Mark 8:14-15
I
find myself caught off guard in conversations with my wife of 30 plus years
almost daily. I don’t mean that she catches me in some error, but that I don’t
know what the topic of discussion is at the moment. She will be talking and I
will be following her. And then, all of a sudden, without warning, her needle
jumps to a completely different track on the record in her head. It happens
without any scratching noise. One moment she is discussing one thing and the
next moment, as far as I can tell, something totally unrelated.
At
those moments my brain is frantically trying to make the connections to the
previous conversation, but all the wires don’t have any place to plug in. I
feel like I am standing there with a handful of old telephone switchboard
wires. I know there must be a connection somewhere, she must be talking about
something intelligible, but I can’t make any sense out of what she is saying.
We might have been talking about the paint color for our bathroom remodel and
then all of a sudden she is talking about someone’s baby.
When
those moments of disconnection happen, I have begun stopping her and asking
what the subject of her comments are. I have given up trying to find the
connection between the previous and the current lines of thought. They are a mystery!
And they will remain a mystery of a woman’s mind, at least the mind of my woman.
The
disciples have trouble following Jesus to a different topic. They have been
talking about their lack of bread for their journey. When you travel in a place
with no restaurants, the food you carry with you becomes important. It might
have to last you for several meals. Most of my traveling has been in places
where there are restaurants, so packing and carrying food has not been an
issue.
But
for those of you who hike and camp, food does play a much larger role in your
planning. So the disciples are taking an inventory of their supplies. Maybe the
assigned task wasn’t carried out. Maybe one of them just forgot.
And
Jesus tries to switch them from physical bread to spiritual food, but the
disciples get stuck on the old topic. Their minds are focused on physical food,
and they can’t seem to make the switch of topics. Jesus wants to warn them
about the content of the religious and political leaders, and they are thinking
about their next meal.
The
disciples are not alone in getting stuck discussing the next meal. It is
amazing how much we talk about and spend time with food in our culture. For
some, food has become the center of their lives. For the most extreme, it is a
compulsion, they can’t stop eating excessively. Food has become the substitute
for something missing, or the pain medication for their hurts.
Don’t
get so stuck on food talk that you miss out on what is really important, and
you end up eating a diet of false teaching and drinking the cool aide.