Chapter 6 is a very long Chapter. In fact, it’s the second longest Chapter in Mark’s Gospel. Only Chapter 14, which recounts the last night of Jesus’ life, is longer. In some ways it also seems to be typically “Mark” – so that you have a lot of different stories thrown together (6 of them in all) with very little seeming to connect them together. So I started to wonder if there were any connecting links, and I realized that while there may not be a lot connecting the specific stories of the Chapter to one another, there actually are connections being made. In some ways, Chapter 6 is looking backward and forward at the same time. Some of the stories point us back to reinforce or expand on things Mark has already told us, and some of the stories seem to be looking ahead to things that are going to happen later in the story. The very first story of the Chapter makes a connection with and expands upon something that comes before.
Remember that in Chapter 3 Jesus had an encounter with some members of his family. His family were concerned about his ministry – perhaps unhappy about what he was doing. Chapter 3 told us that they wanted to “restrain him.” Perhaps the thought was that if they could get him back home everything would be all right; everyone would be safer. Chapter 6 opens with Jesus back home. There’s no suggestion that his family had actually “restrained him” and brought him home – but for whatever reason Jesus decided that the time was right for him to return to Nazareth. He obviously hasn’t given up his ministry, though. His disciples have followed him and the first thing he does when he arrives is begin “to teach in the synagogue.” This is the second time in the Gospel that we’re told Jesus taught in a synagogue. The first was in the synagogue in Capernaum. Capernaum is about 50 km from Nazareth. Capernaum is on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee and Nazareth is to the southwest of Capernaum, about 30 km west of the Sea of Galilee. For the sake of reference Capernaum is about 150 km north of Jerusalem. By today’s standards 50 km (the distance from Capernaum to Nazareth) isn’t very much. It’s actually much less than I drive to get from home to the church. We could travel that distance easily in half an hour or less. But in an era when most travel was done by walking, a 50 km journey was a pretty significant undertaking - so the two towns don’t seem far apart by our standards, but 2000 years ago they were at quite a distance. If you remember when Jesus taught at the synagogue in Capernaum he was received quite enthusiastically. The people were described as being “astounded” and “amazed” and they recognized his inherent authority. Now he goes home to Nazareth and teaches in the synagogue. First of all, his family must have been disappointed at this development. They probably wanted him home but they also wanted him out of the spotlight, not drawing attention to himself. The people of Nazareth are also described by Mark as being “astounded” by him, but their gut reaction is much different than what Jesus had experienced in Capernaum. They don’t recognize his authority. They’re confused by his knowledge, and “they took offense at him.”
Mark, of course, never discusses Jesus’ childhood, but there’s a sense of authenticity about this story of what happened when Jesus returned to Nazareth and it demonstrates that while Jesus’ childhood wasn’t of interest to Mark, he was familiar with Jesus’ upbringing, and in some ways I think this is the most interesting of the six stories in the Chapter. There are two things in particular that I notice. The first is simply the fact that the people of Jesus’ hometown – the people who have known him for the longest – reject him. At first that seems puzzling, but it might be fairly easily explained. Given what he’s doing – his displays of wisdom and power – it might not be surprising that those who’ve known him since he was a child just can’t get their heads around who and what he’s claiming to be at this point. Although I know of people who have managed to pull it off, in general I’d say that no minister should try to be the pastor to a church he or she grew up in. It’s simply going to be hard for people who knew you as a child to accept you in a position of authority. The situation was no different for Jesus apparently. The people of Nazareth, who knew Jesus as a boy, as “the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon …” could not accept him as the Son of God. The other thing that interests me is the note that “he could do no deeds of power there.” Some suggest that this means Jesus’ power required faith on the part of those he intervened for – so Jesus was not all powerful, but was rather in a kind of symbiotic relationship with those he healed. It is important to note, though, that Mark doesn’t say that. It could simply be that Jesus simply didn’t have the opportunity to perform “deeds of power” in Nazareth, since the people largely rejected him. The very next words, though, seem a bit funny – “except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them …” That seems powerful in and of itself, but given the story Mark has been telling, he relates this with an explicitly “ho hum” attitude. He doesn’t even bother to describe the diseases. He does add the note that it was Jesus’ turn to be “amazed” – in this case by the unbelief of the people of Nazareth. Jesus seems to have expected the people he had grown up among to have believed in him. Instead he offended them. This probably leads directly to the next story, which I just want to mention very briefly. It’s another account of Jesus sending the Twelve out on a mission. This time he sends them “two by two.” Jesus had commissioned them in Chapter 3 to a teaching mission and given them authority over demons. This time he specifically includes the command to go out “two by two.” This might simply be an acknowledgement of the fact that the Twelve had discovered that there was a lot of opposition to Jesus and perhaps Jesus realized that they would need support; that they couldn’t go about this work alone. Jesus’ instructions to them that they should “shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against” towns that rejected them seems harsh, but in context is perhaps simply a reminder that Jesus is, after all, fully human. Perhaps he’s just bitter at his treatment in Nazareth and lashes out here at any who oppose his message.
