“We emphasize and cannot emphasize enough one point about this very, very prominent theme in Mark. His story of failed discipleship is his warning gift to all who ever hear or read his narrative. We must think of Lent today as a penitential season because we know that, like those first disciples, we would like to avoid the implications of this journey with Jesus. We would like its Holy Week conclusion to be about the interior rather than the exterior life, about heaven rather than earth, about the future rather than the present, and, above all else, about religion safely and securely quarantined from politics. Confronting violent political power and unjust religious collaboration is dangerous in most times and most places, first century and twenty-first century alike.”