What's Next?

Recently, my family has been (re) watching the TV show The West Wing. Again. The show has long been one on my and my husband’s favorites, and it was something we connected over the day we first met. Though our daughters have seen a number of episodes over the years, this summer they decided to start from the beginning. They’re now a couple episodes into season 2 (you HAVE to watch the first 2 episodes of that season together, right?!!). Meanwhile, my husband and I decided to jump in around season 5, because, I mean, we’ve watched the series so many times, we can quickly pick up wherever we start. And who can pick a favorite season or episode? Not us.

There are so many great lines from the show, but one that is a thread throughout, and which Chris and I find popping up in conversation from time to time is President Bartlett’s, “What’s next?” Indeed, as we watched those first season 2 episodes with our daughters, we got to see the phrase’s original story for the staff, how it came to be so very characteristic of President Bartlett’s approach and leadership of their team.

There is no mystery about the phrase “What’s next?” It is just what you would imagine, even if you’ve never seen a single episode. When the president’s staff are discussing an issue, trying to persuade him, each other, or whoever, when he is convinced of the course of action, he often won’t even say it, he will just say, “What next?” to indicate he’s decided and is ready to move on. In the fast-paced climate of the White House, there is a certain necessity of keeping things moving, but sometimes the staff, even after years of hearing this phrase, are so wrapped up in their debate over an issue that he has to repeat the phrase, and they are reminded to stop, and move on.

My husband bought me a wooden desk plaque several years ago with those two simple words, “What’s next?” One time I even brought it and sat it next to me during a long day of cabinet meeting…a reminder to me more than anyone to not get bogged down in an issue that’s been settled or exhausted.

Perhaps this is one reason, or perhaps even caused by my love for Mark’s gospel. In seminary at Duke, I took my New Testament and Old Testament courses off-cycle, which had the significant benefit as I saw it to being in much smaller classes than most others. It also meant that though many Duke Divinity grads had Dr. Richard Hays (a wonderful professor and a star at the school’s Live at the Lampstand events!), I was fortunate to have Dr. Joel Marcus teach my New Testament course. Dr. Marcus had an appreciation for Mark’s gospel that I think many would find strange, but it rubbed off on me. I came to appreciate Mark’s action-oriented approach. Mark’s theological is oozing out of, yes, his descriptions of Jesus’ identity, but really, just oozing out of the narrative of what Jesus does. Mark’s Jesus walks the walk, and is far less concerned than any other gospels in talking the talk.

Perhaps no feature of Mark’s gospel makes this action-oriented approach more apparent than the gospel’s frequent (nearing the point of cliché, sometimes, if we’re honest) of the Greek word εὐθύς, translated by most into English as “and then immediately…”

I was going to include some examples here of Mark using this, but really, just browse through the gospel. You can’t miss it.

Scholars generally think that Mark and the other three gospels were written in the decades after the events of Jesus’ ministry which they describe. A host of details influence the (not-unanimous) dating of each gospel, including which gospels scholars believe followed after others, and how developed and complex the theology seemed to have become by the time of the writing (the thinking often being that theology becomes more complex as time passes). John’s gospel, for example, however scholars think of the sequence and timing the other three (Matthew, Mark, Luke), is often cited as the latest to take it’s written form, including that theological reason as part of the logic. Before any of these written forms, though, the story, the good news, of Jesus would have been convey verbally. Paul, Peter, the other Apostles, and those who taught with them, the preached and taught to house churches, people gathered on hillsides, along rivers. The story was spoken long before it was written.

Mark’s gospel, to me, just reads like it’s meant to be heard more than any of the others. Perhaps it’s my and my husband’s connection to church camps, but I especially like to think of the gospel shared with its hearers around a campfire, told straight through, not broken up by the chapter and verse references added so much later. In such a context, telling the story and holding the listener’s attention seem to be powerfully aided by Mark’s use of “and then immediately,” or maybe even heard as “but get what happens next…”

We live in a world where we are surrounded by words. Silence can be hard to come by. And, I think, action can also. We have all been promised action or follow up by someone only to find their words prove to be empty. We all know people who say a lot of things but do little.

So, I love the way that Mark principally narrates Jesus’ ministry as one that is about action. This is a God incarnate who is all about doing things. Moving. Action. Mark’s Jesus has such confidence in his ministry, presence and the witness of what he does that who he is and what is has come to accomplish just pours forth.

The best part of the entire thing, to me, is how this action-oriented gospel concludes. After Mark’s rapid-fire narration of Jesus’ ministry and death, the resurrection is captured in a few final verses. If you open your Bible to the end of Mark, you will see several endings included. Many scholars, and just ordinary preachers like me, are persuaded by the tools used to discern such things in Biblical texts, that the gospel originally ended at verse 8.

Ending at Mark 16:8, the story which throughout had depicted Jesus’ quick-paced ministry followed event after event immediately now pivots to others’ actions. The other hallmark of Mark’s gospel, what scholars call the secrecy motif, where Jesus’ true identity, his God-incarnate-ness, is finally revealed through the resurrection (it was there all along, including in the first verses of the Gospel, but still…) and now ready to be proclaimed, the women who discover the tomb are said to run away in fear, having been told to proclaim, they tell no one because of that fear.

This description is comical, on some level. Comical because of the sitcom-ness of the scene, but also because we, the readers, know it isn’t true. Because if they had not told, we would never be hearing the story. I think, though, that the gospel, which all along has focused on Jesus’ activity, now demands of its listeners, its readers, their action. Since others have added alternate endings, here is what I propose followed verse 8 when it was originally read told, “But YOU know the truth. Will you be too scared to tell?”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not meant to be merely spoke, read and listened to. It is expected to inspire action. Now you know, as it were, so what will you do about it? The Gospel is evidenced by the impact it brings in the lives of believers, not by their eloquent words about it.

If the fictional president Josiah Barlett were reading aloud Mark’s Gospel (and this is not too far-fetched, he is depicted as a faithful and active Christian of the Catholic variety), I think he would end Mark’s gospel with his words, “What’s next?”

I hold the challenge of Mark’s gospel daily, and I invite you to do the same. How are your actions shaped by and driven by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and God’s call upon your life. What are you doing about God’s truth? How has God invited you to be part of what God and God’s people are doing?

What’s next?