Can You See the Signs?

The context for today’s gospel is that it occurs just after Jesus feeds 4,000 people with seven loaves and a few fish in Mark 8:1-10.

11 The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. 12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.” 13 And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he went across to the other side. 14 Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” 16 They said to one another, “It is because we have no bread.” 17 And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” They said to him, “Twelve.” 20 “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 21 Then he said to them, Do you not yet understand?”


July 26, 2015
The Gospel of Mark 8.11-21, Can You See the Signs?
Pastor Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church

Audio only[powerpress]

In case you didn’t notice, the dominant image or symbol in this story is bread. The disciples have gotten into a boat for a trip and they hadn’t packed enough for lunch. When you go out on the water in the wind and the sunshine, you seem to get hungry more quickly. Why fishermen wouldn’t think to pack an adequate lunch is not the point of the passage. The key is they have only “one loaf” and they have Jesus who has now fed two huge crowds with very little bread, but they don’t think they have enough. Last Sunday we talked about the disciples being in boat and their failure to understand and this week has a, “Uh oh, here we go again,” quality to it.

The disciples and Jesus got into the boat after the latest unpleasant exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees when yet again the Pharisees came to Jesus to argue with him, test him, and to demand that he perform a sign from heaven…just after he fed 4,000 people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. Even Jesus gets worn out and worn down from these sorts of exchanges with people who are so convinced they’re right that they’re not open to seeing, hearing or understanding anything that doesn’t confirm what they already believe and they are nasty towards those who disagree with them. Mark 8:12 says Jesus “sighed deeply in his spirit.” Even Jesus found it difficult to have people continually questioning his motives, arguing with him about what he was doing, and assuming they knew better than he did what God wanted. So Jesus cautions his disciples who will have to deal with these kinds of people and situations when he is gone, saying, “Watch out – beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.”

dougThe disciples don’t understand what Jesus is talking about. What is the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod? One possible answer is the yeast of the Pharisees is hypocrisy. Back in Mark 7:6-8, Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites who honor God with their lips but whose hearts are far from God, because they abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition. It’s not mere words or speech that makes us a follower of Jesus; it’s the condition of our heart and the fruit of our lives that reveal if we are truly his followers. We don’t want to be accused of being hypocrites. Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in Mark 7 is that they’re more interested in holding onto their own traditions and beliefs than they are in having hearts passionately given over to God for the Holy Spirit to transform and change. What the Pharisees failed to understand and what some people who identify themselves as Christians today seem to fail to understand is that discipleship is about becoming a substantially different person, not confirming our previously held beliefs. Rather than conforming our life and beliefs to the teaching of Jesus, there’s a dangerous tendency in our time for people to merely adapt a shadow of the Christian faith that confirms one’s political, economic, or social views. The yeast of the Pharisees is hypocrisy.

The yeast of Herod is the refusal to change one’s ways and to do what God is telling us to do. This is revealed in an earlier incident in Mark 6:17-29 when Herod has John the Baptist arrested, put in prison, and eventually beheaded. We’re told “Herod feared John knowing that he was a righteous and holy man and he liked to listen to him,” but while he knew John was righteous and holy and he listened to him, he didn’t do what John told him to do. He failed to heed John’s word or to change his ways. The Pharisees and Herod reflect hostile ways of rejecting the movement of God in order to cling to power and position and previously held beliefs. But the disciples in the boat with Jesus are portrayed as not understanding this at all.

They think Jesus is talking about the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod because they failed to pack lunch, perhaps they even argued with each other about who was supposed to bring it, whose turn it was, whose responsibility it was to take care of provisions that week – so often this is what happens in a church. We can easily end up trivializing discipleship by preoccupation with the material trappings of church life rather than the inner essence of faith, with the equipment in the kitchen, the handling of tasks, policies and procedures, landscaping, furniture, and countless other items more than the relation of church members to Jesus, to each other, and to those not yet in the boat of faith. So Jesus asks the disciples, “Why are you talking about having no bread?” They have a trivial concern for physical bread when they have the bread of life in the boat with them. The disciples have taken Jesus’ warning about the Pharisees literally but not seriously. Like the Pharisees, they fail to grasp who Jesus is and what he’s about.

The blindness of the disciples is not the willful rejection of the Pharisees but a lack of awareness of God’s presence in their midst. Even with all their experiences thus far with Jesus, they still don’t see who and what they have in Jesus as the one who can provide for their needs. If they have Jesus and one loaf of bread, they have more than enough. An added bonus for those fortunate enough to be on one of Jesus’ boat trips was the food – because with Jesus the bread of life in the boat they had all they needed.

This experience is the one where we see Jesus get the most frustrated with his crew of disciples. Jesus is frustrated by a lack of understanding (17b, 21), hardened hearts, and a failure to understand what he’s done. Among his crew then and now, Jesus is looking for understanding minds, receptive hearts, perceptive eyes, and comprehending ears. Jesus wants us to recall, remember, and recognize who he is and what he’s doing.

