Continuity in the Midst of Conflict

      Our Gospel readings for the month of February (Mk 1:29-39; Mk 1:40-45; Mk 2:1-12; Mk 2:18-22) are so very thick with several layers of themes important to Mark's Gospel that it is difficult to choose which to highlight.  After Jesus' announcement of the "good news" of the coming kingdom of God (1:14-15), Mark reports how Jesus very briskly moves through the Galilee casting out unclean spirits and demons, healing "all" (1:32) who were sick, and making the ritually unclean, clean again (1:40-45).  Another significant detail is how much of what Jesus is up to, centers around village and Synagogue - Jesus teaches and preaches in the Synagogues for indeed, that is why he came (1:38).
      Our reading for the fifth Sunday of ordinary time (Mk 1:40-45) is particularly intriguing as a leprous man, taking the initiative, "came toward" Jesus (1:40).  In other words, a ritually unclean person (the leper) impulsively approaches a presumably ritually clean man (Jesus).  Leprosy in the Jesus’ Palestine was not the modern Hanson’s Disease.  Indeed, it was imagined by most to simply be a part of creation that happened to leave its victim ritually unclean, and so unable to enter into the precincts of the Temple to offer sacrifice.  It is interesting that an important fifth century manuscript of Mark reports that Jesus was angered by the leper's sudden move toward him likely reflecting the idea that Jesus might have been miffed, or at least startled by such an action.  In any case, the text as we have it relates that Jesus was moved with pity by the man's begging to be made clean.  At this point Jesus does a remarkable thing by actually touching the leper.  This action, while indeed unusual in its time and place, in no way constituted Jesus "turning Judaism and/or Torah over on its head” as many homilists have claimed, suggesting that Jesus’ action violated Jewish purity law.  In order for a violation of purity law to have happened, Jesus would have had to enter the Temple precincts, or (perhaps) a Synagogue, before taking the proscribed steps for becoming clean after having himself, become "unclean" by touching the leper.  He does neither.  In fact, after Jesus makes the man clean, he orders him to remain silent about it, and to "go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded" (1:44: cf. Leviticus 13:47-14:54).  In other words, after cleansing the leper, Jesus tells him to go make sacrifice - to keep Torah!
Our reading for the sixth Sunday (Mk 2:1-12) has Jesus returning to his home in Capernaum, and from there preaching the word (Mk 1:14-15!) to the many that had gathered there.  This is the story about the paralytic who is healed by Jesus because of the faith of his (the paralytic’s) friends (Mk 2:5a).  It is also the first narrative in Mark’s Gospel that illustrates conflict between Jesus and members of the literate elite of Jewish society who could read, study, and teach the Hebrew Scriptures and tradition, namely, some of “the scribes” (2:6).  Upon seeing the faith of the paralytic’s friends, Jesus utters a declarative statement to the paralytic: “My son, your sins are forgiven.”  The scribes then “question in their hearts” how Jesus can do this and who can forgive sins but God alone (?), finally resolving that Jesus has blasphemed (or, dishonored) God.  There is however, no known Judaic law or teaching that suggests that Jesus’ use of the passive voice – “your sins are forgiven” rather than “I forgive your sins” – is in fact, a blasphemy.  Rather, it is likely a circumlocution for God, that is, “My son, God forgives your sins.”  So, according to Mark’s narrative, the scribes incorrectly suppose that Jesus has committed a blasphemy.  In the face of this incorrect analysis Jesus responds with a rhetorical question: “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘your sins are forgiven’ or to say ‘Rise…?”  Surely, simply telling a paralytic his sins are forgiven is easier than telling him to get up and walk.  Next, Jesus apparently identifies himself with the “Son of Man” (cf. Daniel 7:13ff.).  Although the “Son of Man” is idiomatic for “human being” in the Hebrew Scriptures, there is evidence of a Messianic use of the phrase in other Jewish texts (cf. 1 Enoch 46.1; 48.10; 4 Ezra [2nd Esdras] ch 13).  In any case, after identifying himself as this “Son of Man” with the authority to forgive sins, Jesus then does the harder of the two propositions of 2:9 – he says “I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home” (2:11).  The paralytic is healed, and “they were all amazed.”
Our reading for the seventh Sunday (Mk 2:18-22) compares Jesus proclamation (again, 1:14-15), with that of his Israelite contemporaries and may be a reminiscence of the sociological reality during Jesus’ day – and certainly that of the community of Mark’s Gospel – of the disputatious relationships between various articulations of Israelite religion, of which Jesus’ was one.  Jesus and his followers perceive his message of the kingdom as new, and which cannot be compromised by that which is old.  Jesus does not oppose Israelite faith, tradition, and Torah, or seek to separate himself from it – “No one sews a piece of unshrunk (new) cloth on an old garment; if he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.”  Nevertheless, Jesus’ articulation of his Israelite faith, tradition, and Torah are opposed by other interpreters of the same – “And no one puts new wine into old wine skins…(lest) the wine is lost, and so are the skins” (2:22; parentheses added). 
This complex of conflict narratives in this portion of Mark’s Gospel (2:1-3:6) heightens the tension between Jesus and religious authorities that will come to a head later in the text while at the same time firmly situating Jesus plausibly within the bounds of his Israelite religion.  It is particularly challenging for us modern, western readers of these ancient, near-eastern texts to see the continuity between Jesus’ words and actions and his religion in the midst of the intra-Judaic conflict.  What lesson might we learn from this continuity-in-the-midst-of-conflict about our own deliberations regarding the meaning(s) of Sacred Scripture?