Mark 8: Being Conscious About What Kind of Yeast Leavens Our Lives

Mark 8 contains a collection of stories that mostly appear in both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of Luke, with some slight variation. Some of the phrases and teachings even make an appearance in the gospel of John. As we have mentioned previously, the gospel of Mark was probably the earliest to be written and distributed, especially considering that some of its stories are copied verbatim by the authors of Matthew and Luke. In Mark 8, we read of another feeding of the multitudes (or perhaps another story of the feeding of the multitude in Mk 6:30-44), a warning against following the teaching of the Pharisees, a healing story, and a famous altercation between the  Jesus and Peter characters. Since we have already considered the feeding of the multitudes and healing stories in some detail, we'll spend some time with the new material in the teachings of these verses. For now, we can concentrate on the first half of the chapter, specifically Mark 8:11-21.

The Pharisees appear once more to challenge Jesus by requesting a sign, some demonstration that he is more than just a Zealot rabble-rouser. He proclaims that there will be no sign forthcoming for his generation. In the gospel of Mark, that is the end of the discussion. No sign. Period. This, despite the claim that he was going about the countryside healing people left and right and feeding multitudes with miniscule amounts of food. So apparently these were not signs of anything spectacular. Most likely, this is because there were several so-called miracle workers running around in the first century. What exactly could the Pharisees have wanted if healing and wonder-working were commonplace enough to be inadmissible as evidence of divinity? That's not really the important question. No one can know what the Pharisees were really demanding or even if they ever actually confronted a historical Jesus. The question is placed by the author of Mark into the mouths of theoretical critics in order to prompt a theological answer: No signs for you.

In other words, according to the author of Mark, there is no proof and there will be no proof (for that generation at least) that Jesus is anything special. This answer wasn't good enough for the author of Matthew, who added the caveat,

except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nin'eveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. (Mt 12:39-42)

This "sign of Jonah" was also cited by the author of Luke (Lk 11:29-32), except that the gospel of Luke doesn't interpret this sign as an allusion to death and resurrection. Actually, one might assume that resurrection would have been a pretty serious sign of something to that generation. So, somewhere between the writing of the gospel of Mark and the writing of the gospel of Matthew, belief in a messianic resurrection must have become more widespread. The gospel of Mark doesn't even include any resurrection appearances after the passion narrative. This suggests that the beliefs and assertions of the Jesus cult were still evolving as the Bible was being written.

What good is it for a person to go around claiming to be a divine figure and then assert that there won't be any forthcoming evidence? As a theological assertion, the author of Mark may have been pointing to the humility of Jesus. Presumably, he is not out to draw attention to himself through performing miracles on demand, he is doing what he is doing for a different, more noble purpose. Perhaps the author of Mark was pointing to the ignorance and blindness of the Pharisees; the verse is followed by a strongly-worded criticism against that sect. There is also a deeper message here that rings true with human experience, though. If one wants to know a person's values or deeply held beliefs, one need only observe their actions. By corollary, then, if you want people to know what you believe and value, make sure your actions demonstrate those beliefs and values clearly.

The criticism the author of Mark has Jesus level at the Pharisees actually supports this truth as well. The author of Mark doesn't spell it out as clearly as the authors of Matthew and Luke, but the general warning is the same: Beware the yeast of the Pharisees and the Herodians. (The Herodians were another political cult in the first century, supportive of Herod the Great and his dynasty.) The passage in the gospel of Mark doesn't state why there was something amiss with the teachings of the Pharisees, but the author of Luke says it plainly when he relates this teaching: The Pharisees are hypocrites. In other words, they say one thing and do another. They claim to believe something that is not clearly demonstrated in their actions. And presumably following their teachings--allowing their "yeast" to bud and ferment in one's psyche and spirit--will lead to hypocrisy in one's own life.

There is a comparison happening in these parallel passages between signs and truth. People can be so impressed with astounding behaviors and unusual events that they can go chasing after personalities with only a shallow understanding of what that individual stands for. Jonah was a "sign" to the people of Nineveh not because he was vomited up on the beach after three days inside a big fish, but because he spoke boldly, passionately, and sincerely to them. The people of Nineveh still had to take personal responsibility for what they would do with Jonah's words, and that required them to weigh his message carefully and thoughtfully. They weren't just pursuing some new shiny distraction.

