Never Perceiving
In the kingdom of God, the sick receive healing, the poor have enough to eat, and the weak are powerful. Yet no matter how much Jesus preaches about this kingdom, the disciples don’t get it. They want to know if they’ll sit at his right hand in heaven. They want glory and power.
But Jesus called them to serve. In the Gospel of Mark, he must repeatedly admonish them to stop thinking about their own desires, stop seeking to be served, and strive instead to become better servants. As Geert Van Oyen points out in his analysis of the gospel, the acolytes want to fulfill “their own interests” rather than do God’s will and help God’s people. [1] They don’t understand what Jesus is calling them to.
That shouldn’t surprise us. After all, Jesus teaches in parables. That makes it hard to understand him, for parables are confusing. Indeed, it seems that he makes them obscure on purpose, for although he reveals their secrets to his disciples, he hides them from others. Jesus said he does this “so that” the people
may be ever seeing but never perceiving,
and ever hearing but never understanding;
otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.
Mark 4:12 NIV
Yet why would Jesus not want the people to perceive, to understand, to turn back to God? Why would he want them to die unforgiven? Is John Calvin’s double predestination true, then? When God created our souls, did he choose some to be saved and some to be damned? If we are among the damned, will God harden our hearts and keep us from perceiving, just so he might fulfill a plan he made long before we came to dwell in our bodies? How is that fair, or just, or holy?
Isaiah Receives His Commission
Many commentators have asked similar questions. They are uncomfortable with the God revealed in Jesus’s statement. Before we can figure out what to think about it, however, it helps to realize that Jesus was quoting from the book of Isaiah.
According to Isaiah 6, the prophet was called to witness to the Hebrew people during the year that King Uzziah died, around 740 BCE. One day, Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting on a throne” (Isa 6:1 NRSV), and he grew afraid because a sinful man may not see God and live. Thus, he cried out, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isa 6:5 NRSV), so one of the seraphs that stood by the Lord flew to Isaiah and touched his lips with a piece of burning coal, cleansing the prophet of his sin. Then, when God asked, “Whom shall I send?,” Isaiah blurted out, “Here am I; send me” (Isa. 6:8 NJB).
So the Lord told Isaiah what he was to do. He was to say to the people:
“Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.
Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull,
and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
Isaiah 6:9-10 NIV
For some reason, God did not want the Hebrew people to heal. He did not want them to repent.
The Holy Seed
It seems a terrible thing, to keep people from embracing their god, to turn back to him, and it may have seemed so to Isaiah, because he asked how long he would have to speak these words. God responded:
“Until the cities lie ruined
and without inhabitant,
until the houses are left deserted
and the fields ruined and ravaged,
until the Lord has sent everyone far away
and the land is utterly forsaken.
And though a tenth remains in the land,
it will again be laid waste.
But as the terebinth and oak
leave stumps when they are cut down,
so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.”
Isaiah 6:11-13 NIV
What a terrible thing, to have to preach through all the misery and desolation. Yet all is not lost. Out of destruction comes rebirth. It is always that way. Before we can become as one new, that which is corrupted within us must die. The coal burns the sin from Isaiah. For the people of Israel, the Babylonians and Assyrians become the “instruments of judgment,” cutting down that which, among them, is impure. [2]
The punishment, however, is meant not so much to destroy, as to recreate the people. If we never sinned, we would never suffer. Without suffering, we would not be emptied out. If we are never emptied, we can never be refilled or recreated. If we always listen, if we consistently behave, we will never have a chance to figure things out for ourselves, to become mature, to grow into wholeness, into who we are meant to be.
Rabbinic Interpretations
Throughout Scripture, God hardens people’s hearts. It seems Calvin was right, that some of us are meant to die without perceiving or understanding. If we do get close to discovering the truth, God has to deafen us and blind us so we don’t figure it out. Some are the chaff that gets burnt; others the seed that falls on rock. Must there always be a sacrifice, someone who suffers? Without that, would the rest of us perish?
