The article, “The thesis statement of St. Mark and returning to Fish City,” presents the theory for the readings for this coming Sunday, the First Sunday of Lent, for our Cathedral in Reno, the Gospel reading is the thesis statement for the Gospel of St. Mark, “Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God... the kingdom of God is at hand..."
How close is “At hand?” Jesus represents the kingdom of God, among us now, in the present time, as of the time of his preaching. It is also now, as we see Jesus among us in the Eucharist, our neighbor, in each other, and in the animal and plant life all around us.
The kingdom of God is present, reaching out to us, touching us. The following verses of St. Mark present us with Jesus healing Peter’s mother in law, by touch, Mark 1:31, the Leper, Mark 1:41, and by touching him with his voice, the healing of the paralytic, discussed in the article, “The rich young man and the paralytic/us. The kingdom of God reaches out to us every day.
Genesis 9 discusses, “I am now establishing my Social Contract/Brit with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that was with you... I establish my Social Contract/Brit with you,” Genesis 9 begins, “The contract is with us and with our descendants.” It adds, “With every living creature...”
The Lakota tradition of mitakaye ayasin, ‘all are my relatives” includes bears, deer, all animate life along with the water, rocks, and all that is around us. Native Americans discuss the web of life, the world as an organic whole of which we are only a small part. A part of the cosmos, we cannot own any part of it. The cosmos, an organic whole, is as Jell-O. Anything affecting any part of it affects the whole.
We are a small part of God's planet. The world is as a web. When we affect any part, we affect the whole web. Behaving badly, we expect to see the spider of the nether world. Doing well, we reap the web’s/God's world’s rewards. God makes the contract with all, human, animal, mineral, and vegetable. Genesis 9 makes clear; Hebrew has the same concept.
Genesis 9 includes, “Only the flesh in the life force, which is the blood, you will not eat. The blood in the life force/soul, I seek. From the hand of all life, I seek the blood/life force/soul. From the hand of Der Mann, and from the hand of Der Mensch of his brother, I seek the animate force of Der Mann. German and Hebrew each have two words for our word, “Man.”
God seeks the animate force of life in all animate beings. Do we eat meat with the blood still in it? Leviticus 17:11 states, “The life of the flesh is in the blood. That is the blood of all animal kind. Verse 14 continues, “His blood is in his animate force/soul,” and adds, “The animate force/soul, of all flesh is the blood.” Leviticus reverses the order. “The life is in the blood,” “The blood is in the life force.” They are the same. The Hebrew word for blood is “Dam.” The Hebrew word for likeness, as in the likeness of God, Genesis 1:26, is Damoth, and is in the feminine plural. As we deal with blood, we deal with the likeness of God.
All life on our planet is in one Social Contract, before God. We are all to care for each other and the fragile Eco-system, our planet. God brings us a new way, through Jesus Christ, the old way revisited, to see all life as made in the image of God through our lens of the world. Let us repent, see all life/human and animal is sacred before God, and treat it as such. Then we can believe in the Gospel, the good news, there is a world coming where all do the same. That will be the kingdom of God.
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