5 - Women, Eucharist, and Good News to All Creation in Mark

Summary

The first words of the Markan Jesus include the twofold imperative metanoeite, meaning ‘turn your life around’, ‘revise or expand your horizons’ or ‘think beyond your usual categories’, and believe the good news (Mk 1.15). Towards the end of the expanded Markan Gospel, in an incisive addition possibly inspired by the ending to Matthew's Gospel, Jesus issues another imperative, ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation’ (Mk 16.15). The corresponding imperative towards the close of the Matthean Gospel is to make disciples ‘of all nations’ (Mt. 28.19). In other words Matthew's imperative is addressed to the human community only, whereas the imperative in the Markan version extends beyond the human community to ‘all creation’ (ktisis). Mark 16.15 thus retrospectively opens a space for an ecological reading of the Gospel as a whole. The designation ‘all creation’ embraces the whole Earth, its living and non-living components. It includes the ‘fruits’ of the Earth, the human and other-than-human inhabitants of the Earth.

To proclaim the gospel ‘to all creation’ is to recognize the interconnectedness and common origins of all being through time and space. It is an invitation to nourish bodies and spirits, to heal the sick and broken-hearted, to renew or regenerate the Earth, and to offer hope for a better world. It is likewise an invitation to give thanks, to bless the God of all creation, and to gather the whole creation into the process. In the Christian tradition, the great communal act of blessing, thanksgiving, and healing is Eucharist. Denis Edwards writes, ‘When humans come to the Eucharist, they bring the fruits of creation, and in some way the whole creation, to the eucharistic table.