Women in Action: Models for Discipleship in Mark's Gospel
Abstract:Discipleship is an important theme in Mark. What it means to follow Jesus is at the heart of his Gospel, and scholarly discussions tend to center on his teachings about discipleship to the apostles, and their repeated missteps. Since the focus is typically on the apostles, then, discipleship as a theme in Mark has the running threads of failure, misunderstanding, and disappointment throughout. The purpose of this study is to discuss the ways in which Mark underscores the active role of female disciples in his Gospel, and how this dynamic provides a corrective to the disproportionately bleak portrait of discipleship that only narrowly considers the Twelve. Mark champions the kind of discipleship modeled by these women by emphasizing the action of the women in their seeking out of Jesus and their response to him, and depicting the insufficient discipleship of the apostles by repeatedly underscoring what they do not do (their inactivity) and/or what they do that is misguided or characterized by misunderstanding. In this article, I (1) explore several key passages that depict female disciples who actively engage Jesus, (2) evaluate the contrasting depiction of the apostles in their interaction with Jesus, often in the immediate cotext or even within the same passage where a female faithfully "follows," (3) discuss the ways in which the actions of these women reflect Jesus's teachings about the kingdom of God, and (4) close with some thoughts on how Mark's portrayal of female discipleship might have challenged first century sociocultural norms and assumptions concerning women.