The Subtleties of Translation - 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mark 6:1-6

This is the "A prophet is not without honor except in his native place" pericope.
Many were astonished by Jesus' teaching in the synagogue.  After that there is a string of where, what, who, how questions about this Jesus and then the crowd is all of the sudden scandalized!

The word translated as astonished (or amazed in the NIV and astounded in the NRSV) is difficult to capture.  If the context influences the meaning then we need to pay attention to this crowd gathering again.  And the crowd in the Gospels has some unique characteristics.  It is a Gospel word; not used much in the Hebrew Scriptures.  There is such drama in the fickleness of this astonished crowd that I wonder what exactly this astonishment is made of.  Can astonishment be a negative…like infuriated, maybe?*  Or intrigued or mesmerized?

If the gathering crowd of people are really more like an amorphous and unstable mob, then it makes a lot of sense that Jesus is very careful around them.  In Mark, when these crowds get a little heated he asks everyone to keep quiet and he finds a quieter place to get away from it all.  He knows what crowds do…they switch from Hosanna to Crucify Him with one pointed finger.

A different take on verses 2-3:

Who the H--- does this guy think he is…
all full of himself.
All I can say is I don't trust him
and I don't trust the source of his tricks.
He's that weird kid who has been a Momma's boy all his life
And a simple carpenter's son at that!
There is something fishy about him.

And then, well, he can only heal of few sick folks in his home town, which from a Gospel perspective is not much.  The physical healing is no where near as important as the spiritual.  The most astounding thing is what forgiveness and reconciliation can bring about in the lives of individuals and communities.  

Mob versus Communion…two very different forms of gathering… 

links that fed my pondering:
* leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2012/07/mission-grounded-in-rejection.html
for interesting perspectives on translation 
waysofreadingthebible.blogspot.com for thoughts on the crowd in the the Gospels