With Whom Will You Co-Labor? (Part 2)
Mark 8:1–21
Mark 8 opens with another miraculous feeding. This time it’s not 5,000 hungry Jews but 4,000 hungry Gentiles. Both stories are nearly identical—hungry crowds, small supply, Jesus taking and blessing the bread, breaking and giving the multiplied loaves, baskets of leftovers. The only real difference is who’s sitting on the ground. First it was Jews, now it’s Gentiles. Same bread. Same compassion. Same Jesus.
Do you see the point? Jesus is the bread of life for everyone. Not just one group. Not just people who look like you, think like you, or vote like you. The Pharisees and the Herodians—political rivals who normally despised each other—were united in one thing: their rejection of Jesus. Both missed it. Both were blinded to who he really was and what he was doing.
The Pharisees wanted a Messiah who would reinforce their religious superiority. The Herodians wanted a Messiah who would rubber-stamp their political power. Neither could stomach a Messiah who said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”
And we’re not much different today.
We want Jesus to fit into our categories—right vs. left, progressive vs. conservative, religious vs. irreligious. We want him to baptize our preferences. But he won’t. Instead, he exposes our blindness. That’s why, in Mark 8:18, Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?”
The disciples had just watched him multiply bread twice. They’d seen him feed Jew and Gentile alike. But when he warned them about “the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod,” they missed the point entirely. They thought he was scolding them for not packing lunch. Blindness isn’t just for Pharisees and politicians. It’s for disciples too.
And isn’t that us? Jesus is doing something right in front of us—breaking down barriers, reconciling enemies, drawing all people to himself—and we’re stuck arguing about crumbs.
That’s why he gave us the Lord’s Supper. “Do this in remembrance of me.” The table is where we remember, understand, and pursue unity. Every time we eat the bread and drink the cup, we declare that the same body was given and the same blood was shed for every one of us. Jew and Gentile. Black and white. Haitian and Dominican. Pakistani and Indian. Russian and Ukrainian. Rich and poor. Left and right. We don’t come as Pharisees or Herodians. We come as sinners saved by grace.
Greg Laurie put it this way: “If we train people to be consumers instead of communers, we’ll end up with customers instead of disciples.” The Pharisees were consumers of religious tradition. The Herodians were consumers of political influence. Even the disciples were tempted to treat Jesus like a vending machine—miracles on demand, please. But communion isn’t about consumption. It’s about communing in unity—with Christ and with each other.
When we forget this, we fall right back into blindness. We reduce church to a place that meets my needs, instead of a family I lay my life down for. We elevate our personal or political identities above our gospel identity. We settle for crumbs when the Bread of Life is right in front of us.
The feeding of the 5,000 and 4,000 aren’t just miracle stories. They’re unity stories. One for Jews. One for Gentiles. Both pointing to one table, one loaf, one Savior.
The question is—“Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?”
The Lord’s Supper calls us back. Back to the story of reconciliation. Back to the story of truth in love. Back to the table where division has no place because the cross levels the ground.
So let’s not miss it. Let’s not be blinded by our categories, our algorithms, or our preferences. Let’s see the Bread of Life for who he is and remember what he’s done. And let’s pursue the unity that only comes when we stop being consumers and start being communers. Communers that remember that our only hope in life and death, is the life and death of Jesus. That kind of gift galvanizes a life where truth and love can be pursued, because truth in love has pursued us.