In God’s Kingdom, There Is More than Enough for Everyone!
“In God’s kingdom, there is more than enough for everyone!” – May 26th, 2024 (Mark 8)
Introduction
Paul and I were twenty-two and basking in the glow of our wedding three days earlier. Madly in love and full of excitement at the start of our New Zealand honeymoon adventure, we paid little attention to our rental car agreement which noted that our liability would be voided if we drove on Skippers Canyon Road. Paul was a decent swimmer, and I was determined to overcome my fear of water. We had no experience or even knowledge of white-water rafting but naively purchased tickets to shoot the Shotover River grade 4-5 rapids (recommended skill level: full mastery of rafting) (transportation and lunch included).
The only way to reach our launching point was to be driven in a four-wheel drive along this road that, one of the 22 most dangerous in the world. We grew alarmed as the driver seemed to take the tight curves on this narrow, unsealed gravel path cut into the sheer cliff face way too casually. Our feet reached for invisible brake pedals in the hopes that the driver would opt for a much slower and safer speed, especially because of the notable absence of any metal guardrails at the edge of the huge drop to our river in the ravine hundreds of meters below.
Largely immobilized by terror, we made no photographic record of our day in those incredibly beautiful surroundings, counted among the most scenic destinations in the world. By the time we reached the river, all fears related to rafting evaporated. We almost kissed the ground in gratitude for God’s amazing grace as our shaky legs tumbled us out of the vehicle. Grilled burgers restored our strength, courage, and determination. We dutifully donned our wetsuits, helmets, and lifejackets, perched with our paddles on the periphery of the raft, and zipped through the thrilling and thrumming rapids. Well before we reached it, we saw and braced ourselves for the longest rapid, a four-meter drop into a swirling cauldron. There was no turning back!
Today we’re going to read the first 21 verses of Mark chapter 8 (again, I encourage you to read Mark 8 in its entirety this week). We’re going to discover that there was a point of no return for Jesus and his followers, beyond which they were committed to going down the rapids ahead. The gospel writer paints for us three vignettes – a crowd, a clash, and a caution.
Crowd
We read the first vignette, about a crowd, in Mark 8:1-9 (NRSV) –
“1 In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2 ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance.’ 4 His disciples replied, ‘How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?’ 5 He asked them, ‘How many loaves do you have?’ They said, ‘Seven.’ 6 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7 They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8 They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away.”
Jesus loves people. It’s a beautiful thing to read that when Jesus notices that a great crowd has no food, he has compassion on them. He could have just told his disciples how to solve that problem. Because Jesus also loves teaching, he leads them along a line of thinking to awaken them a bit. Only a short time before, they’d experienced a hungry crowd in the desert. That first time, Jesus had told his disciples, “You give them something to eat.” Five thousand men all ate and were filled with just five loaves and two fish (Mark 6:34-44). The disciples hadn’t just observed a miracle; they had been an active part of it. It does feel like the disciples had quickly forgotten the miracle that Jesus had done with them! Here we have, just two chapters later, another hungry crowd in the desert. And again, Jesus does another astounding miracle by feeding many people with a very small amount of food. Let’s pause right there – we will come back to more details of this story a little later.
Clash
That brings us to the second vignette, about a clash, in Mark 8:10-12 (NRSV) –
“10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. 11 The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. 12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.’”
Have you noticed how often in the Gospels people followed Jesus around? The disciples followed Jesus because he had called them, “Follow me,” and they knew it was a great honor to be accepted by a Rabbi. The disciples wanted to learn from their teacher and to be like him. Eventually, at least some of the disciples began to realize that their Rabbi was the Messiah, the Savior of Israel and the Savior of all the nations.
Crowds of people followed Jesus all over the place, too. Miracle stories spread quickly, so that would have been a big draw. Some in the crowd probably followed Jesus around because they wanted healing. Others in the crowd might have followed Jesus around because they were amazed at his teaching and wanted to hear more. There were probably some in the crowd who hoped that Jesus would be their new king who would free them from their oppressors. Likely there were others who tagged along with the crowd because it was a crowd, just as we do when we slow down to see what’s happening any time even a small crowd gathers.
