Selective seeing, hearing and remembering (Mark 8:14-21)

(This sermon was originally preached on Sunday, February 14, 2021 AKA Valentine's Day)

Sorry, no Valentine’s Day sermon on love today. Yes, Valentine’s Day actually falls on a Sunday, and I have no Valentine’s Day sermon on love. I have nothing against the holiday (well, I do have my reserves). As I have said in the past, all holidays, whether the holiday had a sacred or secular origin, have an important role in the Christian life for spiritual growth. The holiday allows the Christian to reflect on how he or she can improve in that aspect of his or her life. In regard to Valentine’s Day, Christians should not only reflect about the people that love them, but they should also reflect on how they love people and how they can improve on loving people.

This Valentine’s Day, I reflect on how I can love my wife Carrie more. After reflecting, I know how I can love Carrie more. I need to work on actively listening to here. Quite often, more often than I like to admit, Carrie has to call me out for not listening or selective hearing. To be fair to me, however, I think sometimes it is less of selecting hearing and more of selective memory. If she says something to me, and I cannot repeat what she just said, that’s selective hearing. If she tells me something on Monday about something she will do on the upcoming weekend, and she asks me on Wednesday or Friday, “Do you remember what I’m doing this weekend?” and I cannot remember, that might be selective memory (although I’m not sure that selective memory is a much better excuse than selective hearing).

In this account of Jesus’s life, it would seem that Jesus’s disciples have selective seeing, selective hearing, selective remembering or some combination of all of them.

Turn to Mark 8:14-21. Before studying in-depth the passage at hand, the passage needs the context set, especially how Mark 8:14-21 contributes to Mark 8 as a whole. The two accounts found in Mark 8:1-13 set the scene for Mark 8:14-21. Mark 8 begins with the feeding of four thousand. Yes, the feeding of the four thousand, not the feeding of the five thousand. In this narrative, Jesus takes seven loaves of bread and a few fish, breaks them apart, and he feeds four thousand people, with seven baskets full of leftover pieces. Now if Jesus fed the four thousand first and the five thousand second, that would make sense because Jesus would break his own record. Jesus feeding five thousand with less and then feeding four thousand with more does not make sense. It leaves the audience questioning why Mark talked about this miracle of feeding four thousand if the audience already knows Jesus can feed five thousand with little food. For starters, the pericope at hand mentions this miracle by name, so the audience needs to know about it, so they do not feel unaware. Also, without going into a mini sermon within a sermon, the feeding of the four thousand differs from the feeding of the five thousand in the initial action which sets the miracle in action. In the feeding of the five thousand, the disciples have to make Jesus aware of the problem: the people are in a desolate place for a long time, and the people need something to eat. In the feeding of the four thousand, Jesus makes the disciples aware of the problem: the people are far away for a long time with nothing to eat. It is as if Jesus says, “Oh no! Have I been talking all this time in a faraway place? These people must be hungry! What should we do?” Sadly, instead of the apostle answering, “Don’t worry, Jesus, you got this like you got it last time,” the disciples reply with how much of a herculean task feeding four thousand would be. While the numbers may differ, Jesus pretty much repeats the miracle, providing the crowd enough to eat, until they reached satisfaction. Based off of John’s experience of how the people responding to the feeding of the five thousand, I imagine Jesus caused quite the stir, so much so that it required Jesus and the disciples to retreat by getting in a boat and crossing to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus feeds 4,000

The second story has Jesus and his disciples arrive in the district of Dalmanutha, where they do not encounter a crowd but Pharisees, who demand a sign from heaven. The reader might wonder why the Pharisees need a sign. The book of Mark has tons of miracles, which should work as a sign enough. The Gospel of Mark even explicitly points out Pharisees present for some of the miracle. Even if the Pharisees did not attend some of these miracles, they are quite possible heard about them from eyewitnesses. Still, they demand some kind of sign from heaven, perhaps sunrays shining directly down on Jesus, or maybe a choir of angels praising his name. Jesus must have felt the same way about the ridiculous request, for he outright denies them their request. He hops back into the boat to sail across to another side of the Sea of Galilee.

The Pharisees demand a sign

Both accounts, the story of the feeding of the four thousand and the pericope about the Pharisees demanding a sign, setup the narrative at hand.

