Sun Kwak, “The Leaven Story”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig5Unyd_v1w

TEXT: Mark 8:1-21

[1] In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, [2] “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. [3] And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” [4] And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” [5] And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.” [6] And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. [7] And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. [8] And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. [9] And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. [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, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. [12] And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” [13] And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

[14] Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. [15] And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” [16] And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. [17] And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? [18] Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not 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 take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” [20] “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” [21] And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

SERMON: “The Leaven Story”

There’s a meme that I ran across some time ago. This man comes across this computer hacker in this comic. And the hacker lets out what’s intended to be this evil laugh — Muhahaha. And he’s laughing at one of his victims, saying — I have all of your passwords. To which this victim gives an unexpected response — Thank goodness! What are they?And I think that’s the picture that we hold to the disciples. That they’re forgetful people who were completely unaware of Jesus’ capabilities. And that this leaven that’s mentioned in our passage has to do with their forgetfulness. But I’m not so sure it’s just a memory thing — not to say that they, along with we, didn’t need reminders. Because we’re all spiritual amnesiacs, and we need a regular recalling of our identity and our origin story. Which is why on Sundays, our liturgy from call to worship all the way to the benediction is to reorient us to the story of the gospel. And that’s what Jesus is calling these disciples to do — not because they were forgetful of what he’d just done. But because our spiritual amnesia takes the form of wandering and drifting. I mean, how could they forget how he had just fed 5,000 with just a little boy’s lunch? I remember when Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in a game. Every time Kobe would start to go off, people were thinking — Is he going to score 81 again? It almost doesn’t make sense for these disciples who were right there administering the food to the hungry crowd — for them to forget about Jesus multiplying bread. Those who lived through COVID will never forget the uniqueness of that season of a global pandemic. Those near to the happenings of 9/11 will never forget the impact of that moment of terrorism. It’s not a memory thing as much as it is a calibration thing. And what Jesus is doing is calibrating their hearts to see the heart of the gospel. That it must be the gospel story, not politics, not ethnic heritage, not gender. But it has to be the gospel that centers and forms the people he feeds by his miraculous hands. Because from those hands that multiplied fish and bread will also come blood poured out through nails that pierced them. And it’s the blood that cleanses and doesn’t discriminate but is unequivocally for every sinner who comes with empty hands in trust.

Now, there’s some scholarly debate about the legitimacy of our story today, with some arguing that this is an accidental double. These scholars, from more liberal theologically speaking perspectives, say that this event of Jesus feeding the four thousand is not another event but the accidental retelling of the same event that we see in chapter 6. And the reason they reach this conclusion is due to the similarities they find in the two passages. And you don’t have to be a scholar — liberal or conservative — to spot out these similarities. They’re throughout the passage. There’s obviously the multiplying of bread, there is the mentioning of the desolate place, along with Jesus’ compassion on the crowd, there’s the leftover bread, there’s the fish along with the bread. But the problem with saying that these are the same event captured in two different chapters is that, for one, Jesus could have done the same exact thing if he wanted to. He healed many people — paralytics, lepers, the blind. And he did these miraculous things many times, so why wouldn’t he be able to do the same thing again here? But secondly, the details are different. And this is important. It’s not 5,000 but 4,000. And it’s not twelve leftover baskets but seven. And it’s as they travel to this place called the district of Dalmanutha. And these, as we’re going to note are significant details. There are similarities but also enough differences to conclude that these are indeed distinct events that served distinct purposes.

Because what Jesus is doing is going straight at the heart of these who might align with Pharisaic thinking. You get these Pharisees asking for a sign from the sky after this incident of Jesus multiplying bread. And what we’re directed to is the story of manna from Exodus 16. This is right after God had liberated his people from the Egyptians. And in this nothing place, God drops this sweet bread from the sky to feed his hungry people. And so, this is the story of all the stories for the Jews. And so, here’s what’s perplexing for the Pharisees. On the one hand, Jesus is not only crossing over to Gentile territory, but he was seemingly repeating an event similar to what had happened to the Jewish crowd back in chapter 6, when he fed the five thousand. In John’s parallel account of the feeding of the five thousand, he writes that these Jews were trying to make him king, because this was a national story for them. You think about it. The last time they saw this in this remarkable way was when God delivered them from Egypt and made them into a nation. And here, they might be thinking the same thing. But what’s perplexing to the Pharisees and to nationalistic Jews was that Jesus was seemingly sharing this story with the Gentiles. And in a sense, they’re saying that it wasn’t his to share. After all, it wasn’t him who had gone through these 430 years of slavery. And it certainly wasn’t the Gentiles. And so, why would he share this with these non-Jewish people who didn’t share their history?