Then we have the Pharisees. Why did they follow Jesus around? They weren’t interested in learning from Jesus as a teacher. The gospel writer tells us in Mark 8:11 that they “came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him.” The Pharisees weren’t interested in Jesus’ miracles or teaching. They had definitely noticed that Jesus taught with authority and had power over sin and sickness, and even death. And they were threatened by that. The Pharisees were interested in promoting their own kingdom, a kingdom in which they appeared to worship God but, in reality, they were mostly interested in their own power and authority. They were looking for a way to get rid of Jesus. So, they followed Jesus in order to trap him, to justify their evil plans against him. While the Pharisees proclaimed rules and regulations, Jesus proclaimed and demonstrated the kingdom of God, which encompasses the fullness and vastness of God’s great love for all people and all of creation. Every other kingdom distorts, damages, or destroys God’s all-encompassing vision for his world. We find it hard to imagine how the Pharisees could see or even hear large numbers of eyewitness testimonies about such incredible miracles and still refuse to believe that Jesus was who he said and showed that he was. That shows us how much power can distort our ability to see clearly. Jesus refused to play games with the Pharisees. Considering that he had literally just given them a huge sign, he responds with a deep sigh and frustration. Jesus basically says that there will be no more signs from heaven, because there are signs on earth. Jesus had taught his disciples to pray for God’s kingdom to come, for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). The earthly signs that Jesus had just done, not just once, but twice miraculously feeding many people with just a little bread, pointed to a kingdom in which there is enough for all. The kingdom that the Pharisees wanted to maintain was for a select few. In the kingdom of God, everyone is invited, everyone is welcomed. Everyone can eat and be filled.
Caution
We read our third and final vignette, about a caution, in Mark 8:13-21 (NRSV) –
“13 And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he went across to the other side. 14 Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, ‘Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.’ 16 They said to one another, ‘It is because we have no bread.’ 17 And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ They said to him, ‘Twelve.’ 20 ‘And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?’ And they said to him, ‘Seven.’ 21 Then he said to them, ‘Do you not yet understand?’”
This vignette takes place on a boat but is all about bread! The original language contains important clues that are obscured in our English translations. In the original Greek, Mark 8:14 says that the disciples had forgotten to take “loaves” (plural) and that they had with them in the boat only “one loaf” (singular). It is as the disciples were discussing the fact that they had no loaves that Jesus cautions them to watch out and to “beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.” The disciples did not understand. They seem a bit clueless as they focused on literal loaves. Who knows, maybe they were worried about their next meal?
Jesus, ever the careful and patient teacher, asks them some very particular questions, apparently to get the disciples to say out loud the numbers twelve and seven. These symbolic numbers should have tipped the disciples off to Jesus’ point here. The gospel writer Mark has crafted both the content and the placement of these vignettes very deliberately, so that we who read his gospel can better understand what the kingdom of God is like. Before Jesus came, table fellowship was exclusive. Only the elite were invited. Only the few were welcomed. Gentiles, slaves, and females were all explicitly excluded. Jesus ushered in a new social order in the kingdom of God, such that now “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Jesus’s kingdom project of reconciliation brings all people together into one indivisible humanity. Jesus came to break down all barriers, all of the dividing walls of hostility. There is no “us” and “them” in the kingdom of God. The love of God knows no boundaries. In the cross and in the suffering of Christ, different individuals are united into one body. Mark wants us to notice that although there is enough bread for the journey, there is only one loaf – Jesus! Jesus is the one loaf, the bread of life (John 6:35). In God’s kingdom, there is more than enough for everyone!
Even though we live in a data-obsessed culture, particular numbers are not usually that significant to us. Also, as often happens when going from one language to another, some of the nuances in the original text get lost in translation. Jesus’ first miraculous crowd feeding features the numbers 5 and 12, numbers that were significant to Hebrew readers. There were five loaves for 5000 men, with leftover broken pieces collected in 12 baskets, kophinos, small wicker hand baskets used for carrying food. Jesus’ second miraculous crowd feeding features the numbers 7 and 4, numbers that were significant to Greek readers. There were seven loaves for 4000 people, with leftover broken pieces collected in seven baskets, spuris, large flexible hampers in which people carried provisions (large enough for an adult – this is the same type of basket used to lower Paul over a wall in Acts 9:25). Even if you just broke the biggest imaginable loaf of bread straight into a person-sized basket, would it even fill it? There’s no oven big enough to bake that massive a loaf, just saying! Jesus wants his followers, then and now, to know, understand, and live in the reality that in God’s kingdom, there is more than enough for everyone!
