“A rather dull lot”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Monday, August 7, 2023
Mark 8:11-21 (Forward, p. 9) CEV p. 1037
I was just reading some comments made by a Moslem imam who said that the utter brokenness and obvious sinfulness of the various prophets and disciples in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament rule them out, disqualify them, as reliable or trustworthy witnesses to the truth. And yet, those very people, flawed as they are, often testify negatively about themselves. They testify to God’s actions in their lives in spite of their own recurrent failures to believe or trust or obey. In other words, here we have witnesses who can bolster up their own testimonies of God’s grace by admitting that they are a rather slow and dull lot.
Most people, if they were trying to persuade people to believe them would underline just how reliable and qualified they are. (In modern terms, they would point to their education or university degrees, or to their careers, or to the record of their publishing or to the critical acclaim they have received from their peers.) But, here we have people who can testify to the grace of God being able to work, able to work in them in spite of their imperfections. So, rather than nullify their words, their questionable behaviours actually give greater credence to those words.
Here, in today’s passage, we have yet another instance of this ‘dullness’ on the part of Jesus’ first disciples. Jesus had just had an exchange, possibly a headed one, with the Pharisees. (We are told that they ‘came out and started an argument with Jesus’). They were trying to test Jesus. They came, demanding a sign from heaven. In one sense, this was not an entirely foreign request in terms of the history of Judaism. After all, many of Judaism’s great leaders had received such signs: Moses had received signs from heaven in the desert and at Mount Sinai, Elijah had seen the fire from descend from heaven at Mount Carmel and Elisha had observed the chariot of fire take Elijah into heaven. So, this request was not entirely odd or out of the question.
However, Jesus knew the secrets of their hearts, their not-so-obvious intentions. He knew that they were not sincere in their request but were only trying to trip Him up. He knew that they would not believe even if they were given a sign. (And, indeed, to give credence to this idea, we know
that God did give a sign to them in the form of the Resurrection, and many of them still did not believe.)
So, this is why Jesus refers to ‘the leaven’ of the Pharisees and of Herod. Here ‘leaven’ is used in a figurative sense rather than in a literal sense. And He is talking about leaven in a negative rather than in a positive sense. He is speaking of the corruptive and stealthily pervasive negative influence of ‘leaven’, of how a little bit of leaven can have such a widespread impact, and in this case, such a negative one. So, Jesus is warning His disciples not to be corrupted by the hypocrisy and disbelief of these leaders.
However, the disciples, the dull lot that they are, simply don’t get it. They are thinking of leaven in physical terms—that is, in terms of bread—and they don’t ‘get’ it. They don’t ‘get’ what Jesus is warning them about.
At times, I think that many of us are ‘in the same boat’ as those disciples. We too are sometimes a ‘dull lot’, rather slow to ‘get’ what Jesus is talking about. And sometimes, if truth be told, we are somewhat like the Pharisees and the disciples of Herod: we simply don’t want to believe, or perhaps more to the point, don’t want to trust God or obey God. Our stubborn self-wills, and determination to ‘run our own lives’ get in the way.
So, here where embedding ourselves in the written word of God, spending time with Jesus, and worshipping together can be a needed corrective. These things can help us be more open, more receptive, more trusting, and more obedient—and not quite so dull.
Forward notes: “Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear?” (verse 18a).
“How often do we see but not see? I once met my wife at the airport as she returned from a business trip. She had taken an earlier shuttle and arrived an hour ahead of my expectation. When she entered the waiting area and walked right past me, it was a few moments before I saw her!
“Jesus’s disciples are full of anxiety because they have forgotten, and Jesus, in frustration, says, ‘Why are you talking about having no bread?’
“We can imagine Jesus shaking his head in disbelief: Did we not just feed the people with a few loaves and fishes? Don’t you see? Can’t you understand that blessing abounds? And he details the whole hillside
supper: “How many baskets full of bread were left over after the people ate their fill?’ And the disciples admit: a lot.
“It is always this way with God. Blessing is all around. We just don’t always see. Yesterday was a day of great light. Let this be the day we see.”
Moving Forward: ‘How might remembering help you to see?”