Mark for Lent 19
Jesus Feeds Four Thousand (Matthew 15.32-39)
1One day another large crowd gathered around Jesus. They had not brought along anything to eat. So Jesus called his disciples together and said, 2″I feel sorry for these people. They have been with me for three days, and they don’t have anything to eat. 3Some of them live a long way from here. If I send them away hungry, they might faint on their way home.”
4The disciples said, “This place is like a desert. Where can we find enough food to feed such a crowd?”5Jesus asked them how much food they had. They replied, “Seven small loaves of bread.” [a]
6After Jesus told the crowd to sit down, he took the seven loaves and blessed them. He then broke the loaves and handed them to his disciples, who passed them out to the crowd. 7They also had a few little fish, and after Jesus had blessed these, he told the disciples to pass them around.
8-9The crowd of about four thousand people ate all they wanted, and the leftovers filled seven large baskets.
As soon as Jesus had sent the people away, 10he got into the boat with the disciples and crossed to the territory near Dalmanutha. [b]
A Sign from Heaven (Matthew 16.1-4)
11The Pharisees came out and started an argument with Jesus. They wanted to test him by asking for a sign from heaven. 12Jesus groaned and said, “Why are you always looking for a sign? I can promise you that you will not be given one!” 13Then he left them. He again got into a boat and crossed over to the other side of the lake.
Copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society
March 19th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
The disciples, a thick lot at the best of times, were obviously unaware of how entrepreneurial street pedlars of fast food can be. If there’s a market they’ll find it. And so after the street vendors had made a healthy profit and everyone had eaten to their hearts’ content, the disciples were left to clean up the rubbish while Jesus shooed the crowd away.
Exhausted after collecting seven baskets full of rubbish, Jesus still insisted they cross the lake in the boat. “But you don’t like the pharisees, Jesus” the disciples said, “Are you sure you want to go there”. Like Andy in “Little Britian”, Jesus insisted. Only to leave again as soon as an argument broke out. Back across the lake in the boat.
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:11 am
So out in the area of the Decapolis (10 cities in Greek) a large crowd comes around and after a few days need to be fed. The disciples fail to be focussed on feeding the crowd, the offereing, the blessing, the breaking the, instrucitons to sit in groups, the sharing, the abundance, the baskets of left overs. Hey haven’t we heard this story before - back on the west side of the lake?
I thought it was funny the disciples saying ‘This place is like a desert’. The gospel told us in the opening lines that it was precisely in the desert that the voice cries out and prepares the way of the Lord.’ Mark seems to be saying the desert in a good place, when everyone else - including the disciples - knows that the desert is a bad place. Mark’s story of Jesus is so Topsy Turvey.
Keiren I agree there is a significant gap in the story. There is no clear explanation of where the food came from. I’m not sure that fast food vendors is consistent with the rest of the narrative flow, but hey, there is no denying Mark has left it a little open to speculation. Personly I like the progression of the discilpes saying first off “there is nothing here send everyone away” Then “Well I suppose we do have a bit of bread” and then “O yeah and we have some fish” if that kept going and everyone shared what they did have there could probably be enough to share around. Pity it doesn’t work like that in the real world - does it?
Seven baskets left over, and back across the lake to the grassroots Jewish heartland where the grassroots Jewish Pharisees are waiting to ambush. They try to trap Jesus with well planned logical questions about whether or not he can really do miracles. Ah I love Jesus’ bluntness here “NO! Suffer in your jocks!” nad then he leaves.
(Kind of the way John Howard trounces all over the oppostion in question time when they ask him long winded loaded questions about is he aware of some report that claimed bla bla and is he ashamed of yadda yadda . To which he stands says “To the first part yes and the second part no.” and then sits down again.)
If the Pharisees were actually concerned with seeing God’s power displayed in feeding the hungry, I wonder why they weren’t out in the desert where the Jesus - food miraculous action was happening? I guess we will never know.
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:13 am
PS Just in case you missed it, that story was about food, and who gets to eat.
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:21 am
Do you mean this story was about food or not?