The answer that Jesus gives is with how he uses the word leaven. Because this was also a word heavily attached to Israel’s rescue story. One of the seven feasts that were instituted to help remember the story of the exodus was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the whole idea was about complete disassociation. After having been enslaved for 430 years, the Jews had adopted and even embraced practices and ways of life from the Egyptians. But what the Feast of Unleavened Bread showed was that if you have even a little lump from the previous lump with leaven, the leaven would carry over. The only way to have unleavened bread is if you started over completely with a brand new lump. And the fact that Jesus is telling these Pharisees that the leaven is with them was showing them it was actually they that had to disassociate. That because they were missing the point, they weren’t able to disassociate with the tyranny of an oppressive ruler — one greater and more permanent than the rule of Pharaoh.

Because what Jesus is showing is the universal sharing of this condition. You note the number that’s emphasized over and over. It’s the number seven. It has to do with the leftovers. And you might recall that from chapter 6, when Jesus fed the Jewish crowd, it was twelve baskets leftover. And this would have directed people’s attention to the twelve tribes of Israel. But with the number seven, there is a more universal aspect to it. You see details like the seven days of creationand the seven churches in Revelation — the universal church, commentators say. Here, Jesus is directing attention to a greater liberation and a greater story. So, Tom Wright notes in his book The New Testament and the People of God that what brought the people together in the New Testament church was the same thing that brought the people together in the Old Testament — the story of rescue and deliverance. That the story of the cross and empty tomb was so compelling it joined a people of difference together toward this transnational religion called Christianity. But as Tom Wright notes, stories are a basic constituent of human life. And again, it’s the same thing that brought the Old Testament people together to be formed and shaped as a newly formed gathering of clay. That post-Exodus, these people were much like the clay formed in the creation story. They were largely lost and inanimate, and they needed to be shaped by and toward something. And what God used was the repeated method of story — through feasts and laws and traditions and ceremonies. Reminding his people that they belonged not to Egypt but to him. And so, something J. Alec Motyer said, and it’s recorded through the recalling of Tim Keller when he heard it for the first time. And it relates Israel’s story to our story, because we are all shaped and formed by story — and specifically, through the voice of the great author of life and storyteller. And he says, as recalled by Keller, to imagine meeting an Israelite during the time of the wilderness. And if you were to ask him who he was, he would have recalled himself as a part of a bigger story. He might say —

I was in a foreign land under the sentence of death in bondage but I took shelter under the blood of the lamb. And our mediator lead us out and we crossed over. And now we’re on our way to the promised land but we’re not there yet. But he’s given us his law to make us a community. And he’s given us the tabernacle because you have to live by grace and forgiveness. And his presence is in our midst and he’s gonna stay with us until we get home.

And in this living room full of wide eyed students, Motyer concluded — The Christian could say the same thing word for word. Because this is also our story. Because what brings us together is the common acknowledgement that the leaven isn’t out there, the leaven is in here. It’s when you and I see our own sin and acknowledge a common need for a common Savior.

Some time ago, I fell victim to the YouTube algorithm, and I happened onto this clip, which is the ending scene of this movie that came out in the early 80’s — Places in the Heart. Sally Field, Danny Glover, Ed Harris. I think Sally Field won some awards for her part in the film. The scene sets up with a fuller view of the sanctuary in this small country church, and you have these people seated in the pews. You have this shot of the people seated and this choir singing the hymn — He Walks with Me, He Talks with Me. One we don’t usually sing here at our church but one that’s pretty well known. The pastor is reading through 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter on love, as the communion tray is passed around. And the people are taking them and receiving them, and you get these close-ups on the faces of people receiving and partaking the elements. And then, the movie just ends with the camera locked in on two people sitting next to each other. And my initial reaction — that’s an anticlimactic ending. But then, I read one of the top comments — One of the best scenes shot in cinema history. So then, I felt kind of stupid and felt like I was missing out on something. So, I watch the scene again. But I’m not getting it. So, I scroll through some of the comments on the video, and I keep coming across these comments that say something to the likes of — You only get this if you watched the entire film. And with some crying face emojisat the end of the comment. And I wasn’t in the mood to look for and watch this movie that runs 1 hour 53 minutes, but I was curious. So, I opted for the alternative and decided to read film reviews of the movies and pieced together the details. And after about twenty minutes of research, I watched the end scene again, and I finally got it.

