ROME IMPROVEMENT 7/18/2021

MORE POWER!  MORE GLORY!!  MORE SPIRIT!!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 6:30-52

We, having witnessed John’s body being laid in a tomb after Herod’s birthday celebration, which included John’s head served at the banquet table, return to the disciples who had been sent out by twos into the world of ministry. Jesus’ ministry did not start until John was arrested. Similarly, the ministry of Jesus’ disciples does not start until the report of John’s death.

But wait! John’s death is recorded here because Herod mis-identifies who is resurrected. He believes that the resurrected person known as Jesus is really John, but we know that Herod is wrong. The irony is that Herod has the right idea, someone is resurrected, but he attributes the resurrection to the wrong person.

Just as in the other gospels where the ministry of the disciples does not truly begin until Jesus has been raised and the disciples have seen and touched the bodily resurrected Christ, so in Mark the disciples have not started their ministry until the people of Jesus’ hometown have declared the person in the synagogue as the carpenter (6:1-6) (cf. Matthew 28:16-20, Luke 24:13-53, John 20:19-21:25). This disbelieving hometown crowd is not rejecting the boy grown up; they are disbelieving that Jesus is risen from the tomb. They can see and touch this Jesus; and they know that he has been crucified.

Thus, their unbelief becomes the foundation of our belief. We know that the women fled from the tomb with fear and trembling telling no one (Mark 16:8); yet, we have heard and know the story: “The good news of Jesus Christ, the son of God” (Mark 1:1). So now, Jesus’ amazement at the people’s unbelief becomes the source of sending faithful disciples. Unbelief leads to God’s activity of compassionate care and grace.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

This is a long passage and translation does not greatly alter the story. Here are some things that are worth noting.

        1.  The disciples who were sent out have returned telling of what they have learned.

        2.  Jesus takes the disciples away to a deserted place, apart, by themselves Because they had no leisure to eat.

        3.  They went away in a boat to a deserted place.

        4.   The crowd interferes with time away.

        5.  Jesus has compassion on them because they are like sheep without a shepherd.

        6.  Jesus teaches and the time grows late.

        7.   The deserted place becomes the place of the crowd.

        8.   The disciples want to send them away to find food.

        9.  Jesus commands the disciples to feed the crowd.

      10.   Disciples find 5 loaves and 2 fish.

      11.  The people are gathered in 50’s and 100’s.

      12.  Jesus blesses and breaks the bread.

      13.  Jesus gives bread to disciples to set before the crowd.

      14.  Jesus divides the two fish among them all.

      15.  All eat and are satisfied.

      16.  12 serving baskets of left-over pieces gathered.

      17.  Jesus sends disciples in boat to go to the other side.

      18.  Jesus dismisses crowd and goes into hills to pray.

      19.  Evening comes, boat is on the sea, people are gone, Jesus is on land.

      20.  Disciples strain at oars against adverse wind.

      21.  Jesus walks to them, calms their fear.

      22.  Jesus gets into boat, wind ceases. (Now they are in a place, by themselves, apart.)

      23.  Disciples are astounded, confused, with hearts hardened. 

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

Mark uses the important images of sea and deserted place in a Genesis-sense. That is, as God’s face is upon the waters and the wind/breath of God brings forth life in Genesis, we see Jesus having the authority over new creation in Mark. As the earth is an endless void or deserted place from which creation arises, so now, Jesus takes his disciples to that place of creation possibility.

Whether the disciples are on the sea or in those deserted places, we come anticipating new life and new ways of living. Mark’s first example of this new creation image is found in Jesus’ baptism and his subsequent wilderness experience. From this creation moment, we hear what the kingdom of God looks like when it is fully engaged in repentance and belief (Mark 1:15).

I use the word “engaged” rather than “drawn near” especially in reading Mark as post-resurrection. I interpret the Greek word “ἐγγίζω” (pronounced eng-id'-zo) to say that when a part of a machine or engine, like a clutch assembly, draws near, that is, moves into position, it is able to come into operation.