The Hebrew people thought of themselves as a collective. Unlike for Christians, for the Jews, individual salvation did not greatly concern them. The people as a whole were what mattered. If an individual must die, if even an entire tribe must be wiped out, as long as a remnant remained to grow again, all would, one day, be well.
Thus, there is the seed that might sprout into a new nation. Even so, the rabbis were not fond of the prophet’s commission. According to Craig A. Evans, in his survey of various interpretations of Isaiah 6:9-10, Hebrew writers rarely mentioned these verses. If they did, they saw in them, not a prediction that the people would remain unremittingly obdurate, but a promise that when Israel did turn and repent, she would, as always, be spiritually “healed.” She would be forgiven.
This interpretation hinges on a single conjunction, the Hebrew word “pen.” Above, we see it translated as “otherwise.” Others translate it as “lest.” In this passage, however, the rabbis translated “pen” as “unless” or “until.” In other words, Isaiah need only coarsen the heart of the people until they repented, at which point God would forgive them. [3] In this way, Evans writes, “[t]he prophetic criticism of the eighth-century prophet Isaiah, which announced final judgment, has been transformed into a promise of forgiveness.” [4]
Using Midrashim
The rabbis also used other means to reinterpret the text. For instance, they told midrashim that mitigated the harshness of these words. Evans quotes from the Seder Elijah Rabbah, which is the first part of a midrash entitled Tanna Debe Eliyyahu, written sometime before the 10th century. Here, the rabbis assume that God is being sarcastic. After all, God would always desire that Israel repent. Who could think otherwise? It is like the story of a king whose son lived far from him, but was not tending the land as he should. The king sent a messenger to tell the prince, “Why don’t you slaughter some cows, eat their meat, and drink wine?”
What he intended, the rabbis explained, was that the young man should realize the absurdity of such a request and go, instead, to take care of the cows and tend the vineyard. So it was with God’s instructions to Isaiah. When he prophesied as God instructed, it was expected that the people would see and hear how absurd it was that they should ignore the words of the Lord. Thus, they would know to repent. [5]
These may be examples of how we interpret Scripture according to our beliefs. They may also be examples of how the rabbis’ hearts were coarsened so they did not understand.
On the other hand, they might also make sense. After all, this part of Isaiah was written after the tribes were nearly wiped out by Babylonia and Assyria. It helped to explain the slaughter. But for Jews, it is common to use story to revise the Torah so it reveals the loving, compassionate, forgiving God they know and believe in. Why should we let stand a text that so blatantly makes God out to be a bully?
Predestination
In the same vein, some Christians cannot accept that Jesus, in Mark’s gospel, meant to obscure his teachings. Evans uses the example of the commentator, T. W. Manson, for instance, who found it “inconceivable that Jesus would intentionally veil his ministry with riddles.” [6] To explain away the harshness of Jesus’s words, writers cite Mark’s inept editing, his mis-translations, or our own mis-translations.
Others comfort themselves with the idea that it isn’t God who hardens a person’s heart, but the person herself. God simply knows how things will turn out, knows who is worthy and who isn’t, and doesn’t bother trying to convince those who will choose not to listen.
Yet many Christians are comfortable with the idea that some people will be saved and some won’t. As Evans puts it, they believe “that the revelation of divine truth is at divine discretion.” [7] Therefore, if one does not understand that truth, does not perceive the divine, does not understand God’s teachings, then that is God’s will for that person. We cannot save ourselves. Nor can we force ourselves to do anything God does not wish for us. On our own, we cannot believe in Christ, not even to seal our own salvation. Whether we do or not is up to God.
So did John Calvin interpret this passage. [8] He devised his understanding of predestination in part from passages such as Mark 4:12.
How Little We Understand
The Church Fathers also understood Jesus’s words to be a condemnation of the wicked and the self-willed. Some people were worthy, and some were not. For the fathers, though, it was usually the Jews whose hearts God hardened, whom God kept from seeing the truth. Those wicked people, who did not recognize who Jesus was, were thus damned. [9]
We easily see the mote in the eye of the other person, such as someone from another religious or ethnic group, but we ignore the log in ours. But what if Jesus is speaking more about us than about anyone else?
