Sometimes you read a story where Jesus does something miraculous, and that’s weird enough. Then extra weirdness jumps off the page…
Give Mark 6:45-56 a read.
Miracle=weird. Anything else jump out at you?
What leaped off the page for me was verse 52: “they still didn’t understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in.” The context was their terror and amazement at what they saw Jesus doing. They thought they were seeing a ghost, perhaps – pretty creepy for anyone, I suppose. But how does that jibe with their hearts too hard to take it in? This is never a compliment in the Bible. Israel’s heart was hard and it landed them in exile. Pharoah’s heart was hard and we know how that story progressed.
Mark’s author had an agenda: he wanted the audience to appreciate who Jesus was as the anointed one God was using to proclaim Good News. Chapter six ends a long strong of miracles and exorcisms. But Mark is very candid about the disciples: they seem quite dense and often just don’t understand what Jesus is all about. This particular passage is a great case in point. It follows the account where over 5,000 are fed from five loaves of bread and two fish. That story comes immediately after Mark informs the reader that John the Baptist had been martyred. Hmmm.
Apparently, many of John’s contemporaries looked at John the Baptist as the return of Elijah – a reincarnation of sorts – the same spirit was on him or in him or both. John dressed like Elijah, and was bold like Elijah. When Elijah died, it wasn’t the end of the story. Actually, something profound happened: Elijah’s protégé, Elisha, received double the spiritual allotment Elijah enjoyed. Elijah fed a widow and her son with hardly anything; Elisha fed hundreds with a few loaves and fish. John the Baptist was amazing. But he died. When he did, Mark is showing us that Jesus took up the cause, and the Spirit was way more powerful in him than it was on John. More on/in Jesus than Elisha, too, and anybody else who lived before or since. The disciples couldn’t see it, they couldn’t make the connection. This was the hardness of heart condition to which Mark referred.
In fairness to the disciples, maybe they were just too close to it to really appreciate it. That happens a lot, right? People can see their friends or loved ones in a rotten relationship, but their friends and loved ones can’t see it. So that could be part of what’s going on here.
I wonder, at least for our present day application if nothing else, if there might be more happening here. I know from my own study that we all manage our way through life with a mental construct, or schema, that we have been crafting since our first breath. This schema may have general themes among people who share the same family or culture or country, but it is quite individualized as well. Mine is different than my brother’s, for instance, even though we grew up in the same space. When we are exposed to new ideas that don’t fit into our schema, and we think they are worth entertaining, we try to fit them in based on what we know, using words we already have to describe the new thing we’re experiencing. Those words really don’t work, though, try as we might. The disciples, for instance, were trying their hardest to understand what was happening in Jesus through the schema they had to work with. They had ideas about what a prophet might act like. They had dreams of what a messiah might be like. Naturally, they would try to understand Jesus through this construct. But Jesus didn’t fit their construct. And that led to the disciples not getting it, which I think probably looks a lot like hardness of heart. They appear to be stubborn, but what they really are is stuck. And that’s what concerns me most, I think.
It concerns me because I wonder what I’m missing. And as a pastor, I’m wondering what many others are missing. What we may be missing matters. A lot. For us as individuals. For entire communities and countries. For the human race. For all creatures. For everything.
Historically, established religion has not had a great track record when it has come to assimilating new ideas. A pope retires? That doesn’t fit, so we find ourselves in turmoil. Gentiles and Jews are loved equally by God? God cares for the poor as much as the rich? Slave or free makes no difference to God? Women are equal to men? God does not discriminate based on race? The earth is not the center of the universe, and also is not a snow globe? The earth revolves around the sun? God loves people equally, regardless of sexual orientation? Divorce is a gift from God in some instances? A lot of people have been hurt – even killed – because of this hardness of hearts “stuckness.” That’s not okay.
How do we know if we’re stuck, given the ramifications? Unfortunately, most of the time we don’t recognize our stuckness – and definitely don’t deal with our stuckness – unless we no longer have a choice. Most of the time our pain has to be greater than our capacity to handle it before we wake up. More often than not, we simply deny that a new, alternative, better idea exists for us and go on with life. It’s easier, even if it means we – and everyone else – miss out on what’s better.
The truth is that if it weren’t for crises, I’m not sure we’d change at all. We don’t often think of Jesus’ miracles as crises, but they were. The disciples had to deal with the reality that something was happening right before their eyes that they all experienced, and that didn’t fit in any of their constructs. What set them apart was that when they experienced the crises, they leaned into them and wondered aloud what God was doing. Sometimes even complaining and arguing the whole way. Peter complained about a lot, but kept following, kept pushing forward. Kept saying yes to God. He was famous for putting his foot in his mouth, but more famous for having a soft enough heart to take huge risks on God that changed the trajectory of Christianity.
So what’s the take home? You and I are highly likely to be labeled as having a hardened heart toward God. Own it. But also own the idea that when we face those critical times of dissonance – when something isn’t fitting right – that we’ll choose not to deny its existence but rather look at it carefully, prayerfully, and see what God might be trying to communicate to us.
The ugly truth is that we have probably been missing a lot, and because of it, many people have suffered and even died due to our negligence.
The beautiful possibility, however, is that if we would be open to what God might be doing instead of rejecting things that don’t fit our construct, we just might find ourselves walking more closely with God, and we – as well as countless others – would experience the kind of life God dreams for all people.
Stuff to think about…
- Are you in a crisis right now? What’s going on? What doesn’t fit?
- If you view God as the all powerful Savior, so to speak, what do you think is your part of the saving equation? Maybe your crisis is that you have not own the truth that you have more power and responsibility than you think. Maybe you’ve been waiting for God to do it all for you – you are a victim – while God continues to call you to pick up you mat and walk.
- If you view faith as mostly a moral issue, or that faith is simply the folly of the brainless, perhaps your stuckness is that you have no room for God to break into your life – or anyone else’s. Maybe it’s time you open yourself up to the possibility that God really does exist, and really does move all the time doing the redemptive stuff God does.
- Maybe you are very comfortable in your faith. Nothing about God has rocked your boat for some time. This is most likely a sign of being stuck. You are missing out on beauty, that, if you could see it, would cause you to run out of your ugly slumber as fast as you can.
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