Mark 6.30-44

The apostles returned to Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught.

And he said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest awhile." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a lonely place by themselves.

Now many saw them going, and knew them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns, and got there ahead of them. As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late; send them away, to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat.

But he answered them, "You give them something to eat."

And they said to him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii ["The denarii was a day's wage for a laborer"] worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?"

And he said to them, "How many loaves have you? Go and see?"

And when they had found out, they said, "Five, and two fish."

Then he commanded them all to sit down by companies upon the green grass. So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties.

And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people, and he divided the two fish between them all.

And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

Mark 6.14-29

King Herod heard of it; for Jesus' name had become known. Some said, "John the Baptiser has been raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him."

But others said, "It is Elijah."

And others said, "It is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old."

But when Herod heard of it he said, "John, whom I beheaded, has been raised." For Herod had sent and seized John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Phillip's wife, because he had married her.

For John had said to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. When he heard him, he was much perplexed; and yet he heard him gladly.

But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and the leading men of Galilee. For when Herodias' daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, "Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will grant it, even half of my kingdom."

And she went out, and said to her mother, "What shall I ask?"

And she said, "The head of John the Baptiser."

And she came in immediately and with haste to the king, and asked, saying "I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptiser on a platter."

And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her. And immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard and gave orders to bring his head.

He went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.

When his disciples heard of it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb.

Mark 6.7-13

And he went about among the villages teaching.

And he called to him the twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff: no bread, no bag, no money in their belts--but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.

And he said to them, "Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave shake off the dust from your feet for a testimony against them."

So they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many demons, and annointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.

Faith?

Faith. Trust. Not "beliefs", not any number of beliefs, but trust.

Where do you put your trust? Faith in the Tooth Fairy won't do it.

There's something here to be known, like you know 2 + 2 or like you know the ground under your feet or the person who raised you.

And you can trust it. You can't always trust your ideas about it; these come from it and point to it, but they aren't the same.

Ideas about it can be collected, classified, marketed, used to scare people out of their savings or to let them imagine that having the ideas makes them special.

You can test people on the ideas, separate the A's from the F's, lead them around by the notions, make them do tricks, face death or kill each other.

You can't do that with What-It-Am. You can use the words; there's no way to patent them; but "There's something here to be known."

If you yearn for that, and all you're getting from your own teachers are the same old ideas that haven't done it for you yet--and may not have led them anywhere closer--Well of course you'll look in other religions. Sometimes you'll see what's been buried in plain sight among the relicts of your home tradition, whether or not you ever come to recognize it there. But that is not what Jesus is complaining about in this latest passage. These people know all the words, and if they'd found it anywhere, they would recognize it in him. But they don't, and they aren't even looking.

Can you tell if someone else knows it? Once you know what it looks like in yourself, it can be perfectly obvious when someone else is talking about the same "thing". What if he's fooling you?--What if he's only learned some good words and is just running them through his inner word processor? Well, then, someday he will connect the words with their meaning; and truth meanwhile can still come to you through his words. God is a source of truth and understanding, not a charm against surprises or a recipe for infallibility.

But where do "beliefs" come into this? They are not the same as "knowledge", but they do matter; they can lead us closer to knowledge or further away. It may or may not be worth asking: "How and why do they end up affecting what actually happens to us?"--but that's for another post.

Beliefs by definition are what we think we know, so we aren't given an operational means of making the distinction... unless we simply find God directly.

That's my definition of Quakerism--not that any number of men can render themselves foolproof, but that God is available to all. Be still, ask, expect to be answered.

gremlins

Hello Folks.

I seem to have lost my power to make changes to the settings on this blog. I was mucking about in the settings last week some time so I likely unchecked my own administrative rights.

If one of the active members -- I think Crystal Larry and Forrest all have admin rights -- could go into "change settings" and then click on the membership tab -- you can see if I have an admin box checked or not. If not you could re-check it for me.

Alternately you delete my membership entirely if you wanted -- then I could be a kibitzer like Marshall :)

Advanced thank yous for whosoever reads this first.