ABSTRACT
The first words of the Markan Jesus include the twofold imperative metanoeite, meaning ‘turn your life around’, ‘revise or expand your horizons’ or ‘think beyond your usual categories’, and believe the good news (Mk 1.15). Towards the end of the expanded Markan Gospel, in an incisive addition possibly inspired by the ending to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus issues another imperative, ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation’ (Mk 16.15).1 The corresponding imperative towards the close of the Matthean Gospel is to make disciples ‘of all nations’ (Mt. 28.19). In other words Matthew’s imperative is addressed to the human community only, whereas the imperative in the Markan version extends beyond the human community to ‘all creation’ (ktisis). Mark 16.15 thus retrospectively opens a space for an ecological reading of the Gospel as a whole. The designation ‘all creation’ embraces the whole Earth, its living and non-living components. It includes the ‘fruits’ of the Earth, the human and other-than-human inhabitants of the Earth.2
