The Gospel of Mark—Eternity and Readiness

From “What does it feel like to be hit with a parable?”: Yes, Jesus and God are one. So, in the absolute sense, He is the subject and object at once. Something like this: one is one; one is many; many is many; and many is one. Work with that and see if you can make a case. However, the listeners aren’t able to make that distinction as much as we are. This is simply an unsophisticated awareness for the time. The ancients drop pearls for us to nudge around with our noses, and often we get it. As I start the New Year, this is the third or fourth time I have tried to break open this important topic. There have been some technical difficulties. I repeat, this is a hard piece of Mark to work on. The more I work with this, the more the question of just what the parable or moral teaching is escapes me. It is as the title suggests: I find this parable to be impenetrable. I honestly don’t know what it is about. Yet here is a try at interpretation: This sower parable is about the kingdom of the Spirit. It is about seeking reality. A man sows his wheat and it falls hither and yon, everywhere. The man is an image of God. God throws us and sows us all over, and four things can happen when He does. First, the “message of God” can fall by the side of the road or in the weeds, among the rocks, or on good soil. That is all. Okay? Now what? The message is scattered almost randomly. It falls on us where we stand, sit, or run. As some of us are by the side of the road—at the edge, the periphery—naturally any of us will understand just a bit and be swept away. This correlates to the image of the birds eating us, as the effect or message is lost on us. Or, more forcefully, Satan whisks us away to its definition of light. Some of us do not even have a chance. So it goes, and there is no avoiding it, it seems. It is as if you were a deer running from the wolves. The others fall among the rocks. You hear the message, but you don’t prepare your soil. You cannot drive down roots into your life, and your character never gets developed. You don’t get how hard it is to grow and, well, you die. Those among the thorns are beset by life’s prickles. “It should not be so hard, this process of growth, this rooting goes too slowly, the leaves and stalk are too weak, with not enough nutrients.” You are effectively distracted by life’s smoke and mirrors, and the kingdom of the Spirit. Well, it is just too hard to see. Some, though, push and grow where they are planted. They have good soil and they grow into bushels of wheat. These transform the spirit into flesh, into wheat (food), and offer the sustenance to all. “And there are some ….” Thus, there are options. If you are by the side of the road, move to the road’s center. Now, don’t wait. You will hear the message better out in the open than at the edge. If you are among the rocks, make it your own quickly with the little bit of soil so you can mature. If you are among the thorns, the hardest spot, pay attention to the message, love it, love the spirit, love awareness, and take nothing for granted. And if you are given this setting make of it what you can. Grow on behalf of the others who may not make it. Own it and be bountiful on their behalf. This is the possibility of all whom but look. The secret about the kingdom of God and life has been given to you. From “Three dimensions of new living”: And so, we go from who is a follower of Jesus and determining his or her bearing to deepening our understanding of who we are. This section has the very often quoted line regarding wine skins. New or old? Paper or plastic? Saved or damned? I said in an earlier part of this work that the gospels are not a road map to Atlanta, Jerusalem, or any place, time, space, or realm. The words of any gospel will get you in deep trouble if the literal or initial words on the page are taken to be “true.” I am not an Evangelical, as by now you may have guessed. I am not a typical Roman Catholic with a deductive approach from the church above via the priest, either. I am not an agenda-driven thinker who takes pieces to support my agenda. I am not an updater either, one who merely fast-forwards the words into today and disregards context. I am trying to follow the art-form method which combines or utilizes a four-step deepening process going from the terrestrial, temporal, or superficial to the ontological, the Ground of Being, including the psychological and psychic in-between. You do not get to God by doing. You do not get to God by not doing, either. You get to God by being. Seeking God is like looking for light in the darkness with a candle in your hand. You do not find the kingdom with your nose plunged in the Scriptures, by fasting nor rapture, various intellectual idols, or creeds. All of these only suggest or approximate the Ground of Being, the reality of God. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not suggesting not worshiping at the altar. The third dimension is in the last paragraph, which has the wineskin line that has been quoted so many times to explain just about anything imaginable. Yet I feel this verse is deeply powerful for us today and eternally. It succinctly holds the best guidelines for salvation, for inside the words are the way we are to proceed to “enter” the kingdom. Starting with the rhetorical line, “No one sews a patch of unshrinking cloth onto an old coat,” we have no disagreement. Right? It would be very stupid to carry this out. Meaning? To repair a coat with old cloth would leave you worse off than without repair. We do this a lot. I recall my efforts to overcome my addiction, to forestall the effects and grapple with my life. I attempted to get my stuff together, but no matter how hard I tried it was to no avail. Though I had fallen and could not get up, pride still held me in its grip. At the bottom of the well the water was not killing me, pride was. I kept sewing the old pieces together and “hoping” for warmth from this coat of pride. I was worse than ever. I wish there was a moment when … well, there wasn’t. It came over me in time like a slow-motion movie. Staying present in a time of deep trial; praying “small wise” for guidance; reading and applying what I read in spite of no guarantees; being thankful for what was, whatever it was; looking through to the nether shore while being alive; and turning down the false light of pride. I became thankful for things being as good as they were. Here I suspect I have found my coat for the many cold rivers to cross.