8:14. The conflict of this story appears immediately in the beginning of story. Mark 8:14 ESV reads, “Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat,” but the Greek text literally says, “And they forgot to take bread, [and] if not [for] one loaf they had, with them in the boat.” The strange wording emphasizes may factors. First, it emphasizes the apostles forgot to bring loaves of bread, for if they did remember, they would have brought more than one. Second, it highlights how much food the disciples lacked. One loaf was so little, the disciples might as well have no loaves. Third, the wording may stress Jesus is the bread of life, making him that one loaf. Speaking of loaf, prior to this narrative, “loaves,” the plural of “loaf,” has only appeared in the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand. This clues the reader into where this account will go. Speaking of the feeding of the five thousand and four thousand, the disciples find themselves with the problem that those crowds had. They find themselves with no bread and far away from the nearest food. With the literary context, it makes sense why the disciples forgot to pack break. Constantly having to leave one place to move on to the next, it became all too easy for the disciples to keep track of their belongings, even their rations.

8:15. Probably over their last contact with the Pharisees, and possibly overhearing the disciples talk about bread, Jesus takes advantage of the opportunity to present a new teaching with a new illustration. Jesus’s warning has a double command of “watch out” (ὁρᾶτε, orate) and “beware” (βλέπετε ἀπό, blepete apo). This double order merely draws emphasis to the warning Jesus will give. In other words, Jesus says to disciples, “Pay attention! This is a warning you really need to heed.”

The metaphor Jesus uses here involves “leaven” (ζύμη, zymē). Ironically, the Greek noun for “leaven” (ζύμη, zymē) in the New Testament is never literal and always figurative. Sometimes the Greek term has positive connotations. For example, in Matthew 13:33 and Luke 13:21, Jesus compares the kingdom of God to “leaven” (ζύμη, zymē) in flour, representing how the kingdom of God can grow like a rising dough. Other times the Greek word for “leaven” (ζύμη, zymē) has negative connotations. For example, in both 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 and Galatians 5:9, Paul uses “leaven” (ζύμη, zymē) to symbolize sin running rampart within the Christian community. Clearly, the common denominator here involves something growing uncontrollably. What makes the illustration good or bad  depends on what grows uncontrollably, whether the kingdom of God or sin. Therefore, what leaven means in Mark 8:15 will determine the positive or negative connotations.

The parallel passages in the other synoptic Gospels may yield clues to the figurative meaning of “leaven” (ζύμη, zymē), which will in turn yield either a positive or negative connotation of it. Matthew 16:11&12 says the leaven is teachings, which is a little more specific but still a lot broad. Luke 12:1 tells the reader that the leaven is hypocrisy, which gets more specific, but hypocrisy in regard to what? The problem with cross referencing the Mark passage at hand with its counterparts in Matthew and Luke comes down another difference, which is who the leaven belongs to. Matthew says the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Luke just speaks of the Pharisees. Meanwhile, Mark speaks of the Pharisees and Herod or the Pharisees and the Herodians. These seem like three different groups, so Jesus may have used “leaven” (ζύμη, zymē) to describe these three different groups in three different ways.

Even the question to whether Jesus pairs Herod or Herodians with the Pharisees causes problems figuring out the metaphorical meaning of “leaven” (ζύμη, zymē). It seems like an odd pairing, to talk about a religious party and a vassal king in the same sentence. The literary context may help here. Immediately preceding this passage, the Pharisees demanded a sign, and Jesus denied it. Earlier in the Gospel of Mark, Mark introduces Herod in Mark 6. In fact, twice Mark repeats the phrase “Herod heard of it” in Mark 6:14-16. Heard of what? What is “it”? Well, the phrase in Mark 6:16 points back to the phrase Mark 6:14, and the verse prior to Mark 6:14, Mark 6:13, talks about Jesus sending out the Twelve apostles with the power to do what he can do: cast out demons and anoint with oil many who are sick to heal them. What seems unclean now become clear. Just like the Pharisees, Herod got more caught up in the signs and wonders Jesus could do, not the message Jesus proclaimed (cf. Mark 6:12&13 to Mark 8:11&12). Therefore, the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod in Mark 8:15 refers to belief based off signs and wonders. In fact, belief on the foundation of signs and wonder is not real, true belief; it is unbelief. The Pharisees did not believe because they saw the miracles, and they claimed it did not do enough. They declared they wanted more. For Herod, the miracles confused Herod, causing him to think more about John the Baptist and less about Jesus. Both the Pharisees and Herod saw and heard the miracles Jesus performed, yet none of them came to faith in Jesus. For belief to fully mature into faith, it must do so without the aid of signs.

