Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-august-7-2023
Mark 8:11-21
11 The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. 12 He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.” 13 Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.
14 The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. 15 “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”
16 They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.”
17 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
“Twelve,” they replied.
20 “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
They answered, “Seven.”
21 He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”
This isn’t a passage that many people would name as their favorite reading from the Bible, but like everything Jesus says, there is important wisdom here. It just takes a little digging to get at it.
In today’s passage, some Pharisees ask Jesus to provide “a sign from heaven.” As we know, he performed miracles all the time that are described in the gospels as “signs.” That term means that the miracles pointed to some reality beyond themselves. And we understand that reality to be the kingdom of heaven – the kingdom he had come to proclaim. So he performed miracles all the time, but Jesus always refused to do them just because people wanted to see one, or to prove that he could.
In the case of today’s story, it seems significant that the Pharisees ask Jesus for “a sign from heaven.” They apparently wanted Jesus to perform a miracle to prove that he had real authority from God. But of course, Jesus had no need to prove his authority, so he refuses the Pharisees’ request. Then he gets into a boat with the disciples and sails off.
It seems to me that Jesus wanted to avoid being known primarily as a performer of ‘signs and wonders.’ (That might be why he told so many people not to talk about their miraculous healings, and so on. Of course, lots of them just ignored him and told others anyway, which should probably come as no surprise.) Too much focus on the miracles would overshadow the real message Jesus had come to announce, which is that the kingdom of God had come near. Jesus performed miracles out of compassion for suffering people he encountered, and as previews of the kingdom he had come to proclaim. But not to impress or amuse people.
In today’s story, while Jesus and his disciples are traveling across the lake in the boat, Jesus says something to the disciples that confuses them. He warns them to, “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”
In the gospels, Jesus came into conflict with the Pharisees most often over his willingness to befriend sinners and “unclean” people that the Pharisees wanted nothing to do with. The Pharisees hated that – they thought Jesus was condoning sinful behavior by hanging around with sinners, eating dinner with them, etc. You might remember that they called him “a friend of sinners,” which they apparently thought was an insult. But of course, Jesus didn’t take it that way. He said it was for those sinners that he had come into the world.
When you think about it, the real heart of Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees was their self-righteousness. Because they strictly kept the law of Moses, the Pharisees regarded themselves as morally superior to everybody else. That led them to be self-righteous and hypocritical. And that, I think, is the “yeast” Jesus was talking about.
The reason he used the metaphor of yeast is that once it’s introduced into a lump of dough, yeast spreads itself throughout the whole lump. Jesus was warning his disciples against allowing the Pharisees’ hypocrisy to be introduced into the church.
“Well,” you might say, “it’s a good thing those of us who follow Jesus aren’t self-righteous hypocrites like the Pharisees.” But of course, that’s exactly the problem. Because as soon as we say that, as soon as we judge ourselves superior to the Pharisees, then the yeast of self-righteousness and hypocrisy has begun to infect us, just as it infected them.
One of the hardest aspects of the life of faith is guarding against thinking ourselves more righteous than those who don’t follow Jesus — or who follow him differently than we do. The best protection against self-righteousness, it seems to me, is to remind ourselves daily that we are sinners saved only by the grace of God.
One way to keep that in mind is to daily pray a traditional prayer known as ‘the Jesus Prayer’: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” That simple prayer helps to remind us of the real nature of our relationship with God in Jesus: our dependence on the grace of God, which is defined as a favor we could never earn by our own righteousness. And keeping that grace in sight helps to prevent the yeast of self-righteousness from taking hold in our life.
By the way, there’s also the strange part of this reading where Jesus mentions yeast and the disciples think he’s worried about them having brought no bread. They miss the point entirely that he’s trying to make. But Jesus tells them to quit worrying about having no bread – even the leftovers from his miraculous acts will be enough to provide for them.
So as we said at the beginning, this passage is a little confusing at first glance, but when you look closer, there really are some meaningful things that are especially worth reflecting on in this reading.
Let’s pray. Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us, sinners. Amen.
Blessings,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 111 and 112; II Samuel 7:1-17; and Acts 18:1-11. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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