Jesus and His Bible Part 5

The Disciples Miss the Point

Jesus declared all foods clean, and then he went into the Gentile region of Tyre. There he encountered the Syrian woman with the daughter oppressed by an evil spirit. After a dialogue with the mother, he healed the daughter. Then he and his disciples traveled to the region of Decapolis (still in Syria), where he healed a deaf person and enabled him to speak intelligibly. Then in chapter 8, the gospel of Mark records the second great feeding of a multitude, this time around 4,000 people, with 7 baskets of leftovers.These three miracles join with the healing of the Gerasene man to show Jesus taking his ministry into Gentile territories and to Gentile people. 

Afterwards, they crossed the Sea of Galilee to the west side, back into Jewish territory. There the Pharisees came out to argue with Jesus and to get him to give them a sign, which he refused to do. Jesus and his friends got back into the boat, and ended up in Bethsaida, home territory.

Now as they were heading back home, while Jesus was warning them about the Pharisees and the Herodians, using the metaphor of leaven, or yeast, the disciples began discussing the fact that they did not have enough bread. 

Jesus said to them: “Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened (dull, insensible) heart? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear?” (Mark 8:18). Do you not remember both feedings of the multitudes? With leftovers? Do you not yet understand? 

This rebuke is a quotation from the prophet Ezekiel, to whom God says: “Son of man, you live in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, ears to hear but do not hear; for they are a rebellious house” (Ezek. 12:2).  

The context in Ezekiel is this. Ezekiel is a prophet during the Babylonian exile of the Jews. He hears from God that he is to act out a parable among the exiles that relates to the Jews still in Jerusalem, and that parable means that they too will go into exile.  

The allusion to Ezekiel makes me think that Jesus is advising his disciples to observe his actions as if they were parables.  He has fed multitudes with a few loaves and fishes; he has freed those oppressed by evil; he has just given hearing and speech to a deaf man. He is about to give sight to a blind man. By this rebuke to their own sight and hearing, he invites his disciples to bring their imagination and intelligence to bear on what all this means, what these signs point to. 

In Matthew, the story includes the words that the disciples realized he was talking about the doctrine of the Pharisees, not literal leaven. And that doctrine was one which judged people for not following religious traditions, and which always needed one more attesting miracle to prove that Jesus was the one sent by God, the Messiah.