Signs that Accompany Faith – Br. Keith Nelson

SSJE

Mark 16:15-20

Have you ever had the experience of speaking with another follower of Jesus from a different tradition within the church, with whom you could not agree?

Yes, of course you have. So have I – many times!

This is an incredibly common experience between people who nonetheless all claim Jesus as their teacher and savior, especially in the United States.

I will not attempt to explore here the range of issues over which Christians of equally deep faith and genuine good will disagree. But I will note that many of them find their roots in our respective relationships with Holy Scripture: our understandings of the diverse collection of texts we call the Bible, and the ways diverse Christian traditions have appropriated the sacred work of biblical interpretation.

But I could ask the same question in a different way:

Have you ever had the experience of speaking with someone you love – anyone to whom you are bound in relationship, family, or community – whose perspective you found challenging, even impossible to understand?

It could be an in-law who lives in a very different region of the country; or a grandparent, whose basic values were formed by a different era in history; or a friend since childhood whose professional or personal path reflect very different priorities than yours. And yet: you are committed, you are faithful, to the relationship. You have discovered that when you breathe and remain present to disagreement, pockets of tenderness open – and your heart is stretched in unexpected directions, and for the better.

I think of some books of the Bible – or at least certain passages of certain books – like that in-law, grandparent, childhood friend…or brother.

As monks, our lives are permeated with Scripture – it is truly the air we breathe and the water we swim. Amid this ambient exposure to God’s word, there are two sets of questions that must be faced again and again:

• On the one hand, when must we go out to meet Scripture, leaning into the experience and perspective of its authors whole-cloth rather than piece-meal? How do we suspend our judgments and biases in order to allow ourselves the confrontation or even crisis this may provoke? Krisis in Greek means both a decision and a turning point. Countless saints have been pushed to such life-giving crises by, in the words of our Rule, “fearlessly asking themselves hard questions in the light of the gospel.”
• On the other hand, when does Scripture require what we bring to it as contemporary people, with contemporary perspectives and concerns? How do we listen deeply and faithfully interpret the core message of Scripture in the here and now, to speak a living word of Good News that is trustworthy enough for others to want to follow Jesus today?

How might we take these questions into a prayerful response to this ending to Mark’s gospel?

First, there is a simple fact we sometimes lose sight of: there are four canonical gospels. Not one, but four. The evangelists Matthew and Luke relied upon their own faithful conversation with Mark to produce the gospels that bear their names. They contain both resonant similarities and striking differences. The early Church quickly intuited that this synthetic portrait of Jesus’ words and deeds enriched its capacity to speak to a diversity of disciples.

Second, there are the endings of Mark’s gospel: there are two, the one we just heard being the longer ending. Why? Mark’s original gospel famously comes to an abrupt and arresting conclusion: “The women went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” This ending was probably elaborated upon orally in the gathered assemblies of disciples listening to Mark’s witness: No, the story did not end there, and those who had known and heard the Lord Jesus could give voice to their diverse testimony there and then. Later disciples in the community of Mark felt the need to set that further conversation down in writing – and the details they added were shaped by the resurrection appearances we have come to associate with the gospels of John and Luke. In other words, verses 9-20 of Mark 16 are almost certainly not the work of Mark the evangelist: they are a canonized response to Mark’s witness.

With all these pieces held in play, the facet of this passage that leaps from the Word when I listen to the evangelist today is that strange list of signs that will accompany those who believe that Christ is risen: “by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new languages; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

I notice it says these signs will accompany believers. Faith – the continual act of placing one’s trust in the crucified-and-risen Jesus – is the point. The signs are powerful but secondary marks that God is doing in the disciples the same new thing done in and through the faithful obedience of Jesus.

What would your own list of signs-that-accompany-faith look like?

Speaking in new languages and laying hands on the sick to heal would definitely be on my list. Snakes and poison aren’t things I need everyday protection from. Whatever they are, I think of these signs as the marks of Christian street cred that everyone picks up on. These are the things any creature might respond to in a follower of Jesus who is the real deal, that cut across all other marks of identity. They accompany someone who is…

grounded; open-hearted; calm in the face of the world’s pressures; tapped into joy at its eternal source; shrewd at unmasking the lies and disguises of the enemy; and ready to look foolish in the eyes of the world if it makes more space for the kingdom of God to break into this moment.

These are qualities that the earliest disciples encountered in Jesus as surely as you and I. These are the signs of a gospel worth placing our trust in: yesterday, today, and in the coming reign of God.