II Talks Interrupted: Mark 6:30-44

A few more words of explanation about the method of bible study on which these studies are based. As its name, contextual bible study, indicates, it is based on ways of reading the bible developed in Latin America and taken up elsewhere in the world, not least in South Africa, during the struggle against apartheid. It is a method designed specifically for lay-people, not requiring any particular prior knowledge. We encountered it first through the work of the Institute for the Study of the Bible, Pietermaritzburg, through our encounters with Gerald West. That gave a specific context to the use of these methods, that of a commitment to the poor and marginalised in their struggle against forces of White racism and economic domination. Central to this commitment was a commitment to read the Bible with the poor and marginalised, to allow one's own subjectivity to be enlarged, transformed by hearing how these texts sound to others, to others who have a very different social location and cultural positioning. We have struggled to maintain the continuities with these commitments: we seek to read with all those who are committed to working for the overcoming of the divisions within our society. We have certainly had our eyes opened as we have read these texts with people in Glasgow's peripheral housing estates; in practice, as with the bible studies on which these present talks are based, we have very often been reading with people of a very similar cultural and social background. Nevertheless, even in that context, we are always conscious of the communal nature of the reading and the way this is enlightening and enriching. Hearing these texts filtered through the different life-experiences of people of different nationalities, gender, sexual orientation, faith journeys etc. leads one into unexpected ways and demonstrates the vitality of the biblical language to illuminate many different lives and situations.

Today's text we read at Lansdowne; it also was the central text for our recent Provincial Conference, where we worked through it in small groups (60+ facilitators working with 320 people) and where it was also taken up in the main addresses, notably in a very rich meditation by Archbishop Rowan.

6:30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 6:31 He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 6:32 And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. 6:33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. 6:34 As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. 6:35 When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; 6:36 send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat." 6:37 But he answered them, "You give them something to eat." They said to him, "Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?" 6:38 And he said to them, "How many loaves have you? Go and see." When they had found out, they said, "Five, and two fish." 6:39 Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. 6:40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. 6:41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. 6:42 And all ate and were filled; 6:43 and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 6:44 Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men .

The story of the feeding of the 5000 is introduced by the report of the disciples return to Jesus from their (successful) mission. They are all looking forward to having time and space to tell Jesus what has happened and looking forward to the warm glow of being praised and encouraged after their great experiences. Only, things around Jesus are – always? – too busy to allow them even to sit down for a meal. Jesus takes off with them to find a quiet space and again they are thwarted: the crowd have got there before them and Jesus is overcome by compassion.

A number of things stand out from this initial scene setting: again, things happen in an unprogrammed and unexpected way. Jesus' intention to go away on his own with the disciples is frustrated: the disciples' desire to have quality time with Jesus and to receive his encouragement and praise is left hanging irritatingly in the air; Jesus' compassion provides a dynamic to the story which makes for breaks in communication, for the abandoning of plans, for frustration and disappointment, which moves the conversation on in unexpected ways.

How then does it move: firstly Jesus' teaches the crowd, though, interestingly as so often in Mark, we learn nothing of the contents. We are left with yet another powerful picture of the huge hunger of the crowds for what Jesus has to offer, of their expectations of this strange charismatic figure who they are prepared to follow out into the wilderness, unprepared, without even a thought for food and shelter. And caught between this all compassionate leader and the infinitely hungry, leaderless sheep, are Jesus' disciples, sitting on their hands and still hoping that they'll get their moment with Jesus. At last they seize their opportunity: ‘send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat. But no: Jesus' compassion extends even to wanting to do the impossible, feeding all this crowd in the wilderness. Worse, he includes them – the disciples - in his plans: You give them something to eat. And at their protestations, he simply replies: ‘Go and see!' And out of this simple act of going and seeing what is there, identifying the gifts at their disposal among the crowd grows the great meal, the Eucharistic feast where the gifts are taken and broken, and life and celebration breaks out and the disciples are brought back into the circle of Jesus' compassion, no longer frustrated and indeed helpless outsiders, but actors and participators.

There's too much here to unpack it all: moreover, I can't read this text now without hearing all the many other things which were drawn into its orbit in our many conversations at our recent conference. So let me just pick out a few points.

Firstly, the sharp depiction of life in the church which this story of the disciples' frustrations with Jesus gives us. ‘The trouble with being in the church', said Rowan, ‘is that you collect all Jesus' friends', including ‘the tiresomely righteous', those oppressed by guilt and hatred. We can't draw boundaries around our communities as we would like and keep out those who don't fit, not even those who aren't as open-minded as us. There's a real problem for an inclusive church, committed to openness, grace and generosity if it is confronted by those who deliberately seek to suborn such an ethos. How is it to manage power without excluding but without being drawn into intolerance and bigotry?

Again: how are Jesus' disciples to live up to the enormous demands which the world makes on Jesus and God's agent? That may sound an odd question in a culture which doesn't seem to have much in the way of expectations of the church; but that is in no way to say that people do not have a deep hunger for the transcendent, for that which outstrips the trivial and the banal and which can fill their lives; for justice and peace and the strength to struggle against all that dehumanises. And how we are expected to meet such needs - just when we're looking for a bit of comfort from Jesus ourselves? The answer is to ‘go and see', to search out the ‘unconsidered gifts' in the church and indeed among those who come to us with such hunger. The greatest gift, (Archbishop Rowan again), is to make another a giver, to uncover the hidden gifts which can bring life to them and to us and bring us both into the circle of Jesus' compassion. Learning to recognise such gifts, to release them is the greatest gift.