GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 9-12
Thinking God’s Way
An old adage says that the most bitter moment in an argument is when you realize you are wrong. Gulp!
I teased a potential future granddaughter-in-law when we were sitting in a restaurant. She didn’t order anything with meat; she was practicing vegetarianism. I told her that one of the principles of ethics is that one should visualize his or her practice as universalized; that is, visualize how it would look if one’s behavior were universalized. Let’s take vegetarianism, for example. If one ate no meat, then everyone would eat no meat. The restaurant owner would not order meat from the supplier, who would go broke. The supplier would not order meat from the butcher, who would go broke. The butcher would not order meat from the farmer, who would go broke. The farmer would not be able to grow crops. The nation would not have food; everyone would starve. “All because I didn’t order a hamburger?” she asked. (She’s still a potential granddaughter-in-law in spite of the needling by her potential great-grandfather-in-law. :-))
St. Mark wrote that after Jesus and his disciples came down from the mountain, the disciples asked him about the scribal teaching that Elijah must come first and restore all things as a way to understand Jesus’ messianic prophecies. “But he said to them, ‘Indeed, Elijah comes first and restores all things, and how is it written concerning the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt?’” (Mark 9:12)
Jesus’ facial expression and tone of voice, of course, do not come across in either Mark’s or Matthew’s smoother narrative. Some scholars think the conversation may be understood something like this: “Yes, they teach that Elijah comes first, but they ignore the teaching that the Son of Man will suffer many things and be treated with contempt. Elijah has already come, and they treated him however they wanted.” The scribes likely took a metaphorical prophecy written by Malachi and used it to prooftext their own position. (Malachi 4:4-6) Jesus let the scribal teaching stand on its own logical legs to show how illogical it was.
Gently, Jesus was bringing his disciples from their long-held rabbinic tradition to a new way of viewing the Father’s plan for the salvation of man. There’s an anonymous proverb that says, “Don’t confuse me with facts; my mind is made up.” A father frequently told his son that he was worthless, that his ideas were crazy, that he would never amount to anything, and so forth. The son married a woman who was encouraging and affirming. She helped the son see his potential, and he established a successful business and career. The wife had to undo years of negative training. Jesus had to do the same thing with the disciples, and it was a slow process.
It is important to be open-minded without being gullible.
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