Looking Up

³⁰ The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. ³¹ Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

³² So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. ³³ But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. ³⁴ When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

³⁵ By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. ³⁶ Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”

³⁷ But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”

They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”

³⁸ “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.”

When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”

³⁹ Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. ⁴⁰ So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. ⁴¹ Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. ⁴² They all ate and were satisfied, ⁴³ and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. ⁴⁴ The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

I was struck immediately when I read the first verse of this passage by the title "apostle."  This is the first and only time in the gospel that Mark will use that name for the disciples.  In Greek, it means "the sent out ones" which is an appropriate description for the followers of Jesus who have just gone out to do the ministry Jesus has assigned them.  The church has generally reserved this title for the disciples in the period after the resurrection.  Usually, Jesus' speech at the end of Matthew known as the Great Commission is considered to be the sending out moment for the twelve then eleven (Judas having left).  Whether Mark, who has just completed telling about the disciples of John getting his body and Herod's concern that John has been raised from the dead, wants to foreshadow for his readers the resurrection of Jesus and the subsequent sending of the disciples or uses the word in a generic way or makes a slip referring to the disciples as they were when he was writing, I don't know.  But it is certainly an odd place to use this word which by Mark's time would have been very established as the way to refer to the post-resurrection disciples.

The returning disciples have a positive report to share all their successes, in a distinct contrast to Herod's banquet.  Jesus sends the disciples out without bread, in contrast to Herod's table heavy laden with food and wine, and now despite their success they return and the crowd is so large that they do not even have time to eat.  Herod, the king, has plenty of time to eat, but the needs of the world are so great that Jesus and the apostles go hungry.

Jesus sees that his disciples are wearing down and suggests that they get away for some quiet and rest.  They get on a boat to escape the crowd for a solitary place.  So far, Jesus has called disciples from a boat, had a boat at the ready, taught from a boat, gone to the gentile territory in a boat and now uses a boat in what turns out to be a futile attempt to evade the crowd.

The crowd outwits them and their attempt at a regenerating withdrawal is thwarted.  In fact, the crowd awaiting them is bigger than the crowd they left.  What will Jesus do?  The specific reason for going where he has is to escape the crowd.  Will Jesus refuse to land the boat?  Will he curse the crowd and tell them to go away and leave him alone?

Jesus reaction is not anger or disappointment but compassion.  They are like sheep without a shepherd, Mark says.  Or perhaps more accurately they are sheep with a shepherd who hear the shepherd's voice and respond.  Jesus puts thoughts of self-care to the side and addresses the need before him, teaching the crowd.

Quickly, the day passes unnoticed and as it begins to close, the disciples are concerned that everyone is getting hungry, but unlike Herod, they lack a banquet table to supply the crowd.

As they have before, the disciples bring what they perceive to be a problem to Jesus (What do these parables mean?  Do you not care if we drown?  How can you know who touched you?) but this time not with a question for they already have a plan.  They want Jesus to tell everyone to leave and go home since they don't have any food.  They appear to have done a study that tells them they are in an unfavorable location (remote) and it would be cost prohibitive (they can make everyone buy their own food) to meet this ministry need. They are not that different than we are.  We put together all sorts of plans and then ask Jesus to bless them rather than seeking God's leadership first.

Jesus, with a sly smirk I imagine, tells them he has a better idea.  Why don't you feed them?  The disciples have found the need and decided to solve it using human approaches.  They don't feed the crowd because they can't feed the crowd.  And they point out the obvious to Jesus--It is too expensive.

But Jesus directs them back to the crowd to see if there is any bread.  He tells them to "Go and see," which sounds similar to the invitation he gives the disciples to "Come and see."  Indeed, the issue of blindness permeates the gospels.  The blindness is not only literal but a blindness to the work of God.  When Jesus tells the disciples to see, he may be addressing their blindness to the possibilities of God acting in the world.

The disciples may have come back to Jesus discouraged or may have returned with an "I told you so" tone.  Five loaves, two fish--"Can we send them away now?"  But Jesus orders the chaos.  The crowd becomes an organized group at Jesus direction, sitting in distinct groups waiting for what will happen next.

The disciples have looked at the crowd and clearly described the problem.  They have looked around and come up with their solution.  But Jesus has told them to not just look but see.  When the loaves are brought to him, Mark tells us that Jesus does not look at the crowd or the meager resources.  The first places he looks is heavenward.  Then, he prays and breaks what he has to share.  And in that God's answer to the problem is revealed.  The people are fed, the leftovers collected and from the meager start there now is a basketful of leftovers for each of the twelve disciples. The disciples looked around, but Jesus looked to heaven.  What a different outcome than the one the disciples had planned for--not only enough food for the five thousand men (not counting the woman and children who were undoubtedly there as well) but they would not have to pay for their own dinner and had leftovers for tomorrow as well.