Reading Large Chunks of Scripture
Day 5/15
Mark 6:7-6:56

Jesus continues on the journey. The way that Mark tells the story I feel myself being dragged along with the action. He sends out his disciples in twos, giving them instructions on what to do, where to go and when to know when to move on. The story then shifts to the moving on from John the Baptizer to Jesus the Prophet. John, whom the people went out to along the Jordan to be fed spiritually, is replaced by Jesus to whom the people go out to and by whom they're fed both with teachings and food. Jesus then walk on water out to his disciples, whose hearts are hardened? Who don't recognize him? What's up with that? Were they short-sighted or just clueless? And then once landed on the far side of the lake, in foreign (Gentile or non-Jewish) land - the people go crazy, following Jesus around closer than the paprazzi follow Britney hoping not for a good shot, but for a chance to even touch them hems of his garments in order to receive some of his power.

I'm always struck by the story of the feeding of the 5,000. I served for a while in a church community in which many wanted to explain away, with rational scientific and logically plausible explanations, the miracles in the Bible. They insisted that everyone must of had enough food to eat that day. They just didn't want to share it. It always struck me that in that line of thought, the fact that Jesus by his words and presence insights gratitude and generosity in a small boy, through which over 5,000 people are convicted of their sinful greed and are moved to share what they have with everyone else, so much so that there are left overs. I always laugh remembering a conversation about this around a table when folks were being pushed to choose to believe in miracles or to reject them. It seems to me that walking on water is a piece of cake compared to trying to get 5,000 greedy people to become generous! Maybe that's why the disciples hearts were so hard?