’s passion. In the ancient world, words were intended to be affective. Words influenced deeds and people’s actions.16 Speeches by the great orators were designed to win over the crowd and move it into some action or political response.17 Words were essential to garner support. Words of praise brought honour and glory to their addressee. Words of rejection and criticism were intended to dishonour, humiliate and spread negative gossip about the human target of the invective. Barbed words were intended to hurt, to impale their victims. Words had an impact that was both noetic and physical.

      Mark’s passion narrative

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