As expected, a journey through Mark also presents us with the feedings of the multitudes at Jesus’ hand. As we engage with Jesus, we must be careful to not become overly swept up with the miraculous nature of the events, so as to cause us to miss the fact that, though they are quite large and quite out of the ordinary, these are, when examined at a simple level, still meals. Therefore, we are justified in looking at them through the lens of Jesus’ meal practice, thereby ascertaining truths related to Jesus’ presentation of the kingdom of heaven. We cannot pass by these events a second time without noticing that everybody eats, everybody eats until they are full, everybody is said to have eaten the same thing, and that there are even a large quantity of leftovers. These are crucial but overlooked points that will be brought up again at a later point.
When we view these events, we’ll notice that Mark includes an element unique to his presentation that is not included in either Matthew or Luke (Luke only reports on the “feeding of the five thousand”). This unique feature explains why we must take a moment to pause here with these meals in Mark to show how they fit within Jesus’ kingdom ethic and practice. Like Matthew, Mark reports the conversation between Jesus and His disciples that takes place in the boat in which they are crossing to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. While in the boat, Jesus says to them: “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod!” (8:15b) Mark paints the portrait of less than astute disciples, who, having just witnessed the miraculous multiplication of loaves of bread, “discuss with one another about having no bread” (8:16), as if this is the crux of the issue that Jesus is addressing.
Jesus, aware of their rather ridiculous discussion, says “Why are you arguing about having no bread?” (8:17b) To that He adds the words (the unique feature to Mark’s telling of the story) that serve as trigger points that should alert us to the fact that Jesus has the kingdom of God in mind, as He says, “Do you still not see or understand? Have your hearts been hardened? Though you have eyes, don’t you see? And though you have ears, can’t you hear? Don’t you remember?” (8:17b-18) Matthew’s presentation has Jesus exclaiming “You who have such little faith!” and asking “Why are you arguing among yourselves about having no bread?” (16:8b) He asks them “Do you still not understand?” (16:9), but does not offer up any “eyes to see” or “ears to hear” statements.
So in Mark, we have an indirect usage of an “ears to hear” statement. It must be noted that it is made in close connection with meals, and with Jesus’ encouraging His disciples to recall what took place at those meals. Because we have more than sufficiently established that the use of such attention-grabbing statements by Jesus are almost invariably made in connection with His pronouncements concerning the kingdom of God, and because they so often come in the context of a meal, it becomes more and more difficult, trending to impossible, to separate meals from Jesus’ presentation and understanding of God’s kingdom and its ideals. Based on the understanding that we are building based on the foundation that has been laid to this point, we can say that Jesus expects His disciples to engage in certain practices related to what they saw and experienced as part of those grand feedings.
Additionally, His insistence by way of further elaboration that we find in Matthew’s account, to “beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees” (Sadducees here taking the place of Herod in Mark’s account---Sadducees were in collusion with Rome in the maintenance of civic order, as was Herod), is yet further demonstration that there are practical applications for specific situations to be gained from rightly understanding (with ears to hear) what Jesus has been doing and teaching. That important and basic concept, along with what can be gathered from this scenario in Mark, drags us closer and closer to being able to rightly divide that which is going on in Laodicea and being specifically addressed in the letter to that church so that it can be corrected and set right going forward.
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