What the authors of the gospel suggested about Jesus was that he was not just a shiny distraction or a bit of entertainment or even a conquering general to drive back the Romans and reclaim Jerusalem. Perhaps Jesus represented a way of being that was more about integrity than it was about miracles, more about treating people with respect than about distracting people from their lives, more about growing people through empowering them than about growing a following by bedazzling them. In other words, the core of the message is about what ordinary people can do in relation to one another, not what people must rely on an extraordinary person to do for them.

That is not necessarily the Jesus message that is propagated throughout Christian circles today, but perhaps the quality of Christlike-ness is more about living with integrity in one's own life than it is about telling others how they must live. Perhaps our human social constructs have given us permission to practice hypocrisy, and that practice has spread like yeast through our habits, our relationships, and our ideals. Whatever we may believe about Jesus, it seems that at least some portion of the gospel message advocates understanding one's own self deeply, knowing and trusting in one's guiding principles and living by them with integrity, and actually valuing one's values enough to act in alignment with them. We do not need faith for that. We do not need miraculous proof. In fact, if we were to live like this--with intentionality and integrity in all our moments--we would be the sign, perhaps even enough of a sign to inspire others. That's worthwhile leavening.

Mark 7:1-23: Giving Up Righteousness in Favor of Connection

Returning to the gospel narrative of Mark, we find the character of Jesus confronted by his caricaturish nemeses, "the Pharisees and teachers of the law." As one would expect, Jesus not only repels their accusation, but turns their words and behavior back on them and sends them away soundly rebuked. The Pharisees in first century Judaism were something of a political party, religious sect, and social movement. They were often in conflict with the Sadducees, who were more aristocratic, largely controlled activities at the temple, and were cooperative with the Roman government. Although neither sect represented a majority of Jewish people, the Pharisees were more connected to the interpretation of Jewish spirituality in everyday life, and were thus more connected to the people than the elite Sadducees. After the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, it was the thinking of the Pharisees that most contributed to Rabbinic Judaism, which was the basis for most modern iterations of Judaism.

In the particular episode reflected in Mark 7:1-23, the Pharisees are challenging Jesus based on their understanding of purity laws. Through highly ritualized daily practices, the Pharisees kept their spiritual identities at the forefront of their thought, infusing all that they did with spiritual meaning. That was the idea, at least. Unfortunately, as the author of Mark points out, living a highly stylized life can leave something to be desired in terms of human value and ethics. The Pharisees advocated allowing people to withhold wealth and possessions from needy family members if that wealth was dedicated to the temple. It was a loophole that allowed people to excuse themselves from taking care of their families, and also allowed the church to accumulate wealth when those people died. In the meantime, people kept enjoying the "dedicated" resources. It was a system that fed into people's greed, which is just a specific kind of fear.

When the Pharisees challenged Jesus based on the fact that he didn't engage in all of the ceremonial behaviors they advocated, he levied this matter of Corban against them to demonstrate their hypocrisy. This was just one facet of a larger picture, however. Ultimately, the author of Mark suggests that the entire worldview of the Pharisees was skewed. Living in accordance to a personal code of purity does nothing to connect one to other people or to oneself. There are no bonus points in life for being borderline obsessive-compulsive about hand-washing. What actually matters is what one does with one's time and energy.

Brought into focus for the twenty-first century, the author of Mark is saying that it doesn't matter if you go to church, contribute to charities, pray before your meals, put the right bumper stickers on your car, read a devotional every morning, or engage in any other "spiritual" behaviors that ultimately might just make you feel good about yourself. What matters is what we do in the world, how we treat the people around us, what kind of a difference we make in other people's lives -- our fruit. All of the spiritual disciplines or holy habits that people might engage in can be fertilizer, but what matters most is what we produce in the practical realities of our lives. If we don't bear any meaningful fruit, all we've really got is a ton of fertilizer.

So, rather than pride ourselves in how well-behaved we are or how well we have colored inside the lines of our lives, our focus could be on how we respond to the opportunities we have to connect with other people and make a difference in the world -- even if that difference only seems to directly impact one other person. Helping one person's day go more smoothly might actually have a greater ripple effect than we will ever realize. But if we go through our lives willing to help one person's day go more smoothly, we are going to wind up having a positive impact on more than one person.

Being connected to ourselves is important too; we need time for introspection and we operate best when we are aware of our deep guiding principles. Those things are empty, however, if they never feed into an outward expression of the kind of people we most want to be in the world. We have the potential to create a world that is characterized by justice, equity, and compassion. It just requires being intentional about what we do, and perhaps shifting our focus away from being righteous and toward being connected.