They did not yet understand
Why didn’t the disciples get what Jesus was saying? Why did they insist on taking his warnings about the yeast of the Pharisees literally? It’s not as if this was Jesus’ first use of metaphorical language. Perhaps it was because they were used to life characterized by oppression and powerlessness and had gotten used to automatically resisting whatever was said. Jesus had sighed deeply at the Pharisees. But Jesus was a careful and patient teacher, and he tries to lead them into a deeper understanding of who he is and what he’s doing. Yet we can sense his understandably human reaction, that after using every conceivable tool at his disposal, after showing, telling, and explaining things again and again and again … the disciples still didn’t get it. We have a lot of current and former teachers in the room. I’m guessing we each have some kind of sorrowful “look” that our students recognize (whether we realize we’re doing it or not), when we’ve tried every which way to explain something for the umpteenth time … and they still don’t get it. Jesus was fully human, and I’m guessing he had one of those looks on his face, too, by the end of this conversation on the boat!
In Mark 8:18, Jesus references Jeremiah 5:21 in speaking of eyes that don’t see and ears that don’t hear. With our sarcastic sensibilities, we might imagine that Jesus is saying, “I can’t believe how blind you are.” But no! Jesus is lovingly warning his disciples that they were in the same kind of danger that the Israelites had been in when Jeremiah had spoken that prophecy. The people of Jeremiah’s day had gotten so caught up with their own concerns that they’d stopped listening to God and had grown blind to the injustice and wickedness in their society. God warned them very clearly that whomever or whatever they worshiped would have power over them, giving them freedom to choose whom they would serve. This is the same warning Jesus gives his disciples. We can’t simultaneously serve the kingdom of God and some other kingdom. We have to choose whom we are going to serve!
In our whitewater rafting experience, Paul and I learned firsthand that there’s a point of no return after which you’re committed to going down the rapids. In Mark 8, Jesus is pointing out the rapids that lie in the not-too-distant future. He knows that the clashes with the Pharisees and with Herod are not just differences in personalities or opinions. They are the clashes of kingdoms. In Mark 8:15, Jesus cautions his disciples that the Pharisees and Herod were the most hostile opponents in Galilee to God’s kingdom project of reconciliation for all people. The Pharisees were interested in God setting up a kingdom for the benefit of only a very small number of elite and strict keepers of the law. Anyone who opposed them was excluded from community. Herod was interested in his family being a sort of royal family, doing whatever would win him brownie points with Rome. Anyone who opposed him was disposed of (like John the Baptist). Jesus is warning his disciples of the “yeast” which could distort and damage the delicate emerging community of the “one loaf.” Both the Pharisees’ and Herod’s visions of kingdom acted like yeast in spreading structures of segregation. Their kingdoms were incompatible with the kingdom of God for all that Jesus proclaimed and demonstrated. The Pharisees and Herod all had a lot of social and economic power, and they had no intention of giving up any of that power. This is why they were alarmed by and actively began to oppose Jesus’ expanding teaching, practices, and societal influence. These clashes of kingdoms with religious and Roman leaders were clear indicators to Jesus of the rapids ahead. Although the disciples had periodic glimpses of who Jesus really was, they mostly thought he was a healer, a prophet, a charismatic leader, and a good teacher. One day they would understand and believe that Jesus was the Messiah who was to come, the Savior of all. Jesus saw the rapids and warned them, but they did not yet understand. This clash of kingdoms would continue and intensify, reaching its climax in the final confrontation – Jesus’ crucifixion.
Making space and inviting in
Jesus proclaimed and demonstrated the good news of God’s kingdom. This good news is that God turns toward the world and invites and welcomes all of hostile humanity, all of God’s image-bearers, all of us, into God’s embrace. As we receive God’s embrace and believe that God’s love is greater than all sin, we become free to see ourselves and our own sinfulness in the light of God’s justice. As we understand and believe that because of Jesus Christ’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection, God will set things right in the end. Because we believe that no injustice is eternal, we are free to see the humanity of others, and we become free to love others as God loves them. We celebrate God’s “making-space-for-us-and-inviting-us-in” each time we participate in the body and blood of Christ in Communion. When we come to the Communion table each week, we remember Jesus’ words, “Take, eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26) and “This is my body that is for you” (1 Corinthians 11:24). Each time we partake of the body and blood of Christ, we are united with Christ by the Spirit, and we are drawn into the life of the triune God. And as we receive God’s embrace for ourselves, we can hear God’s words to us and freely offer them to others, “There is room at Christ’s table for you!” We are empowered to make space for others in ourselves and to invite them in, even enemies. In God’s kingdom, there is more than enough for everyone!
Three kingdom clashes
To apply what we’ve talked about today, let’s consider three kingdom clashes that we are repeatedly warned about in Scripture and in church history: money / wealth, sex / purity, and power / authority. Biblical scholar and Episcopal priest Wil Gafney assures that “money, sex and power are not inherently evil or sinful.” But she goes on to invite us towards good “stewardship and accountability and … to move beyond the polite politics of respectability and the various closets of shame to frank public and private conversation.”