This life of believing engagement, begins, in safety, along the seashore (chapter 1). It deepens with teaching and tests the depths with Jesus when he and the disciples have their first journey to the other side (chapter 4). The disciples learn to trust with Jesus when they cross again to the other side (chapter 5), learn the value of life with Jesus on the waters when they get into a boat and go to a deserted place and are sent out on the sea alone (chapter 6). Each of these sea experiences ends with earth revealing new creation possibility.

Today we witness Jesus and the disciples going out on the sea and then engaging the people on the land with compassion. This compassion leads to teaching, and the teaching leads to discipleship living. Five loaves of bread are found; Jesus blesses them and breaks them; he gives them to the disciples to set before the people.

It is this act of discipleship, the setting of food before the people, that shows us Jesus’ ministry model. Words lead to action, and action leads to more learning. Or learning leads to mission, and mission leads to learning. (WTS community: There might be a mission statement in there somewhere.)   

At the end of this reading the disciples experience “hardening of the heart”. During the first century and throughout biblical writing, the center of emotion is usually the stomach. The heart is the locus of thought. So, when hearts are hardened in the Bible, we would say that the people were not able to wrap their minds around it.

Thus, the disciples experience cannot be understood as emotional intransigence, but an extension of their amazement. They did not understand about the bread, and now Jesus has just walked on the water and calmed the storm. The disciples are having a hard time trying to appreciate the resurrected Christ in their midst. This bodily resurrection stuff is difficult to grasp.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

At the beginning of this reading, we are told that the disciples and Jesus need to go to a place apart because they do not have the leisure to eat. In the middle of this story, we are so consumed by the eating that we forget that the disciples and Jesus are still trying to get away to a place apart. At the end of the story, Jesus and the disciples finally get to that place apart, but there are issues—adverse winds, questioning whether Jesus is a ghost, and fear and distrust. We see the disciples in that place apart, but they are amazed, not understanding about the bread, and captive to thinking in old world ways.

Yet, in between the feeding of many with bread and getting away, two fish, representing the two natures of Christ, are shared with the people. Christ is truly human and truly divine. These two natures are especially important to us in our post-bodily resurrection reality. Jesus Christ is able to be seen, heard, and touched, but, at the same time, he is beyond the constraints of the world. In this Poseidonesque saunter on the sea, Jesus both exercises his divine nature and reveals himself to be the one the disciples know. He tells them, “Do not be afraid. It’s only me—the one you know and love.”

The symbol of fish carries with it (from the Greek word “ἰχθύς”) its acronym. The first letters of the Greek words, Iesous (Iota), Christos (Chi), Theou (Theta), Uios (Upsilon), and Sotor (Sigma) are, in English, “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior”. If, what was shared, was one great fish, we might accept the image more readily, but these two small fish that Jesus shares with the people slide by as part of the meal without recognizing the gift of Jesus’ entirety.

We work so hard to make this a miracle performed for the delight of appetite without witnessing the power of the risen Christ. We try to explain the wonder of the exemplified possibility of God’s kingdom care for God’s people in inadequate earthly ways because we are not ready to accept the presence of the resurrected Christ in our lives and the demands of living in the resurrection kingdom.

We laugh at the simpleness of the disciples while we are not willing to see their befuddlement in our discipleship today. We tend to see this meal as a prefiguring of the eucharistic meal to come rather than an extension of the table already set. In our concrete thinking, we see the end to world hunger without receiving Christ’s gift of himself—truly human and truly divine.

We ascribe a terminal action to this feeding—the day is at an end and the people are hungry, rather than appreciating that God’s creation begins in darkness. We spend endless amounts of energy trying to explain how this is possible rather than embracing the great mystery of our faith—"Christ has died. Christ is risen! Christ will come again.” We do not appreciate that this story is a story of new life ways of energized resurrection living. In short, we do not see the altar and eucharist at the center of this story.

HANGING THE TRIM

If there is in holiness a sense of being fully engaged with the world, then, when we join in singing the unending hymn of heaven, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of power and might…,” we too might sit with the disciples in amazement. We too cannot understand about the bread, and our minds cannot fully grasp the impact of God’s activity in our lives nor the capacity of God’s grace.