This meditation is based on ideas expressed in “I Vangeli – Esercizi Spirituali per la Vita Cristiana” by Carlo Maria Martini, Bompiani, Milano, 2016.
I am often confused about who God is and what he wants from me. In an effort to diminish this confusion, I decided to re-read Martini’s “I Vangeli- Esercizi Spirituali per la Vita Cristiana”. I started with Mark as he wrote his gospel for beginners, those being prepared for baptism – Catechumens. Even though I have been a Catholic all my life and at various times I took an interest to read and learn about my faith, I still feel very much a beginner, a catechumen.
In the initial pages, Martini tries to analyse why Mark mentions God so few times in his gospel. (Mark mentions him 37 times, while Matthew mentions God 46 times and Luke 108). Martini concludes that since most beginners were pagans, they did not need much familiarisation with the concept of god. Pagans were generally well aware what gods represented; what they needed was to see God in a different way, in fact in the opposite way to what they were used to. Like them, most of us Christians today would do well to examine which concept of God we really have. For pagans, the gods were at the beck and call of man, they were to be cajoled and, if necessary, manipulated to ensure that the supplicants obtained what they wanted. It was man who was the active actor. The role of the gods was to satiate man’s desires. Do you notice any similarities with the tacit beliefs of many Christians today? Mark describes a different God. A mysterious one, who takes the initiative and is coming to meet us halfway. Man is now the passive actor, waiting, unsure of what to expect. Man can rely on God’s goodness, but he cannot predict His moves.
Although fewer than in other gospels, Mark’s mentions of God still show us which aspects are the most important to the beginner.
Who is God? It is He that is undertaking an enigmatic initiative. Something is about to happen. God is trying to reach out to us. God is coming. He comes into our reality, communicates with us from heaven. How does he communicate with us? Through his “beloved son” (Mk 1,11). His son is the model through whom we can start to get a little glimpse of God’s fundamentally, unknowable mystery. So, the beginner is not encouraged to quickly conclude: “God is this or that”, to form an opinion of who or what God is. On the contrary, he is invited to look at God as the one who is about to take control of his life, one who is taking a mysterious initiative which the beginner is expected to accept wholeheartedly, without knowing any of the initiative’s details.
“Jesus went into Galilee. There he proclaimed the Good News from God” (Mk 1,14), therefore indirectly we know that God is the God of the Gospel. God that brings us the good news, the one who is going to change our life. “The Kingdom of God is close at hand” (Mk 1,15), hence God is the God of the Kingdom. He is the one that he is going to put everything right in our life. Again, the stance of one who does not know yet what God really wants but is fully open to accept this mysterious novelty and to internalize it.
“Who can forgive sins but God” (Mk 2,7). This is said by Jesus’ adversaries but tells us that only God can forgive and hence that God’s new initiative is about forgiveness, and we must remain attentive and ready to accept it.
From here on, there are few other references to God in Mark’s gospel. The attention is all focused-on Jesus, who will help us to change our incorrect understanding of God so that we can begin to know him as He really is.
There are however another four references to God in the last few chapters, pointing to some fundamental aspects that the beginner needs to adopt.
“No one is good but God alone” (10,18), is Jesus’ answer to a man who addresses him as “Good master”. The beginner is being taught that the goodness of God is the only good that one must love “with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength”, as is written in 12,30.
Another instructive text can be found in 11,22. “Have faith in God.” It should be noted that the original Greek text actually says, “Who is God?” It is He who deserves faith and trust, the one who merits total acceptance. The beginner during his tuition is encouraged to abandon himself totally to the mystery of God who wants to act in him not in the way he desires, but as He wishes. Hence, the message is to be totally open to God.
I must say that such teachings elicit in me some resistance. God is good and He will act in my best interest, but it is not for me to say what my best interest is! Of course, logically, it makes a lot of sense. If one considers the fact that God is awfully superior to me in all ways, it would be logical to think that He would know better than me. Yet, I still find it difficult to accept my inferiority and to acknowledge that I am a creature i.e. someone who was created, created to be a servant. I have the same reaction when I read some parts of St Ignatius’ Principles and Foundation, like “God created human beings to praise, reverence, and serve God, and by doing this, to save their souls”. Is it my arrogance, pride, and conceit? Or is it fear? Probably, both.
God the creator is referred to very indirectly in Chapter 13. “…since the beginning when God created the world” (13,19). The concept of God the creator, like those referred to in the previous paragraphs, originated in the Old Testament. The uniqueness of God, His goodness, faithfulness, God the supreme reality that one ought to love were teachings from the Old Testament that Mark stresses to the beginners that his book was meant to instruct.
The last two references to God in Mark are fundamental and reveal God’s identity.
“Abba (father)!” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup away from me. But let it be as you, not I, would have it.” (14,36). Who is the God behind this depiction given to us by the words of Jesus? It is the God for whom everything is possible (an Old Testament idea), the God that can take the bitter cup away but who, actually, does not. He is, therefore, the God to whom one must submit totally as He has total dominance over us and who leads us in mysterious ways as He led Jesus.
The beginner is hence encouraged to go from a humanly conceived concept of God, in which one can rely on God and obtain what one wants from life simply by doing this or that act of worship, to a God that intervenes in our lives in mysterious ways, with goodness but who will take us where He wants through His personalised plan for salvation, that for us, however, is always unpredictable and disconcerting. In fact, the last reference to God in Mark is the most dramatic in the whole gospel. On the cross Jesus cries out in a loud voice: “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (15,34). How come Mark ends his few references to the mystery of God with this reference?
That is because this is the apex of this revelation: the God that is revealed in this gospel is the God for whom everything is possible, the God who has everything under control and to whom we must abandon ourselves totally, the God who is not obliged to act as we expect Him to do and can appear to abandon us as He abandoned His son. Although the words of Jesus also express a sense of hope, it must not be forgotten that they are essentially words of abandonment. God has left the Christ in a bitter situation of exterior desolation, of desertion as if He had effectively abandoned him.
The beginner is therefore invited to seriously reflect: the way that you are setting yourself on is not an easy one, a way in which God will assure you of successes, a story of accomplishments already planned by you, but you will be putting yourself in the hands of a mysterious God who is good and wants the best for you, but not in your way. This is the fundamental choice: accepting the mystery of a God different from us who will often and unexpectedly lead us to places where we do not want to go. See where my fear referred to some paragraphs earlier comes from? I dread not being in control. I pray to God the father and to His Son for help on these issues.
All biblical quotations are from ‘The Jerusalem Bible’, Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1966.