8:13 And leaving
the crowds again and getting back into the boat, he went away to the opposite
shore. 14 The disciples had forgotten to bring bread along, and they had only
one loaf with them in the boat. 15 Then Jesus gave them this warning: “Keep
your eyes open. Be on guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of
Herod.” 16 And they said to one another, “It’s because we forgot the bread.”17
Aware of this, Jesus reprimanded them: “Why are you talking about having no
bread? Don’t you see or understand yet? Are your minds closed? 18 Have you
‘eyes that don’t see, ears that don’t hear’? Don’t you remember 19 when I broke
the five loaves for the five thousand? How many baskets of fragments did you
collect?” They answered, “Twelve.” 20
“And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many baskets of
scraps did you collect?” “Seven,” they replied. 21 Then he said to them, “And you still don’t
understand?”
This continues the theme of “what Jesus did,” and
portrays one of the most theologically significant of Jesus’ activities. Jesus
feeds people. In this fast food, eating on the run culture we almost cannot
grasp the deep radicality of this part of Jesus’ life.
I
don’t know if it is a result of the “melting pot” ideal of the United States
(whether or not we ever achieve that ideal), but most of us have no compunction
about sharing food with perfect strangers. In a busy lunch hour it is not
unusual to sit down at an unwashed table in a fast food establishment that has
been used by previous diners of possibly any race, culture, gender, or class.
It is not even in our mentality to ask, “what kind of person sat here?” We wolf
our food and dump our trash and move on, making room for the next hurried diner
after us. If the food is popular and the dining room crowded to capacity, we
may even share that table strangers.
It is sobering to recall that in this land
where anyone can sit down and eat at just about any establishment that there
are those who go hungry. We live in the richest nation that has ever existed in
human history and yet we have not eradicated poverty. We have distributed food
so inequitably that healthy food is too often unavailable in the poorest urban
neighborhoods. Rural counties, where much of the food consumed in the cities is
grown, are among the poorest in the nation.
Beyond
physical hunger, our age of affluence has created more mysterious kinds of
starvation. Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are symptoms of
different but just as life-threatening kind of hunger. They are diseases of the
psyche, of a wracking lack of self-esteem or a distorted self-image. In a
culture where there is more than enough food, eating disorders cause people to
starve themselves to death. On the other extreme, the epidemic of obesity
itself asks the question, if we have so much food why do we keep eating? What
are we really hungry for?
Eating
was a completely different occasion in Jesus’ time than ours. It was a private
event, a closed circle. You ate with family. It was a high compliment and a
social coup to be invited to the home of someone higher on the cultural ladder
than you. To eat with someone was to see them as family. It was unheard of to dine with foreigners or Gentiles because
they were seen as outsiders and you only sat at table with the insiders.When
the Pharisees complained that Jesus was eating with Levi and the other
taxcollectors and “notorious sinners,”, they were scandalized that Jesus would
flaunt the social convention of only eating with the acceptable (and equal)
people.
Jesus
seemed to practice a completely different kind of table gathering. While he was
not opposed to dining with the Pharisees, he seemed to go out of his way to
invite and include the outsiders of every stripe. He did so because the family
table was Jesus’ frequent parable of the Kin-dom of God. At Christ’s table
there was room for everybody.
There
are two stories leading up to the encounter in this week’s scripture: the
feeding of the 5000 families and the feeding of the 4000 families. The plot of
each episode is almost identical with a few variations of details. In the first
there are 5 loaves and 3 fish and 12 basketfuls of bread left over. In the
second there are 7 loaves at first and seven baskets left over. Beyond the
discussion that has been going on for years about the nature of these “miracle”
stories (did Jesus magically produce bread, or did the crowds share out of the
stashes they had selfishly hidden?), the radical nature of both these events is
seen in the public meal. With crowds of 5000 and 4000 families gathered
together these people were almost certainly strangers to each other. they had
come from many towns and villages. And yet they sit down and eat together. They
are fed (abundantly) on what Jesus gives them. Why does Mark include the
telling of almost the same story twice? Though not theologically elegant, I
think Mark was making the same point for us as readers as for those
thick-headed disciples of Jesus.
Crossing
the water again, the disciples have forgotten to take bread along (even though
there were 7 baskets of it available!). Jesus uses the metaphor of bread to
warn against “the yeast of the Pharisees…and Herod” and the 12 misunderstand
and think that Jesus is complaining because they forgot to bring lunch. I can
imagine that Jesus cussed under his breath at their denseness, and then asks
them about the two feedings they have just experienced. “How much bread was
left when we fed 5000 families?” Twelve baskets. “How many when we fed 4000
families?” Seven. “Duh!”
Mark
is showing us that where Christ is, there is more than enough food to feed us.
The deeper question is whether or not we know what we are really hungry for.
The
good news here is that in God’s Kin-dom nobody goes hungry. There are enough
resources among us to feed the masses who have empty bellies. And the loaves of
hope and wisdom and peace multiply to feed our souls when we gather together as
the kin of Creation. These feeding stories are the table practice of Jesus
played out on a macrocosmic scale. It is worth noting that Jesus never asks the
crowds if they buy what he is teaching, or even asks all of them to follow him.
He senses their hunger and he feeds them.
For me, Christianity is not
about winning souls. It is about welcoming outcasts to the table and offering
food that satisfies.
Good News: There is food enough
and room for everyone in God’s Kin-dom
Subject: Christ calls us to
radical inclusion in a world that divides, starves, and excludes people
Igniting Desire: We are hungry
for the wild love that saves a place for us no matter what, and that we can
save place for other hungry travelers
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