The Yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod (6 of 6)

Jesus warns about yeast and the disciples conclude he is annoyed that nobody brought bread.

It is almost comic and Mark does not treat it as comedy. The exchange ends with the sharpest thing he says to them in the whole Gospel.

What Were the Pharisees Asking For?

A sign from heaven, immediately after he had produced several.

They come out and dispute with him, asking for a sign to test him. He has just fed thousands in open country. What further sign is being requested is not obvious, and that is Jesus’s point.

His reaction is recorded as a deep groan in the spirit, and his answer is flat. No sign will be given to this generation.

Wright reads the request as itself a sign, and a bad one. It tells Jesus that the mainstream of thought among his contemporaries is determined not to hear what he is announcing, determined to pursue the kingdom on their own terms rather than his.

He had staked his whole vocation on the signs he was already performing. If they could not or would not see those, their idea of the kingdom must be radically different from his.

What Is Yeast Doing in the Warning?

Carrying an association his hearers already had.

Jews used leaven for ordinary bread, but at Passover it was forbidden, to recall the haste of leaving Egypt. So leaven was the thing removed at the festival of liberation.

Jesus is not warning them about bread. He is warning them about the wrong sort of kingdom-vision, using the image of something small that works invisibly through a whole batch.

How Was the Pharisees’ Vision Diluted?

By narrowing who it was for.

Wright’s reading is that they wanted God to set up a kingdom for the benefit of Jews who could observe the law with great strictness, rather than for the wider company Jesus had in mind.

That is not a rejection of the kingdom. It is the kingdom with the guest list shortened, which is why the image is dilution rather than opposition.

How Was Herod’s Vision Diluted?

By making it dynastic.

Herod and his circle wanted God to establish their royal family as the true kings of Israel. The kingdom arrives and it turns out to be theirs.

Two parties, opposite in almost every respect, both wanting God to act, and both wanting the result to be a version of themselves in charge. Neither comes near the mark, and this generation is led astray by both.

Why Does He Quote Jeremiah?

Because it is a warning rather than an insult.

Having eyes and not seeing, ears and not hearing, comes from Jer 5:21. Wright’s point is that this is not a poetic way of saying how blind you are. It is a way of saying you are in danger of going the way of the Israelites in Jeremiah’s day.

And the problem then was much like the problem now. People were so caught up in their own concerns and so unconcerned about injustice and wickedness in their society that God had no alternative but to abandon them to their fate at the hands of foreigners.

Serve other gods and those gods, and their devotees, gain power over you. That is close to the heart of Jesus’s warnings against his contemporaries, and it is where the argument about the Temple eventually lands.

Why Was He So Frustrated?

Because of the timing.

Wright’s image is white-water canoeing. You paddle along smooth flat water and all you can see ahead is a V-shaped end to it. One moment you can still pull to the side. The next it is too late and you are going down the rapids whether you like it or not.

This is the moment Jesus realises he is going down them, starting now. The confrontation between his kingdom-mission and its rivals is coming up fast, and the disciples still do not understand what is happening.

Which is why the passage ends where it does. You still do not get it.

Part of a series on the conflict with the Pharisees. See also Lord of the Sabbath and clean and unclean.

Footnotes2

1. That both rival visions are described as dilution rather than as opposition is the useful distinction. Neither the Pharisees nor Herod's circle wanted God not to act. Both wanted him to act in a way that confirmed them, which is a more recognisable failure than outright rejection and a harder one to notice in oneself.
2. The Jeremiah quotation is the sort of allusion that does nothing for a reader who does not follow it up. Read Jeremiah 5 and the warning acquires an ending, which is a nation handed over to foreign armies. That is the fate Jesus spends the rest of the Gospel predicting for Jerusalem.

Sources

N. T. Wright, Mark for Everyone (SPCK, 2001), on Mark 8:11-21. Supports the reading of the sign request as itself a sign, the two diluted kingdom-visions of the Pharisees and of Herod, the force of the Jer 5:21 quotation as a warning rather than an insult, and the account of the moment as the point of no return. Supplied in full.

The biblical texts cited: Mark 8:11-21, Matt 16:1-12, and Jer 5:21.

Where the sourcing stops: the reconstruction of what each party wanted God to do is Wright's characterisation of their positions rather than something the passage states.