“Do you not yet understand?” is the climactic word not only of this passage but of the entire first half of Mark’s gospel about Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Jesus challenges two kinds of misunderstanding. The Pharisees respond to Jesus with judgmental hostility. They demand a sign from heaven from Jesus right after he feeds 4,000 people with seven loaves of bread and a couple of fish! Jesus leaves their presence in anger and sorrow. The second kind of misunderstanding demonstrated by the disciples is friendly cluelessness. They have positive feelings for Jesus. They just don’t understand yet who he is and what he’s truly about. Jesus doesn’t give up on them, but his series of questions to them reflects dismay at their misunderstanding after all they’ve witnessed.

While their dullness may seem surprising to us, and honestly, we don’t know how much of that is Mark making Peter and company look bad so we’ll understand who Jesus is; we also need to reflect on the evidence of Jesus’ presence and power in our own lives, to which we may be insensitive or unresponsive. The point of Jesus’ nine questions in verses 17-21 is the failure of the disciples to draw appropriate conclusions about Jesus from what they have seen and could accurately remember.

Jesus’ warning about the Pharisees and Herod suggests that a failure to see who Jesus and what God is doing can easily slip into rejection, for both are kinds of blindness. The disciples should have understood more than they did based on their experiences with Jesus. At the same time, their understanding of Jesus will continue to grow, refine, and take further shape as they follow him Caesarea Philippi (8:27) to Jerusalem (11:1), the cross (15:3-39), and an empty tomb (16:1-8).

Our understanding of who Jesus is and what it means to follow him needs to remain open-ended, there is always more for us to learn and discover. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

Jesus’ final question to his first disciples is on the one hand is a reproach to those who have seen and heard him, yet it is also, in a deeper sense, an invitation, “Do you not yet understand?” For us Jesus’ question is an invitation to read on in Mark’s gospel because if the first half of Mark is about the person of Jesus the second half of Mark’s Gospel is about the purpose of Jesus. “Do you not yet understand?” is an invitation in our lives to stay with Jesus in worship, in groups and classes, in our alone time reading the Gospels until we do understand who he is as the bread of life, the living bread who has come down from heaven to give life to the world and that includes you and me.

At this point in Mark’s Gospel, the disciples don’t understand what they remember. They remember how many baskets of leftovers were collected, but not what it means. Interestingly, there were twelve baskets of leftover the first time – the same number as the tribes of Israel, and seven baskets the second time, the number of completeness or wholeness; meaning no matter who we are Jesus is more than enough for us. What are we to understand that the disciples did not? The numbers fed and the baskets of leftovers show Jesus’ power to meet abundantly every need. They had only one loaf with them in the boat, but when that loaf is Jesus we have enough. Jesus nurtures and sustains all who come to him.

With due apologies to folks with gluten concerns; one the primary image in this passage is bread. While bread can look enticing, smell delicious, and feel substantial – we don’t get the full and intended benefit of the bread unless we eat it. At the same time, we don’t get the full and intended benefit of Jesus – forgiveness, strength, hope, joy, meaning, new and eternal life -unless we partake of him as fully as possible.

In 1970 a rather obscure musical group the Five Man Electrical Band, released a song called Signs that I always liked. The song refers to signs like, “Long haired freaky people, need not apply,” “No trespassing,” “You’ve got to have a membership card to get inside.” The last verse is my favorite, it’s a positive one about a church: “And the sign said everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray. But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn’t have a penny to pay, so I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign. I said thank you Lord for thinking about me, I’m alive and doing fine.”

God is thinking about each one of us, just like a grandparent keeps photos of grandchildren on a refrigerator or on their phone or tablet. God wants us to know we’re loved, and special.

Our Creator gives us signs all the time that point us toward a life changing faith in and relationship with Jesus. Follow the signs and believe and you will find love, guidance, direction, hope and power for living. The more we come to believe, the more we will see.

We are also to remember that we are to be signs for others to point them to Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life.

Questions for Discussion or Reflection

  1. Why do you think Jesus “sighed deeply in his spirit” in Mark 8:12? What do you think he found so exasperating and frustrating?
  2. Jesus says, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.” Why do you think people then and now are looking for “signs” about who Jesus is?
  3. Jesus cautioned them, saying, “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” In the sermon – what was the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod?
  4. In Mark 8:17-21 Jesus asks the disciples nine questions! This is most concentrated “questioning” that Jesus does in the Gospels. What do you notice in terms of focus, repetition, or emphasis in these nine questions?
  5. Does it seem to be important to Jesus that we see, hear, remember, perceive and understand correctly? How can you tell?
  6. What signs have you seen of God’s love and concern for you?
  7. How can you be a sign that points others to Jesus?

 

 

 

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