The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
July 27, 2003

Softening the Calluses on Our Minds
Mark 6:45-52 

In reading any book, it is only natural to side with one character or a group of characters. The reader places herself or himself into the story through the eyes of that person or those persons. When reading The Hobbit, one tends to see oneself as Bilbo Baggins or when reading the story of Cinderella, we side with the title character and put ourselves in her place.  

When reading the Gospels, the tendency is to see ourselves in Jesus’ disciples. It’s difficult to imagine the story through Jesus’ eyes, but easier to see ourselves as impetuous Peter or doubting Thomas.  

But when siding with the disciples, we come to points in the story where they seem so thick-headed that it defies belief. The disciples are present for so many special effects laden miracles, that it seems hard to conceive that they still don’t get it. The disciples can’t see who Jesus really is—God come down to earth and living as a man. 

In today’s Gospel reading, we encounter Jesus and his disciples right on the heals of the feeding of the five thousand. At this point in Mark’s Gospel, the disciples have been present when Jesus healed many sick people, including a paralyzed man, a leper and a man with a withered hand. Jesus had calmed a storm on the sea of Galilee and immediately exorcised a man with a legion of demons living inside him. Peter, James and John has also been on hand when Jesus raised a dead girl back to life.  

The disciples have themselves had returned from a preaching and healing mission right before the feeding of the five thousand. On their journey, the disciples themselves had anointed many who were sick and seen God restore the people to health. 

If none of that was enough, Jesus has this very day fed a multitude of people with five loaves of bread and two fish. The twelve basketsful of leftovers have yet to be consumed when our reading for today begins. If any twelve people on earth have reason to know that Jesus is “the one” the Messiah with a direct connection to God, it is these guys. Yet, before the night is over, the disciples will once more be filled with fear, followed by amazement. 

As the reading opens, Jesus compels his disciples to get into a boat and go on ahead of him as he dismisses the crowd. Then Jesus slips off for some prayer time. This is no big surprise; Jesus is well aware of both the need for rest and alone time with his Father, God. 

The next scene happens in what our reading this morning called in the early morning. The Greek text our translation comes from actually says in the Fourth Watch. This is using the Roman system of time. This was for the Romans what we sometimes call the Graveyard shift. It’s that last crew who comes on to watch until morning. The Fourth Watch of the night began at 3 a.m. Jesus disciples are still out their on the Sea of Galilee straining at their oars. What would usually have been a two-hour row across the lake is turning into an all-nighter. The disciples are physically exhausted. The Greek literally says they are “tortured in their rowing.” 

What follows is not exactly a rescue operation. The disciples’ lives are not in danger. They are exhausted after rowing into the wind in to the early morning hours, but they are not at risk. In fact, if they just turn around and go with the wind, they’ll be to shore in no time. They have only fought the adverse wind well into the night only because they were determined to follow Jesus’ orders to go to Bethsaida. Even if they get everything else wrong in this story, the disciples are faithful to Jesus. They won’t give up on Bethsaida, because it’s where Jesus said he will meet back up with them. 

We should know something is about to go wrong for the disciples. Mark tips his hand in telling the story by emphasizing that while the disciples are in the boat at sea, Jesus is still alone on the land. Every time the disciples find themselves without Jesus, something seems to go wrong. 

Jesus sees the disciples out on the Sea of Galilee tortured in their rowing and he walks out on the water. Jesus takes the short cut to Bethsaida, by walking out on the choppy Sea and cutting a path straight for the other side of the Lake. Jesus path takes him right by the disciples, but that’s when Mark’s Gospel fills in the amazing little detail that Jesus intends to pass them by. What’s up with that? The disciples have been fighting an adverse wind all night yet Jesus has no trouble walking into that wind and catching up to the disciples. Then to make matters worse, Jesus has no intention of helping the boys out. Where are his manners? 

First, I think it helps to recall that the disciples are in no real danger. This is not a rescue, but an Epiphany. Jesus is not saving their lives, but breaking open their minds to see more clearly who he is. This encounter on the Sea is an “aha” moment when the disciples are given a chance to understand that Jesus really is God become man. Of course, they blow it. The disciples always seem to fail any pop quiz that comes their way. 

Straining to row into the wind, the disciples see a robed figure out on the waves and they go for the traditional answer—a ghost. The superstition of the day taught that spirits of the night brought on disaster. To make matters worse, the water was featured in all the old myths of the Ancient Near East as a place of chaos. Out on the sea at night, a superstitious first century Palestinian would have been fearfully on the lookout for an evil spirit out looking to kill and destroy. The disciples then see what they want to see—a ghost—and they scream out, shaken by terror. 