8:16. The conversation shifts from the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod back to the bread, or rather, the lack thereof bread. This conversational shift may have come about in a few ways. First, the apostles could have merely ignored Jesus, focused too much on their provisions than listening to Jesus’s admonishment. Second, the disciples may have thought too deeply. They expect “leaven” to have a deep and complex figurative meaning, when in reality, they can take it more literally. Third, the term “leaven” (ζύμη, zymē) can simply be shorthand for “leavened bread,” which easily aids the transition from talking about leaven to talking about bread. Their “discussion” could have easily evolved into a debate about who to blame for lack of bread. Ironically, this puts the disciples in a worse position than the Pharisees or Herod, for quite a few reasons. First of all, the apostles had more of an insider view of all the miracles, whereas the Pharisees and Herod had to watch things from the outside, yet the disciples from the inside had the same faith as the Pharisees and Herod on the outside. Second, while the Pharisees and Herodians saw the signs and wonders. They wanted more. The Twelve, on the other hand, could not even recall the signs and wonders they had seen for themselves. For if they did, they would know that having one loaf of bread really did not cause that much of an issue.

8:17&18. For the third time in this account, the narrative brings up that the apostles did not have enough bread in the boat with them. Again, Mark here draws emphasis on their lack of supplies. As sharp as Christ’s reproach may seem, the disciples totally deserved it. Despite witnessing everything Jesus had done, they failed to understand what it really meant for the fourth time (see Mark 4:13, 6:52 and 7:18). Thus, this group of twelve disciples could easily belong with the Pharisees or Herod because they too saw and heard what Jesus did, but they could not perceive or understand what Jesus did. The inspiration for Christ’s rhetorical questions in Mark 8:17&18 comes from the major prophets, more specifically, Isaiah 6:9, Jeremiah 5:21 and Ezekiel 12:2. All three major prophets describe those outside God’s covenantal people as people who have eyes yet cannot see and who have ears yet cannot hear. This illustration has a clear meaning. The eyes have the job to see, so an eye that cannot see has no use. The ears have the job to hear. Ears that cannot here have no purpose. As a matter of fact, Isaiah does the best job with this wordplay in Isaiah 6:9. In Isaiah 6:9, Isaiah pretty much says, “They can see, but they can never say, ‘Oh, I see’ (as in “Oh I get it”); they can hear, but they are not listening.” In essence, the major prophets prophesy to their original audience, who are the people of Israel and Judah who are about to go into exile, that they have become a useless people in their covenant with God. Now Jesus uses the same words to describe the apostles. They have become useless disciples if they cannot perceive and understand what Jesus does. This must have pained Jesus, who had intentions for his disciples to both see and perceive and hear and understand, even if the outside crowd could not (see Mark 4:12&13). Jesus desired to make the disciples the inside group, yet they acted like the outside group.

8:19&20. Just in case the disciples truly forgot what they saw and heard, Jesus quizzes them on two miracles, more specifically, the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand. Jesus hopes that by knowing the facts, the apostles can comprehend what happened and apply it to their lives. Clearly, the disciples have not forgotten, as they ace their test! In reality, though, the Twelve did not ace their test; they actually failed it because they did not get what the miracles meant! Remember that this narrative centers around the lack of bread. Jesus precisely picks the miracles of feeding the five thousand and feeding the four thousand because they too deal with bread. If Jesus can feed five thousand men with five loaves and have twelve baskets of leftovers, and if Jesus can feed four thousand with seven loaves and have seven baskets of leftovers, then Jesus can feed thirteen adult men (the twelve disciples plus Jesus) with one loaf of bread. The clear moral of the story for both the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand is that Jesus is Yahweh Yireh (you probably know it as “Jehovah Jireh”), the Lord who provides, yet the disciples did not get that because they act like they will run out of provisions. Again, the disciples act just like those outside. They got caught up so much in what Jesus did that they did not get what Jesus meant. More specifically, they got too caught up in what Jesus did and missed who Jesus was.

8:21. This account on the life of Jesus concludes again with a rhetorical question, and it also addresses the apostles’ ability to understand. Thus, the rhetorical question becomes a call for the Twelve to deepen their discipleship with Jesus. They should not merely see and hear what Jesus does; they should perceive and understand who Jesus is. Note also how the rhetorical includes the two words “not yet” in the middle. This wording provides hope that the disciples will eventually and ultimately understand.

Exiting this account of the life of Jesus, the context brings even more light to the narrative. This pericope takes place between two miracles: one in which Jesus makes a deaf man hear (7:31-37) and the other in which Jesus makes a blind man see (8:22-26). This context gives the reader hope that Jesus can make the spiritually deaf disciples hear and the spiritually blind disciples see. Even more fitting, Mark 8 closes with Peter’s confession of Jesus as Christ, for it will demonstrate that the disciples did take that call to perceive and understand who Jesus is seriously.