The Rules by Which We Live, and What Matters More

Wending our way through the Gospel of Mark, the next several passages are short accounts of healing and conflict with the Jewish religious authorities of the day. (These accounts also appear in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, arranged to suit those authors' purposes.) Jesus heals a paralyzed man and forgives his sins, and the scribes call him a blasphemer. Jesus heals a man's hand on the Sabbath (a day set apart for rest in honor of Yahweh), and the leaders of a Jewish sect start plotting to kill him. In between these healing stories, Jesus is questioned about why he and his companions refuse to follow Jewish customs of avoiding contact with unclean people, honoring days of fasting, and respecting the Sabbath. The author of Mark has Jesus respond with some typical rabbinic sayings: "It isn't the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." "No one pours new wine into old wineskins." "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." These responses -- which were handed down through oral tradition among the Jewish teachers (rabbis) -- reflect something about what the author of Mark was trying to communicate in his portrayal of Jesus.

Pharisees were members of a Jewish sect who devoted their time to nuanced interpretations of Jewish law. Some of the situations in Mark are obviously contrived just so the author can make a point. It was not forbidden for beggars to pick grain and eat it on the Sabbath, for instance, but it provides an opportunity to have Jesus say something the author of Mark deemed important. There were Jewish thinkers who disagreed with Pharisaic interpretations, and there were other sects of Judaism in the first century with their own distinct views. By the time the author of Mark was writing, however, the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by Roman military response to a Jewish uprising, and the Pharisees had become a dominant voice among Jews that had been "dispersed" from Jerusalem. Their way of thinking offered the most robust way of living out the Jewish faith in the absence of a temple where legitimate sacrifices could be offered. Thus, when the author of Mark writes of conflict between Jesus and Jewish leaders, he is in effect portraying conflict between the Christian and Pharisaic sects of Judaism in the aftermath of the temple's destruction.

The Christian perspective portrayed in the gospel stories had their roots in rabbinic commentary -- interpretations of the Jewish scriptures by rabbis. There was a distinct spin put on these teachings to be sure, but the words attributed to Jesus by the author of Mark often were not novel. When one looks at the thrust of this collection of stories, the conflict between the Pharisees and Jesus is clearly about where one's focus should be in life. The Pharisees had an idea of how one should live -- a set of complex rules that defined as clearly as possible every nuance of righteous living. The Jesus of Mark was interested in something else -- a different, simpler rule of life that focused on other people rather than individual righteousness.

People like rules for more than one reason. Some people like to have a concrete measure of how wonderful they are, and a checklist of rules works well for this. Most people, however, use their own rules as a means of assessing other people. If I make it a rule that I will always obey the speed limit, I not only get to feel great about myself when I follow that rule, I also get to judge all the people around me who do not obey the speed limit. They are wicked, evil, miscreants because they are doing something of which I do not approve. Speed limits are actual laws, but we create our own rules about lots of things: how people should dress, how people should speak, how people should raise their children, what people should do with their money. We have an idea about the right way to handle every aspect of life, even when we don't live up to our own standards. The Pharisees ought to make perfect sense to us, when we think about it. We are constantly judging other people's behavior against our own standards.

The Jesus of the gospels throws a monkey wrench into this habit. Why would we let people wallow in unnecessary shame, when we have the power to forgive them and lift them up? Why would we only spend time with people who agree with us, when we have the opportunity to teach and learn so much more by spending time with people who are different? Why would we only spend time with people who have it all together in their own minds, when we can make the most difference in the lives of people who are desperately searching for their own sense of worth and hope? Why should we adhere to old ways of doing things at the expense of our own well-being and the well-being of other people around us? Of what value are all of our rules if we only use them as weapons?

In these stories, the author of Mark was saying something profound about what he thought Judaism -- and the Christian sect -- should stand for. People matter more than our rules. We rarely see this truth being lived out by churches of any faith in the twenty-first century, and we are most likely personally challenged by the statement. People matter more than our rules. Connecting with other people is more important than judging them and setting ourselves apart. Honoring other people as they are is more valuable than finding reasons not to care about them. Our lives are enriched when we let go of our own contrived mandates about how life ought to be lived and accept ourselves and other people as worthy, capable human beings. People matter more than our rules.


Consider your own rules. How do you judge yourself and other people? What would it be like to set those rules aside and see people as human beings with innate value? What artificial rule could you let go of right now and never miss? For me, rules about how people should drive would be high on the list, and rules about how aware people should be in crowded stores would rank up there, too. The importance we ascribe to insignificant things is just silly. Of course people matter more than our contrived rules. People matter. What an incredibly simple and challenging truth.