Because when the communion tray is being passed, there’s this husband and wife in the front. And the husband has been adulterous and unfaithful. But in this moment, it’s the wife who grabs his hand. And then, he grabs hers in response with his eyes on the verge of tears. And the tray first goes to the husband, who then passes it to his wife. But then, this strange thing happens which I didn’t catch the first time around. These characters start appearing. And they’re people who appeared earlier in the movie. It goes to this woman who hands it to this man, but this was her husband who was killed in the beginning of the movie. He was killed by this young man by an accident. But it’s her now dead — but making an appearance in this scene — husband who’s giving it the tray to the young man who killed him in an accident. This young man was later killed by a vigilante. And he takes this communion tray and passes it to this vigilante who murdered him. And the young man looks back at this vigilante, as they’re sharing communion, with the camera locked in on the two of them, and he says — Peace of God. And the movie ends. And I guess the emotional investment of the viewers was such where they built up these positive emotions with some of the victims and these negative emotions with these perpetrators. Where you might have even had this sentiment of — Wait, but he doesn’t deserve to have forgiveness and grace. But it shows the radical nature of grace. And it’s what we always say about the Supper — that it’s not our virtues but our common lack and need that brings us together around the Table.

There’s a paper that’s been well-recalled over the years by Robert Putnam titled E Pluribus Unum. And in the paper, he traces the data of the relationships of immigration, ethnic diversity, social solidarity, etc. And while this was written in 2007, for Putnam, he’d been observing data since the 80’s and 90’s, when he released his first publication. And these were years closer to when immigration was a more novel concept to some of the foreign countries with civilians moving into the US. So, he’s seeing all of the evidences, and his initial observation — In the short run, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. New evidence from the US suggests that in ethnically diverse neighborhoods residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down.’ Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer. And so, in his article Age of Outrage, Jonathan Haidthighlights on what Robert Putnam noted a decade and some before his own writing that ethnic diversity, while a great thing, if left to itself can have a destructively centrifugal effect — where people are pulled apart from other tribes. And unless there is real intentional effort being made, diverse areas will merely form their own divided hubs within the same area. The picture he presents in the article is three children linking hands and spinning in a circle. Where the bigger the circle, the more the friends, the faster they spin, the tighter they have to grip. His concluding point — that diversity takes effort and doesn’t just happen.

And here’s the thing. Because if diversity truly takes effort, then there has to be a power that gathers that’s stronger than the forces that tear us apart. And that absolutely goes for us here in the church who invites people of all tribes and tongues. And when we read in verse 1 that there are those who are coming from afar, this word in the LXX is the way Isaiah 60 and Jeremiah 46 describe those who were from the ends of the earth. Which goes with how Jesus is reaching across cultures and geographic boundaries here. And what kind of power has the power that stretches from east to westand gathers in those from east to west? One who sees all things from east to west, and yet, tells us in Psalm 103:12 — As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. Because God is forgetful? No, because his forgiveness is that vast and reaches that far. And as we read in the words of Ephesians 3:19 about the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding — there is the breadth and length, the height and depth. A vertical element that bridges heaven and earth and a horizontal element that crosses east to west — in the cruciform way, that is, the shape of the cross. Here is our answer to how. And with what effort. For us, it’s trusting in him. For him, it was excruciating effort and pain — so much so that blood would ooze from his pores. My friends, we look at the story of the gospel. And we wonder — What kind of God would do that? Because if we can make sense of the cross, we can make sense of all the upside down and cruciform things that the Christian faith has to offer. They not only make sense but are part of its breadth and length and height and depth. And when you and I get to repeat the leaven story to one another, it reminds us that the leaven is not out there, the leaven is in here. But if you’re in Christ, so is the Spirit. But he indwells you, because our hearts are a battle zone. But it’s a place securely won by the finished works of Jesus Christ.