Jesus enjoined them, “Watch out, guard against the leaven of
the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
I love the Jesus as portrayed in the Gospel of Mark. He is
so down to earth and so human as compared to the Jesus portrayed in the other
Gospels. The Jesus in Mark’s gospel possesses the full range of human emotion
from compassion to exasperation to anger. It is a portrayal of Jesus to which I
feel a great deal of affinity precisely because he is not afraid to show his
human side.
In the gospel for today’s Mass, we encounter a Jesus totally
exasperated by the lack of understanding his disciples possess. You can almost
see Jesus bang his forehead against a wall muttering, “I don’t believe they
still don’t get it! I don’t believe they still don’t get it!” Jesus had recently
fed the 4 thousand, after having previously fed 5 thousand people. Following
those tremendous works of God’s love and compassion toward people, the
Pharisees are still demanding some kind of Divine sign that will prove Jesus’
credentials. Upon sending the disbelieving, disgruntled religious authorites
away (here’s your tallit, what’s your hurry?!), Jesus turns to the apostles and
speaks metaphorically the words above.
The apostles just do not understand. They think that Jesus is
remonstrating them for not bringing enough bread to eat. Jesus bewildered at
their lack of ability to think abstractly responds with “Why do you conclude
that it is because you have no bread? Do you not yet understand or comprehend?
Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?”
Jesus then asks them how many baskets of food were left over from the feeding
of the 5000. “12,” they respond. How many were left over from the feeding of
the 4000? “7”, they respond. Now the numbers 12 and 7 are very significant to
the Jewish people, yet, still the apostles cannot grasp the point Jesus is
attempting to drive home. To this Jesus responds incredulously, “You still do
not understand???” One can almost see Jesus reaching for a bottle of
Manischewitz wine.
Poor beleaguered Jesus. He is being attacked on one hand by
his own religious authorities whose demands for more signs betray the hardness of
their hearts, and, on the other hand, the apostles who are unable to give him
the support he needs because they are incapable of fully comprehending the
mission of Jesus. They are a “work in progress” to put it gently.
The one thing in which most of us share equally is our
inability to fully grasp the mission of Jesus in our own lives. It is easy
enough for any of us to criticize and make fun of the dimwittedness of the
apostles. However, do we not equally fail in recognizing the many signs of God
working in our lives? If we take the time to do some serious retrospection, we
will find that at significant points in our lives God impacting our lives in
incredible ways. We will wonder how is it that we could have been so blind to God
impacting our lives when it was happening.
It is only in spending the time to reflect back on our lives
to see the power of God active in our lives, that we are able to see God
working in our lives today. The lesson that took the apostles so long to learn,
is one that often takes a lifetime for us to learn. May we, through the power
of the Holy Spirit, open our eyes to see the power of God within us and around
us. May our ears be opened to God’s voice speaking to us not only in the mighty
Theophanies of our lives, but in the birdsong we hear in the morning, and in
the gentle breeze that brushes our cheeks. Let us open our awareness of the marvels of God within and without.
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