As we discussed two weeks ago, the evangelist, Mark, repeatedly points out how little the disciples understand. Over and over, they refuse to get it. Two times, Jesus feeds thousands with just a few loaves of bread, and they don’t perceive the miracle. He calms the sea, then walks on water, and they don’t realize who he is.
Judas sells him out. Peter betrays him. Not only does Peter fall asleep when Jesus asks him to watch with him through the night, but three times he pretends he doesn’t know who Jesus is. Judas dies, yet Peter, though blind and deaf in his own way, becomes the “rock” on which Jesus will build the church (Matt 16:18). Peter was forgiven, even if he was coarse of heart. Why should it be different for anyone else?
Seeing in a Mirror, Dimly
If the disciples saw and heard so little, why should we imagine we know better? True, we’re looking at the story from the outside. That provides a perspective the disciples didn’t have. We can read the commentary. They lived in the middle of the tale. It will be easier for us to “get it.”
But whatever way we interpret the text, whatever we believe about Jesus, we can’t fully understand. No one has the complete answer. That’s the power of story. Maybe it’s why Jesus used parables, so we might never get complacent, never think we have the truth, the whole truth, and the only truth.
“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor 13:12 NRSV). At some future time, we may perceive everything clearly. For now, we do not.
Some gospels emphasize the doctrine of salvation more than others. Jesus’s words might then be used to prove that the blind and deaf will die, while the faithful will be reborn. But Mark’s gospel focuses on salvation here and now, in this world. It is less a promise of eternal life for those whose eyes and ears are open, and more a calling for us to live as the faithful. Tend the garden, feed the hungry, clothe the naked. Like the disciples, we are called to serve, but we don’t get it. There is so much we don’t understand.
The Bible may or may not be our spiritual text, but as with stories and myths from around the world, it offers riddles worth unraveling. Layers of meaning lie within every tale.
Creating Beloved Community
The rabbis refused to believe in passages that revealed God to be petty or cruel, so they sought truth within truth, layer within layer. Maybe they were wrong to do so. As humans, we can interpret anything to our own advantage, so we must take care not to put our human values onto a divine being. But is it any better to explain away the contradictions and ugliness in the Bible by saying we are too small to understand God’s ways? Must we simply accept it as mystery?
How, then, can we use the text to inform our living? Do we use it to defend hatred, fear, judgment, or do we struggle with the words until we discover justice, mercy, and grace?
When Jesus quoted Isaiah, he may have been reminding us that some people aren’t worth talking to. If a person has no empathy, if she refuses to treat others as equal or holy, we won’t be able to convince her to love her enemies, to listen to hidden meanings, to seek the lost coin. Yet if God never ceases to search for the sheep that got away, to look for the child who left his home, why would that same deity harden the heart of any soul just so he might damn it?
In the end, we don’t know the answer. We see as in a mirror. Thus, it makes sense to keep searching for a truth that is more about love than hatred, about grace than wrath, about justice than punishment. We don’t know who or what God is. We don’t know the whole truth. So we guess, and some of our guesses lead to terror and tragedy, while others lead to beloved community. Which would a god prefer?
In faith and fondness,
Barbara
Credits
- Van Oyen, Geert, Reading the Gospel of Mark as a Novel, trans. Leslie Robert Keylock, Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014, 109.
- Desert Will Bloom : Poetic Visions in Isaiah, edited by A. Joseph Everson, and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, Society of Biblical Literature, 2009, 71.
- Evans, Craig A., Isaiah 6.9-10 in Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989, 139-140.
- Ibid 145.
- Ibid 140.
- Ibid 92.
- Ibid 97.
- See, for example, Arnold, Michael Wayne, “Parables, Desire, and Salvation: A Counter-Reformation Reading of Mark 4:10-12,” Marmanold.com, November 30, 2017, https://www.marmanold.com/mdiv/2017/parables-desire-and-salvation-a-counter-reformation-reading-of-mark-410-12/, accessed 9/18/21.
- Evans 158 and 162.
Photo by Japheth Mast on Unsplash
Copyright © 2021 Barbara E. Stevens. All Rights Reserved.