It is just then that the Epiphany comes, the moment when Jesus identifies himself saying, “Take heart, it is I; Do not be afraid.” I prefer to translate Jesus self-identification more literally, “Be of good courage. I Am. Stop fearing.” The I Am in the midst of Jesus statement is very significant. The Greek text says, “Ego Eimi” which is no simple, “It is I.” This is the same identification found in the Greek translation of the Old Testament when God reveals himself in the burning bush to Moses as “I Am that I Am.” A regular speaker of Greek might say “Ego Eimi,” but is was considered blasphemy by Jews for anyone other than God to say “I Am.”   

Jesus who can calmly walk across the sea into a strong headwind now makes the obvious fact more plain. Look guys, if I could not Lord of the creation, I wouldn’t be standing here talking with you. I can be out here on the water precisely because “I Am.” To underline the point, Jesus steps into the boat and the wind dies. The disciples are beside themselves with amazement. These guys just don’t get it do they? No matter what Jesus does, they don’t seem to be able to understand who he is. Mark adds an editorial comment about why they were amazed saying, “for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.” 

This is the statement that stops me in my tracks. They didn’t understand about the loaves. What about the loaves? What loaves. Oh yeah, Jesus had just fed 5,000 men plus the women and children with five loaves of bread. What were we supposed to understand about those loaves?  

Well now that Jesus has stood on the water and proclaimed himself not just Lord of the Sea, but the I Am who was before time, we have to go back and look at the loaves once more. Jesus miraculous meal was no sleight of hand. It was not a magic trick, but a miracle possible only for the one who made all that is. Only the creator can so easily change the laws of nature so that the loaves and fish multiply into a feast for thousands. If Jesus could do bread and fish multiplication, walking on the water is no more difficult.  

The problem Mark writes is that their hearts were hardened. This makes the disciples no better than the Pharisees, who Jesus described a few chapters earlier as having hard hearts. This is also the same description for the Pharaoh that Moses faced off with. Pharaoh would not let the Israelites go because he had a hard heart. The disciples are as hard of heart as a bunch of unbelievers. 

The expression here in Mark’s Gospel “but their hearts had been hardened” is worth a closer look. In Jewish thought, the heart was not the seat of emotions as it is with us today. Jewish thought described the heart as the place of understanding, the source of thought and reflection. Furthermore, the word hardened more literally means to become callused. Rather than having no emotion, the disciples are shown as people whose minds have become callused. They were not born with thick skulls, those thick heads developed over time through closing their minds off to the things of God. 

Now is when I really can identify with the disciples. They don’t get it. They don’t understand who Jesus is because they are trying to sort Jesus into their preexisting categories. Jesus does not conform to any preexistent category for humans, because he is Immanuel—God with us. Jesus is the unique God-man. There is no other category for him. Yet, we can do the same. A central teaching of Christianity is that Jesus is both God and Man and yet many persons in the pew can’t get their minds around this concept. How can he be both God and man. Wasn’t Jesus really just a really good man, perhaps a little better connected to God than most of us?  

That may be your idea of Jesus, but it wasn’t Mark’s idea, nor is it what Christianity has taught from day one. Christianity teaches what Mark records. Mark has Jesus say “Ego Eimi.” “I Am.” An idea so blasphemous, that one could be put to death by Jewish law just for uttering those words, unless, perhaps, the person saying I Am was standing on a blustery sea when saying the words. 

Yet, the disciples were amazed because of the calluses on their hearts. I think the callused hearts of the disciples may be why Jesus said that we should approach God like a child. Jesus loved children and he taught that we too should have faith like a child. What we call growing up is really more like growing down. As a child, anything is possible. When we grow up, we learn things like “You can’t fly by flapping your arms while holding feathers, no matter how many feathers you hold or how hard you flap.” There are all sorts of thing one learns are not possible when growing up. We grow down in some ways as we drop any notion of some things being possible. Learning all the things that simply can’t be is a way of developing calluses. Our minds—for that is what we now think of as the seat of understanding and thought—get hardened over to some ways of thinking.  

Jesus wanted to break through the disciples’ callused hearts and minds to give them hearts of flesh instead of stone. Jesus wanted his followers to see who his is despite the fact they may have learned along the way that a human can’t also be God or God become human. 

If you understand about the loaves you will see that God can become human and he has done so in the person of Jesus. To take the analogy of the loaves further, if you understand about the loaves, you will see how Jesus, the God who is with us, is still with us in the bread. In just a few minutes, we will take some more loaves of bread, we will take, bless, break and give out that bread in the sure and certain knowledge that the I Am who could walk on a wind-driven sea can make his Presence known through something so simple as bread and wine.

I know it defies logic, but if you will soften the calluses on your understanding, you will see that the I Am is with us here this morning as we worship. The I Am is with you in the bread and wine of communion. The I Am is with you on every wind driven sea you encounter in your life. Do not be afraid to soften the calluses over your mind and believe. 

Amen.