Friday, December 9, 2022

 

Friday, December 9, 2022


Psalms 11; 14

Isaiah 9:18-10:11

Mark 8:14-26


Observance: Second Friday in Advent


“Watch out – beware the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.”


There is a funny little mini-phenomena that happens to school leavers once they finish high school. No matter what the size of the place in which they finish school, they want to move somewhere bigger. Kids in Rockhampton want to move to Brisbane. Kids in Brisbane want to move to Melbourne. Kids in Melbourne want to move to Brisbane – after a successful career overseas.


Jesus is warning us of the allure of the bright lights and the big city, and He was certainly in the position for His opinion on this topic to be respected. Here He was, a carpenter, a skilled artisan. He could be as upwardly mobile as He liked. But He preferred to stay out in the boonies, travelling between the villages dotted around the Sea of Galilee. We know He was financially comfortable: at His crucifixion, His clothes were too nice to rip into rags to be used by the soldiers for cleaning their weapons. A tunic made of one single piece of fabric was the ancient equivalent of a finely tailored suit. And as He reminded His disciples, He did not need to pay for food expenses. Let’s not be fooled into thinking Jesus lived in poverty. His enemies accused Him of partying all the time, which sounds more like the type of man who had a business credit card and wasn’t afraid to use it than an unwashed hippy begging for scraps on the side of the road.


But beware of the yeast of those drawn to the centre of fashion and power. He isn’t warning us to remember to pack a lunch – He is using metaphorical language. Just as yeast puffs up the dough, the praise of fellow humans inflates our ego.


Jesus practised what He preached. At the next village, there was a blind man. Of course Jesus, the God of Compassion, is going to cure him. But Jesus doesn’t want the crowd to go crazy and shower Him with praise. So He takes the blind man by the hand, leads Him out and away from prying eyes, and cures Him at the forest edge. It was here, away from the bustle of commerce and power, that the blind man could see everything clearly.


“Do not even go into the village”, says Jesus. Because the only opinion we should care about is God’s opinion. God’s opinion of us is very high: He loves us with an unbreakable and unending love. Why distract ourselves and lose our perception of this love? And if we do find ourselves distracted, we know where to find it again: out in the forests, the fields, the villages, where the sick are: whereever the love of the flesh is not, the love of God is.



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