After studying this story, the question remains, “How do modern-day disciples of Jesus make sure they do not fall into the same mistake as Jesus’s twelve disciples back then?” Three applications will help safeguard twenty-first century disciples of Jesus from becoming like the first century disciples of Jesus.

First, see and hear what God has done! Unfortunately, no Christian today can see and hear firsthand the works of Jesus like the twelve apostles did. Fortunately, today’s Christians do have a very reliable account of the works and words of Jesus, the four Gospel books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Nobody can perceive unless that person first sees, and no one can first understand unless that person hears. Anybody who wants to perceive and understand what Jesus does in this world must start will seeing and hearing what Jesus did, as found in the Gospels. That not only applies to Jesus in the Gospels, but it also applies to God in the whole Bible. Take some time out of the day, whether in the beginning of the day before breakfast or at the end of the day before bed or any time in between, to read about what the Lord has done. The sixty-six books of the Bible are sixty-six love letters from the Lord. If you do not take the time to read those love letters your loving God gave you, then shame on you!

See and hear what God has done!

Second, marinate in the Word of God. Maybe I am just hungry for a nice steak, but I really think marinate is the best verb to describe what the Christian should do with the Bible. Sure you can quickly throw juices and spices on a piece of meat and throw it in the oven, but if you really want the most flavorful meat, you will let the meat sit in those juices and spices for hours, even days, before cooking it. The most professional chefs have marinating meat down a science to get the most flavorful meats. Believers need to have the same approach in their Bible study. Before I go on any further, let me quickly include a disclaimer. I know many brothers and sisters in Christ who do the read through the Bible in year, and they do it every year. Because they do it every year, their knowledge and wisdom on the Bible matches anybody who has graduated from a seminary. My only problem with reading through the Bible in a year comes down to the fact that it comes with a very strict schedule, and it can sometimes force a reader to move on to the next passage without making sure the reader has fully grasped what he or she had read in the prior passage. Bible quizzing, on the other hand, has the quizzer read over the same section over and over again for a whole week. This repetition leads to what I call “subconscious memorization.” Repeating the same chapter over and over again result in “accidently” remember it. Anyone inexperienced with Bible quizzing will watch one of the top quizzers quiz and think, “Wow, that quizzer must have memorized all those chapters!” Nope. The quizzer has merely repeated those chapters over and over again until it sunk into memory. That’s what happened to me. When I quizzed as a quizzer, I learned and memorized so much through mere repetition. Not only did I read the Scripture passage daily, but I also listened to it daily on an audio version of the Bible, which further cemented what I wanted to learn. I found this memorization by repetition so beneficial, even though I no longer quiz as a quizzer, I still practice it. Yes, from the beginning of the new year to the end of March, I read and listen to the same Bible passage over and over again. No matter how many times I see or hear the same Bible passage, I always pick up on a new detail. Try it yourself. The Holy Spirit may teach you things you never thought about in Bible stories quite familiar to you.

Marinate in the Word of God!

For a third application, read Mark 4:25. In Mark 4:25, Jesus says, “For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” Christians, like the Pharisees, sometimes wish that the Lord would just reveal God’s will for the Christian life from heaven, perhaps sun rays shining down from the sky, or maybe a choir of angels. Getting visions and dreams does sound cool, too, but the Lord will not hand out that kind of revelation unless the Christian has proven himself or herself faithful in the revelation God has provided for all people, the Bible. I will tell you that I have had dreams, in which the Lord wanted me to know something. For example, in 2019, I kept having a recurring dream that I missed the invitational Bible quizzing tournament in Ohio. Those dreams felt more like nightmares, often waking me up in night sweats or even tears. Back in 2019, I merely dismissed those dreams, but now that both the 2020 and 2021 invitational Bible quizzing tournament have been cancelled, I wonder if God wanted to warn me about the cancellation to prepare me for it. For certain, every time I had a dream in which the Lord wanted me to know something, it happened when I was on top of my Bible study and devotions. It all goes back to Mark 4:25. For the one who has Bible study and devotions, the Lord deems it fit to be given even more revelation. For the one who has no Bible study or devotion, not only does God take away unique revelation, that person will also miss out on what God wants to reveal to him or her in the Bible. Do not miss out on what God wants to speak to you. Cherish your devotional time, and you will find the Lord speaking to you.

Prior to Mark 4:25, in Mark 4:24, Jesus says, “Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you.” The Bible has revealed so much about God the Father and his Son Jesus. May believers all around the world prove themselves worthy to have it, not by merely seeing or hearing it, but by perceiving and understanding it.

Bibliography:

Guelich, Robert A. Mark 1–8:26. Vol. 34A. Word Biblical Commentary. Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1989.

Lane, William L. The Gospel of Mark. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974.