Is it "Hard-Hearted" or "Hard Headed"?

Reading through Mark's gospel recently, I had to pause for a bit at chapter 8 where Jesus' disciples, post 4K feeding, climbed into the boat with only one loaf of bread. Though we might wonder here what happened to the 7 baskets of leftovers, it seems only one disciple remembered that hunger would return.  So let the cycle of worry begin!
 
   Peter: (in a whisper loud enough to be heard on the other side of the Galilee)  Andrew! didn't you
     bring the bread??
   Andrew: Excuse me, but I brought the loaf we currently have.  When are you guys going to  
     remember to bring your lunch??
   Peter: OK, put a lid on it, Andrew! John! Did you bring bread?
   John: Did you tell me to?
   Peter: (to everyone except Jesus) Is there any bread except this loaf?
   Thomas: I doubt it!

Right about now, Jesus inserts his warning about the leaven of the Pharisees and the disciples think they're busted:

   Peter: (still whispering) Oh no!
   Andrew: (yawning) What?
   Peter: He said leaven!
   Andrew: (rolling his eyes) So?
   Peter: He knows!
   Andrew: Knows what??
   Peter: That we didn't bring bread!
   Andrew: (looking quite pleased with himself) I brought bread.

"It's because we didn't bring bread," is an aside that's not meant for Jesus to hear, but of course he did hear it.  If I were to imagine what comes next, not knowing what actually does, I think I would have expected Jesus to say something like, "Hello! I can hear you! And by the way, I'm not talking about real bread, guys!"

   Disciple (probably Peter): Yes, but you said leaven!
   Jesus: And I've said the word leaven before.
   Disciple: When?
   Jesus: When I was talking about the kingdom of heaven.
   Disciple (probably Peter): When was that?

What really happens, however, suggests that Jesus grows serious--maybe even stern; he gives no wiggle room for the misunderstanding and even suggests that their eyes and ears are broken and that their hearts are hard. Really, I don't think I'd be any less confused by Jesus' remark than they obviously were and I have an ear for metaphor and love stories with layered meanings.  While both Jesus and his disciples must surely have had bread on their minds having recently witnessed seven loaves becoming more than enough food to satisfy thousands of people, the disciples' musings reveal their concern for their next meal. Maybe their worry is causing them to miss Jesus' warning about yeast that could poison their lives.

Still--couldn't Jesus have answered them plainly? Couldn't he simply have said, "While we're on the subject of bread, I'd like to warn you about listening to the Pharisees' teaching."  Why does he have to criticize their eyes and ears and hearts?  Why doesn't he just correct their mistake-- like we do in Charades when a misunderstood clue lands team members on the dark side of the moon?  When things go wrong enough that we simply stop the game and start over?  He doesn't explain, though, but asks a series of questions we better listen to so we don't end up eating the leaven of the Pharisees or drinking the cool aid.  
   "Do you still not see or understand?"
   "Are your hearts hardened?"
   "Don't you remember?"

We could answer his questions in a vey glib way (if you dare be glib with Jesus);
   "Because we're hungry."*
   "Understand what?"
   "What do our hearts have to do with our hunger?"
   "Remember what?"

And isn't it a little over the top to suggest that they have hard hearts just because they thought he was chiding them for their failure to bring bread?  They were, after all, concerned not only for their own but for his well-being too--weren't they?

My dear friend Annette recently told me a story.  Her home is a menagerie of people and animals-- 8 kids, wayfaring pets and guests too many and too interesting to count.  Recently a kitten, member of a (reportedly) all-male litter belonging to her brother's cat, was added after someone in the family accidentally ran over his tail. In the "you broke it, you own it" rule of life, Stumps (reflecting the fate of the tail) came to live with the family.

As time went on, Annette was surprised at Stump's comeliness, and that he, despite his cigar-shaped tail, was growing into a rather lovely creature--sleek, glossy--whatever descriptors one would give to good-looking cats; descriptors that I'm short on since most members of our family wouldn't own one if it it laid golden eggs.

Before the family went on vacation last summer, Stumps' beautiful body began to change in appearance. One of Annette's daughters commented that either Stumps had worms or was pregnant. So Annette de-wormed the entire animal population and then went on vacation. Upon returning home a week later, the family was fascinated to find a cat and a litter of kittens beneath their porch; "Who is the mother?" they wondered.  Of course there are other details, but the deal is, yeah, they were told Stumps was a boy, but that didn't make him male any more than walking into a garage makes a person a car or sitting in a chicken coop (as if anyone could ever do that) makes a person a chicken. In Annette's words, no one in the family ever bothered to confirm the kitten's classification. Everything rode on the very simple though erroneous piece of information that Stumps was member of an all-male litter.  No matter what Stumps did, no matter how feminine her appearance, she was male. The fact that Stumps was mother of the litter beneath their porch didn't reach them until one of the kids took a picture and noticed the tail.  "My brother told us he was a boy, and we never even looked!" said Annette over and over again.

This story, hilarious as it is, has for me become a parable. For Annette and her family, "it's a boy" was gospel: the old word given by Annette's brother stuck.

I'm not sure, but I have to wonder if maybe Jesus' "hard heart" depiction is an allusion to the parable of the seed and the sower--if maybe he was likening the disciples' hearts to the hardened path where seeds may fall but never germinate; if maybe "hardness of heart" has to do with the head as well when we stubbornly hold fast to what we think we know. "Are your hearts hardened?" doesn't necessarily indicate that the disciples--or that we--are compassion-less or mean; rather, the conclusions drawn reflect a mind that can only think in a certain way. As I often do, they" lean on their own understanding."

The disciples had witnessed the power of Jesus to satisfy four thousand people with seven loaves (and earlier five thousand with 5 loaves and two fish), yet five minutes later they're caught talking as if the fate of the universe rests on their shoulders--that the one loaf they managed to remember would never be enough and now what are they going to do?

By the way, I'm no different; my poor expectations and gross misunderstandings of Jesus have over and over again had to be shattered good beyond hope. Should Jesus ask me the same questions he asked the disciples while they were discussing leaven in the boat, my answer, if honest, would be, "Yes, I still don't see or understand and yes my heart is hardened."

The least I can do is promise to try harder to remember what happened to the loaves and fish next time I forget my lunch.


*I have to add here that one of my children once drank the water from one of those ancient water games. When I asked her why she did that, she responded, "Because I was thirsty." Perfect sense of course. But the disciples are not 5 years old and neither am I.