I. Crosstalk: Mark 2:13-17

First, a word of explanation about the genesis of these short reflections. They derive directly, sometimes by way of direct citation, from bible studies conducted earlier this year by an ecumenical group comprised of members of the Anglican cathedral in Glasgow and the neighbouring Church of Scotland congregation. The method used, contextual bible study, proceeds by a simple series of open questions put to the group, which are designed firstly, to lead to a close, communal reading of the text; and secondly to bring out the connections and resonances between the text and its context, literary, historical, readerly. The hope is that the close reading of the text will enable the group to engage in conversation with one another, engaging with the text and finding in its story-line, its characters and their interaction, its metaphors and theologoumena, the basis of a new language in which to talk their faith. [I'll say a little more about this method and the way such modes of bible study have been used in Scotland each time we meet but for the moment let's move to the text]

2:13 Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. 2:14 As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and followed him. 2:15 And as he sat at dinner in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples--for there were many who followed him. 2:16 When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" 2:17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

What is immediately striking about this story is its restless movement – from the idyllic setting on the lake to the tax-collection point, to the meal in the house with the tax-collectors and sinners – and the very public, open nature of the many exchanges which occur in the short space of 4 verses. This is not Jesus sitting down to instruct the crowds at length on some hilltop but Jesus mixing and meeting, engaging in the cut and thrust of conversation and debate. It's unplanned, spontaneous, quick-witted and animated. There's a sense of excitement, of something happening: people being caught up in some movement whose meaning they do not fully understand. But clearly huge expectations attach to Jesus: people are flocking to him, eager to hear him, ready to follow.

These four verses contain many characters: Jesus, Levi, the son of Alphaeus, the disciples, the crowds, the tax-collectors and sinners, the scribes of the Pharisees. Jesus' interaction with people is complex, multidimensional, and we are invited to enter imaginatively into this complexity. It's not just a story about Jesus' Streitgespräch with the scribes of the Pharisees, however much that forms the climax of our account. What about the tax-collectors? How would they have reacted to the fact that one of their number had just abandoned his trade and gone off after this wandering mendicant preacher, half-messiah, half peasant activist? Well, they were sitting down and drinking with him, but one can imagine the subtle shifts of emotions and reactions, delight that they were being patronized by the local hero, but also uncertainty, a sense of not know where all this was leading. They would have been keeping a wary eye on Levi. They may have seen Jesus as a destabilising influence, stirring up the people and unsettling Levi. How far were they willing to follow the crowd in their enthusiasm for Jesus? How comfortable was Levi with his decision? And how pleased would he and the others have been with the sting in the tail of Jesus' reply to the Pharisees?

So: what do these meals tell us about Jesus' understanding of God and of God's purposes for the world? They were breaking the conventions, not restricting the meal to one's own (family, the Jews): they say: ‘there is room for everyone in God's house'. At the same time, they give a practical image of God, signified by the contrast between teaching those sitting at your feet to engaging with people over a meal. As so often in Mark, we are told that Jesus teaches, but not what he says: we do get an account of Jesus's encounters with the crowds, the tax-collectors, the Pharisees. God through Jesus is involved in the physical world, is involved in people's communities, engaging with and cutting across contemporary concerns, meeting people through dialogue. There's an easiness of approach: dialogue leads to small changes, as contrasted with the kind of transformation which might come from mass preaching.

All this tells us something about the nature of the God of Jesus. Jesus (either as host inviting them in or as guest) is getting involved at an intimate, risky level, mingling with the people, exposing himself to danger and infection. Jesus' God deals with the greatest need, i.e. of the sinners and weak. It's a kind of positive discrimination.

And: there is something nicely unstructured about Jesus' approach in this story: he just lets it all happen. It's a very organic situation, things developing naturally and spontaneously as the occasion arises. It's subversive: allowing the surprising, the unconventional, the unplanned, the unauthorised to happen.

So how far are we open to this subversive, spontaneous, risky nature of God's gracious approach to us? All too much of what we do is carefully planned and designed to exclude the unprogrammed and the unexpected: just imagine the shock of questions during a sermon! Or indeed, the liturgical angst of those who worry about falling down over the finer points of ritual. But there's also the sense in which we avoid engagement with those outside, rarely offering opportunities for them to meet us on or off our own ground. There is a sharp contrast between Jesus' ease of contact with those on the margins and our own churches' lack of such contact.

So, I guess that's our question for this conference in a way. How do we serve this subversive spontaneous God, this God of dialogue and back-chat? How do we break away from our dedication to monologue, didacticism, how do we move from someone telling us what the Bible means to sitting round discovering what it means for us, how it is there prodding, urging us to loosen up, to open up, to listen to each other, to hear the subversive call of God through our conversations with each other? through conversations in the everyday places of our world, the supermarkets, the workplace, the prisons, the hospitals, the schools, simple conversations among friends? How do we encourage such exchanges to happen – or is that a contradiction in terms, scripting the unscripted? programming in the unprogrammed?