Wealth: Perhaps we are tempted to be wowed by the god of wealth. Jesus clearly said we can’t serve both God and wealth. Does that mean we shouldn’t own anything? Not at all. The key word here is “serve,” which speaks of devotion, freely choosing to give over our rights and privileges to govern ourselves. It’s about surrendering our will to God. How could we willingly serve two separate bosses simultaneously? How could we travel in two separate directions simultaneously? We might think we can pull that off, but, as Jesus said, we can not – it’s impossible. Jesus is describing reality for us. If we try to serve both God and wealth, we will end up being devoted to one and despising the other. Jesus had a lot to say about money, and particularly about giving. Some churches emphasize tithing, which is an Old Testament law. Remember that Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law (Matthew 5:18). John 5:39 shows us that all of scripture points to Jesus, the Word of God, the source, center, and fulfillment of life! When it comes to giving, Jesus emphasized outward-facing generosity, especially towards those on the margins of life. If we limit the definition of giving to an Old Testament law like tithing, then we run the risk of leaning too far towards either hoarding or nepotism. Hoarding is hiding or overly guarding an accumulation of wealth for preservation or future use that goes beyond what we need. Nepotism is showing favoritism to our own family, group, or tribe over and above caring for those we deem to be outsiders or enemies. Theologian Miroslav Volf warns us that “devotion to wealth and hatred of the enemy are sins of which the followers of Jesus must repent.” Giving generously to the poor and caring for those in distress without favoritism will break the power of hoarding and nepotism over us. In God’s kingdom, there is more than enough for everyone!
Purity: Perhaps we are tempted to put our idea of purity on a pedestal. Jesus touched people he shouldn’t have touched, ate with sinners, ignored ritual hand washing, overlooked Sabbath regulations, and so forth. New Testament professor David deSilva says that in Mark and the other gospels, “God’s authorization of Jesus (at the baptism and transfiguration) and his vindication of Jesus (at the resurrection) gave Jesus the authority to redefine the sacred purity regulations of Judaism, even to rewrite the very maps laid out in the Torah itself.” Jesus tore down the barriers of exclusion: no one was too marginal or too impure to receive his care. Jesus was not defiled by touching a leper or an unclean woman or a corpse. People who encountered Jesus went forth healed, cleansed, restored to community, and even restored to life! We must guard against the pursuit of false purity, which hypocritically seeks to exercise control over the freedom, will, or thought of others and is dominated by a mindset of segregation and exclusion and a fear of being polluted. DeSilva points out that Jesus taught that “true purity is a matter of the heart – guarding not what enters the body from outside but what defiles it from within.” We are indeed called to be a distinctive people, holy to the Lord. We also need to pay attention to the lines that the New Testament authors provide. They model for us that there are reasons and times to cross purity lines and times to build these lines. DeSilva defines the emerging principle: “ridding oneself of ethical vice is a necessary cleansing and increasingly the only purification that God requires.” Jesus calls us away from thinking of “purity” as rules about other people’s diets, practices, or relationships, and, instead, to enact what Jesus did, “a conceptualization of holiness as mercy, love, and compassion.” We may need to rethink our ideas of purity and adjust our attitudes wherever we discover that we have valued our cultural maps more than the work of Jesus. In God’s kingdom, there is more than enough for everyone!
Authority: Perhaps we are tempted to adulate some kind of earthly authority, such as a political leader, a talk show host, or someone who’s made it big in sports or music. It might even be a non-human authority like laws or rules or technology or AI. If we give too much allegiance to an authority, if we overly elevate something or someone, we risk repeating the devastating misuse of power in churches, families, workplaces, communities, and societies. We need to be especially alert whenever and wherever a power differential exists, which can result in greater vulnerability for less empowered persons. Jesus’ caution about yeast still applies to us today, to beware of whatever threatens to spread structures of segregation. Instead of too easily following someone’s direction or too naively believing someone’s claims, we would do well to pause and consider, “What would love do?” Romans 13:10 says that “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” It takes courage and grit to do the most loving thing in any given situation. Love means sacrificial giving. Love necessitates speaking up for those treated unjustly. Love takes us out of our comfort zones. Love urges us to break rules sometimes. Love necessitates going against the tide. Love requires us to speak truth to power. In God’s kingdom, there is more than enough for everyone!
Maybe Jesus is speaking to you today about a crowd, a clash, or a caution. Maybe the Holy Spirit is moving you towards a different mindset when it comes to wealth, purity, or authority. In God’s kingdom, there is more than enough for everyone! What is God’s invitation for you today?
