Puzzled we were, the 6:30 Daily Mass Coffee Boys. Bumfuzzled, and therefore apparently in good company.
The gospel passage we’d heard in church just moments before ended with Jesus asking his disciples a provocative question: “Do you still not understand?”
We don’t know for sure how the Guys-In-The-Boat responded, because the Evangelist moves right along, starting his next story without giving the disciples a chance to answer.
But those seated around the Coffee Carafe this morning agreed that WE did not understand – we didn’t really get what Jesus was talking about in the story we’d just heard. We were no more insightful (as it were) than Peter, Andrew, James and John – all men we now know to be saints. So maybe there’s hope for us still.
Hope. And perhaps also bread. That’s the morsel I keep chewing on as I think back on our early-morning encounter with scripture today.
The 8th chapter of Mark’s gospel invests a lot of energy in bread, it turns out. A couple of days ago, we heard how Jesus takes seven loaves and feeds four thousand. In the passage immediately following in Mark (proclaimed yesterday at Mass), the Pharisees demand to see a sign from heaven. Then comes today’s gospel snippet: the disciples fussing over bread in the boat, mere minutes (or at most, maybe hours) after they themselves had witnessed the miracle of the loaves – just like the Pharisees.
There’s something about bread – even miraculous bread – that just doesn’t seem to stick with them, any of them. The disciples, like the Pharisees, are not moved to gratitude for having received their daily bread. Instead, their hearts turn hard. They seek something more.
And perhaps this is part of what Jesus finds so surprising in us: “Do you not yet understand or comprehend?” he asks his closest friends.
Frankly, I’d say we all kinda have to answer “yes.” We tend not to understand bread-as-gift, life-itself-as-gift. Our human hearts, our hardened hearts, ever tend to ask for more.
And so here’s a question that occurs to me as I sit savoring the dregs of my morning coffee: Could this moment-in-the-boat have sparked an idea in Jesus’ heart — a notion of momentous importance for the life of the world?
Could this be the moment when Jesus decided he’d have to become Bread for us – that he’d have to one day give us Himself in the Eucharist, in order to feed us stiff-necked people … and help us finally understand?
A provocative question, for sure – and in that sense, a little like the one we hear at the conclusion of today’s gospel passage.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 
I see this passage differently than you perhaps. The people everywhere were amazed at the power with which Jesus taught. Truth IS powerful. When Jesus taught the SPIRIT OF THE LAW, his followers listened, absorbed, and spread His lessons to their entire community. His teaching was LEAVEN of the highest quality unlike the leaven of the Pharisees which was full of hypocrisy in the way they behaved, putting more burden on the people than they themselves carried, by teaching the LETTER OF THE LAW.
A little good leaven raises the entire block of dough for the benefit of many. When Jesus took the small number of loaves and fish and gave blessing, it along with His message nourished the large crowd to the point that there was more to be shared even after everyone had partaken that could be shared with even more who were hungry for the bread of life. When did any hypocrite ever have such an effect except in spreading ways contrary to what God expects? As the Apostles muddled over their next meal, Jesus was concerned with counteracting the negative effects of the poor shepherding of the people by their appointed local leadership.
Was Jesus not simply instructing His Apostles to remember that bad leaven of the Pharisees can spread poor practices of living as fast as Jesus’ leaven could nourish the people with ways of living that will bring them into closer unity with God? If the Pharisees had stuck to what God expected of His people, ie: act with justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord God, there would’ve been little need for Jesus to spend so much of his time with sinners.
Also an intriguing take on this somewhat perplexing passage! Thanks for sharing your insights!