What do we mean by Harvest

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What we you mean when you think of a harvest. What image forms in your mind. Today as we celebrate the annual Harvest Festival in the Christian Calendar, we have behind me a veritable selection of fresh fruit and vegetables, vines, hops etc. The reading today is taken though from Mark 9: 38-48 which on first glance doesn't have much to say about a Harvest. Or does it?


Whenever we read the Gospels we need to take ourselves outside of our 21st Century selves and try and put ourselves in the position of a 1st Century Jewish person. That can be quite a task as I think you would agree.

The other point we need to keep in mind is that the Gospel writers didn’t tell their story in order of time.  They chose events and ordered them so that the reader would get the message that this person Jesus was indeed the long waited for Messiah.  If we have any concerns about what Mark’s intentions are in writing the Gospel, we need only to go the very first sentence; “The beginning of the Good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. This is taken from the NRSV edition, and notes tell us that some ancient versions of the Gospel do not have the words the Son of God.  So we have a title of the beginning of the Good News of Jesus the Messiah.  There we have it. Mark is stating it right at the beginning; this Jesus is the Messiah.

What did the Jews think of a Messiah; well not one simple model that is for sure.  Judaism in the first century was a mix of ideas, trying to figure out this mystery that is God, it certainly wasn’t a fixed dogma as we often like to think of it as.  But what is certain is in that none of the models does the Messiah die.

Mark often seems to set the disciples as being a bit slow on the uptake and that is a thinking that we often pick up with even today; how could they be so slow!  However if we strip away our 21st C Western Christianity perspective and try an become like Peter or John; not the Saints but working fishermen who had an understanding of sorts of their Faith; how would we see Jesus then?

The setting of our reading today comes relatively soon after a number of events that Mark presents. There is the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus walking on the water then a discussion with the disciples in the boat about the meaning of the miracle of the feeding when Jesus leaves the disciples with a question to consider. What was the relevance of the number of baskets left over for the feeding of the five thousand and four thousand respectively.  12 and 7 respectively.  What do you think this means?  What is the importance of the number 12 and the number 7?  What is Mark having Jesus say here?  We need to see these things set against what Mark is writing for. To show us that Jesus is the Messiah. Could it be that Jesus is showing that he is here to announce the beginning of a new Israel, and the 7 is symbolic of a new creation story.

The transfiguration follows with another example of Jesus appearing as something different, just like when he was walking on the water.  And then we come to the Gospel reading where the disciples are arguing among themselves. 

Is there some discord because Jesus took 3 of them up the mountainside and the others were feeling left out?  Is there confusion because Jesus is telling them he is going to be killed and then what about them? Have they sacrificed their livelihoods for nothing?  What are they going to get out of this venture, if anything?  How can he be the Messiah anyway if he is going to be killed. It is not supposed to be like this after all.

They have just failed in trying to exorcise a “demon”. Then Jesus turns up and sorts it out.  How will they cope without him? 

They go to possibly Peter’s home in Capernaum.  Their base.  So great is the arguing and bickering that Jesus needs to call a meeting and to try and clear the air.  He then tries to explain that he isn’t creating a hierarchy, in fact if they are his followers they need to embrace slavery.  He chooses a little child to make his point. Not because they are cute, but because in the first Century children were worthless.  They were equivalent to slaves. So his disciples needed to accept that this is how they were going to be viewed. This is how they were going to be part of the new age, it is the only way that they would overcome the age of patronage that was the way of doing things in the Roman Empire.

John tells Jesus that they had stopped someone who wasn’t one of them from acting in Jesus name.  Jesus tells him to stop, this sounds different from a message that Jesus gives in Luke’s Gospel, but what Mark is saying here is that there is no room for exclusivity in the new way of living.  He echoes Paul in his letter to the Corinthians regarding the importance of community in the communion meal.  There is no them and us. God is generous in that even the smallest act of gift is rewarded.  The work is not huge, or too onerous, echoes here of “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” Matthew 11:30, and yet of course in Mark 8 we have Jesus advising that his disciples would need to be prepared to take up their cross and follow him. The work is not hard but the potential consequences are very serious, and this is what Jesus is trying to share with his disciples in telling him about his impending death. The only plan God has for changing the world it appears is Cross shaped.  Let no one be under any illusions about how hard or risky it is being a disciple of Christ.

The last 8 verses are not to be taken literally, this is hyperbolic metaphor to make a point.  Jesus is warning the leaders in the movement not to be a stumbling block to anyone new to the movement, in terms of today, how do we welcome people into our Church?  How inclusive are we really? Do we only pay lip service to being welcoming? Do we welcome only those people who think and worship like us?

The new age has been announced with Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The miracles of the feeding with loaves and fishes has been made real. The new world has been created, there is a new Israel (not the nation state but the diverse group that is the followers of Jesus).  It is happening with or without us.  It is up to us whether we want to be part of this or not. 

So, what do we mean by the Harvest?  What perhaps did Jesus have in mind?

What do you want to do? I’ll leave it to you to think about that?

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