Mark 4:17

but, as they have no root, they stand only for a short time; and so, when trouble or persecution arises because of the message, they fall away at once.


building one false explanation
leads to subsequent lies

satan is not a Boschian bird
flash in the pans are not abused

a better reason for a lack of courage
Sunday School stories forbidden to grow

there is no depth to literalism
it is as flat as words on a page

there is no soaring imagination
just repetition grinding life away

rate it as shallow as it gets
garbage in garbage out


οὐκ ἔχουσιν ῥίζαν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς might be literally translated: “they have no root in themselves”. This is a more evocative way to speak than simply, “have no roots”.

It raises a question about what in themselves would provide rootage for a stronger joy. Our claim is a mutual experience of partnered belovedness.

Our culture is very good at being critical about who we are by defining us as who we are not. This counter-cultural good news gives us a ground-of-being which can hold and release with equivalent ease.

From the other side, a difficulty in partnerships with G*D and Neighb*r is that our roots lie closer to sources for physical survival and power than to the mutuality found in roots of community and gift (a divide worth contemplating). Being rooted, in next meals and miracle cures for those in our tribe means we do not have roots in everyday common good.

εὐθὺς σκανδαλίζονται finds us “immediately scandalized”. This makes it sound that being differently rooted has an automatic exclusionary clause ready to be exercised. The older sense here being so deeply offended that we will abandon the path we were on and fall back (not down) into a self-protective mode. This is where some regard their initial response to gender, racial, tribal, sexual orientation, poverty, etc. Any of these can reveal a visceral distress and a willingness to dismiss and deny real humanity to anyone not like me. Blame is laid for anything outside a very narrow norm. Rocky soil is good for stoning others.