Mark then says “King Herod heard of it.” The “it” seems strangely undefined, but Mark is apparently referring not to anything specific but just generically to the fact that Herod had heard of Jesus’ ministry. If we remember back a couple of chapters, Mark had introduced the Herodians (the followers of Herod) as being among Jesus’ enemies, so they had apparently brought back news to Herod. Mark points out that Herod was hearing speculation that Jesus might be John the Baptist raised from the dead, Elijah or another of the prophets. This foreshadows the words of the disciples that will come up in Chapter 8. When Jesus asks them who people believe he is, the disciples respond with that exact same list. Herod comes down clearly on the side of believing that Jesus is the resurrected John the Baptist. Mark then suddenly seems to realize that he’s created a problem for himself by referring to John the Baptist resurrected, because he had never actually told his readers that John the Baptist was dead. All we had been told to this point was that John the Baptist had been arrested by Herod. In an era before word processors that make it easy to insert stories, Mark has to backtrack a little bit to relate the story of John the Baptist’s murder. In fairness, there are some who suggest that this was a deliberate technique by Mark. The Twelve have just been sent out, and after the story of John the Baptist’s murder the Twelve are going to re-appear, and it’s been suggested that Mark’s sudden decision to insert the John story was to have the time it took to read the story represent the time the Twelve were away. It’s one of the more gruesome and graphic stories of the Bible. There’s a surprising amount of sexual innuendo in the story. The name Herodias is confusing because in the NRSV it seems to refer to two different people – Herod’s wife and Herod’s daughter. In the NIV there’s simply a reference to “the daughter of Herodias” (not Herod) and she’s left unnamed. In the King James Bible she’s “the daughter of the said Herodias.” The family line is complicated! Philip – Herodias’ first husband – is also believed to have been Herod II, son of Herod the Great, who was on the throne when Jesus was born, and his brother – who is the key figure in the opposition to Jesus and in this story – is known to history as Herod Antipas. Herodias seems to have been married to Herod’s brother – Herod II. It’s assumed that she must have divorced him to marry Herod. Had Philip/Herod II simply died, there would have been no issue with Herod Antipas marrying her, and even if Philip had divorced Herodias, that was not against the Jewish law and would have made her marriage to Herod somewhat acceptable. The fact that it became an issue and that John apparently preached against it suggests that Herodias was responsible for the divorce. Herodias’ daughter is also known in some accounts as Salome, and it isn’t clear if she’s the daughter of Philip or Herod – NRSV suggests she’s Herod’s daughter; other translations are sort of neutral on the issue. In any event, she dances for Herod (who is at least her step-father) and his guests, which also has a degree of uncomfortable sexual innuendo to it (Mark seems to be trying to portray Herod’s court as immoral.) The end result is that Herod is so taken with the dance that he promises his daughter anything. She goes to her mother, who is offended by John the Baptist preaching against her marriage, and she tells her daughter to ask for John the Baptist’s head. It’s Herodias the daughter who adds the memorable words “on a platter,” which adds to the ominousness of the story. One thing that should be noted is that Mark clearly makes the women the villains in this story. They are responsible for John the Baptist’s murder. Herod is portrayed as being somewhat sympathetic to and even intrigued by John. So there’s a certain amount of misogyny displayed in this story. The story is confusing and the names are very hard to keep track of. We do believe, though, that it’s portraying a real “scandal” of sorts within the royal family, since some years later the Jewish historian Josephus wrote about the confusion within the family and even suggests that Salome was the one who was married to Philip. For your entertainment, here’s what Josephus says about the “family tree”:
Herodias, […], was married to Herod, the son of Herod the Great, who was born of Mariamne, the daughter of Simon the high priest, who had a daughter, Salome; after whose birth Herodias took upon her to confound the laws of our country, and divorced herself from her husband while he was alive, and was married to Herod, her husband’s brother by the father’s side, he was tetrarch of Galilee; but her daughter Salome was married to Philip, the son of Herod, and tetrarch of Trachonitis; and as he died childless, Aristobulus, the son of Herod, the brother of Agrippa, married her; they had three sons, Herod, Agrippa and Aristobulus.
With all that cleared up so well by Josephus, the rest of the Chapter can be looked at fairly quickly. The feeding of the five thousand is a familiar story and seems to be included as a way of getting Jesus out of Nazareth, where he had been rejected, back into a place where crowds were once again around him and his ability to do amazing and miraculous things was restored. There are various interpretations of how five thousand people could have been fed with five loaves of bread and two fish. Some believe it was a literal miracle; others believe that Jesus and his disciples set the example by offering their food to the people and that, moved by the example, others then contributed to the food until there was enough to feed everyone – so that this story is often used as a way of encouraging the sharing of resources. What I found most interesting and had not really thought about before were the words of the disciples in verse 37: “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat.” The way the verse is worded implies that they could have done that – perhaps Jesus and the disciples are not as poor as we often imagine them to be! Jesus seems to have then gone up a mountain to pray while the disciples went out in a boat on the sea. I believe this is the first reference to Jesus withdrawing alone up a mountain – it’s perhaps the New Testament origin of the mountain-top experience. The disciples then experience Jesus as he walks on the water toward them during a windstorm. Once again Jesus demonstrates his authority over the natural elements by calming the wind and the disciples, who had mistaken Jesus for a ghost (what else could walk on the water?) were both astounded and terrified and Mark makes the strange point that their hearts were “hardened.” Perhaps it had all been too much for them to take in.
The Chapter ends with more accounts of Jesus healing the sick – now in Gennasaret. The sick were brought to marketplaces, since those would be the centre of a town’s activities, and perhaps would be where Jesus and his disciples would first go to purchase supplies for themselves. The Chapter ends with a quick backward glance at the woman who believed she could be healed by just touching the hem of Jesus’ garment. That story had obviously become known, since now “many begged that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.”
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