BibleWorm

Episode 132 Mark 13:1-37 The End of the World as We Know It

BibleWorm reads Mark 13:1-37, the Markan apocalypse. We sit with the ways the text anticipates an unveiling of fault lines in our society that were already there and see how that applies to us today. We see the imperative to speak and act with integrity even in the face of fear and suffering. We insist upon the Gospel’s promise of good news. And we fondly remember Clippy, the little paperclip in Microsoft Word who would pop up and solve all our problems. Man, we miss that guy.

Episode 131 Mark 12:28-44 The Greatest Commandment and the Widow's Offering

This week the Narrative Lectionary finds us in Mark 12:28-44, where Jesus gives the great commandment and a widow gives her last penny. We discuss the twin commandments to love God and love neighbor and whether they can really be separated. We wrestle with the story of the widow’s mite and whether she is being commended or exploited. And we struggle with how to make sense of this text in the middle of a pandemic, where we’re all struggling with how best to be communities and people of faith.

Episode 130 Mark 12:1-17 The Parable of the Tenants and the Question of Taxes

This week BibleWorm looks at Mark 12:1-17. We look at the ways the power structures of the biblical day are baked into the scriptures and what that means for us as modern readers. We see Jesus do the ultimate mic-drop when asked about everyone’s favorite topic—taxes. And Amy shares the legend of BibleWorm!

Episode 129: Mark 10:32-52 Blind Bartimaeus

BibleWorm continues our Narrative Lectionary series with Mark 10:32-52, the third and final time Jesus predicts his death and resurrection, the request of James and John to sit at Jesus’s right and left hand when he comes in glory, and the story of a blind man named Bartimaeus, who asks Jesus for mercy. We talk about the human struggle to imagine power structures different from those of the empire, Jesus’s invitation to the disciples to share in his suffering if not in his glory, and the need to discern when to cry out for mercy and when to fall in line without drawing attention to ourselves.

Episode 128 Mark 10:17-31 The Eye of the Needle

BibleWorm continues our Narrative Lectionary series with Mark 10:17-31, the story of a man seeking eternal life but unable to give up his possessions. We talk about the communal nature of the coming age as a community of mutual vulnerability and interdependence, the challenges of giving up our reliance on wealth and other modes of independence, and the unfathomable grace of God, who covers over the impossibility of eternal life with the abundance of undeserved grace.

 Also, Bobby does his impression of a camel trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle. It is not good.

Episode 127: Mark 9:30-37 Who is the Greatest?

This week BibleWorm continues our Narrative Lectionary series with Mark 9:30-37, in which the disciples argue about who is the greatest and Jesus welcomes a little child. We talk about the urgency Jesus faces in getting his disciples to understand his mission in the short time he has left with them, the challenge of giving up power to welcome the most vulnerable and marginal in society, and the danger of our well-meaning welcome turning people into props for our own sense of accomplishment.

 Also, we argue about which of us is, in fact, the greatest. Amy wins.

Episode 126: Mark 8:22-9:8 The Mount of Transfiguration

This week in our Narrative Lectionary Series, BibleWorm looks at Mark 8:22-9:8, the stories of the double-healing of a blind man, Peter's confession of Jesus as messiah, and the Mount of transfiguration. We witness Peter's very human struggle to understand what Jesus is saying to him, think about what it means to live lives of integrity and the risks that may pose to our physical comfort and safety, and long for the fanatsy world of the mountaintop, where you're above the fray and your whites are Oxy-Clean clean. Our theme song this week is sung by Tom Harris of Govans Presbyterian Church in Baltimore.

Episode 125 Mark 7:1-23 Controversy over Handwashing

BibleWorm continues our Narrative Lectionary Series with Mark 7:1-23, the story of Jesus arguing with the Pharisees over proper ritual observance. We talk about what it means that nothing from outside us can make us unclean, how to disagree constructively with people who have different sources of authority, and how the only thing that really matters is what we put out into the world.

Episode 124 Mark 6:1-29 Jesus Sends Out the Twelve

Dr. Amy Robertson and Dr. Robert Williamson explore Mark 6:1-29, the stories of Jesus returning his hometown and sending out the twelve as well as John's beheading by King Herod. They discuss the relationship between human faith and God's power, the challenge of seeing people in our communities as they are and not as they were, and the transfer of God's power to human communities. Also, they invoke Meatloaf--the rocker, not the hot dish.

Episode 123 Mark 5:21-43 Jesus Heals Two Women

Dr. Amy Robertson and Dr. Robert Williamson discuss Mark 5:21-43, the story of a synagogue leader’s daughter and a woman with a twelve-year flow of blood. They wrestle with Jesus countering the expectation that a privileged person’s needs should be addressed first, what it means that a woman receives healing from Jesus without him knowing it, and whether faith is really enough in a world marked by suffering and pain. Also, they wonder whether Jesus might have made a good fifth Beatle.