Mark Whittall

“Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days; … and he was with the wild beasts.” What's up with that? What’s up with the wild beasts? As we work our way through the gospel of Mark, we’re discovering that Mark is a man of few words. The stories he tells are sparse, lacking in detail. On this the first Sunday of Lent, every year we read the account of Jesus’ testing in the wilderness. When it’s a year that we hear Matthew or Luke tell the story, we get lots of detail, we get di

If someone were to ask you to write down four words that describe Jesus, what four words would you choose? Well, that is in fact what I’d like you to do. Grab a pen, find a piece of paper. I’d like to you to take a moment and write down any four words that you choose to describe Jesus. Now, don’t worry, this isn’t a test and there are no right or wrong answers. There are many words we could choose. Just write down your four words and think a little bit about why these partic

“Jesus came and took her by the hand and lifted her up; then the fever left her and she began to serve them.” These words, taken from today’s gospel, from this little vignette of Jesus and Simon’s mother-in-law, this is what you might call a loaded sentence. If you are a 21st century feminist, as I aspire to be, your first reaction might be that this sentence is loaded with assumptions about patriarchy and gender roles. I mean, really, Simon, your mother-in-law has been sick