Fleer and Bland have brought together an impressive list of homileticians and preachers to answer the question 'How can we draw our congregations into the world that Mark has imagined for us in his gospel?' At the heart of this book is the homiletic work of Fred Craddock, addressing issues of whether the sermon says and does what the biblical text says and does and what qualities can enrich the sermon's form.

Using concrete images and examples, Preaching Mark's Unsettling Messiah combines the best of Markan scholarship (Morna Hooker) with the best of homiletic theory (Fred Craddock and Richard Ward) with the skill of preachers who connect the biblical text of Mark to the specific task of preaching.

'You can't go wrong with a study of Mark that begins with Fred Craddock's homiletical insights and Morna Hooker's exegetical wisdom. Blessedly, the rest of the book sustains the high quality of its opening chapters. Both the essays and the sermons remind us that Mark is not only an odd and puzzling gospel it is perennially fresh and surprising Gospel-the best of news.'
- David Bartlett, Columbia Theological Seminary