“Do you have eyes and fail to see?

Do you have ears, and fail to hear?”

–Mark 8:18

This post goes live on Super Bowl Sunday. In the region where I live, there is a clear hope the result of the game this time around will be different than when the same teams met two years ago. On this day, though, my mind goes back to 2018. 

The week before Super Bowl LII, Lori and I cut the cord. For years, we had played an annual game with our cable provider. The company would announce a price increase and I would block out an hour or so to negotiate a better deal. The sales rep who took my call would propose a lower number and ask if that was acceptable. I would ask to speak to a supervisor, who somehow always came up with a better offer, but one that was only good for a year. Thus, twelve months later, the whole process started over.

Seven years ago, though, when our cable company announced a 50% hike we decided to go wireless. I researched options, talked with our son about the experience of having freed themselves from the cord and then made the move. 

It’s been a good change. I still don’t understand why a television upstairs in our home can be at a different point in the same program than our family room set. When I get particularly stressed watching my favorite baseball team, too, I will check the result of the next pitch on my cell phone since it shows up seconds before the wireless broadcast reveals the outcome. I’ve come to live with those delays. My only real frustration from the switch has been the occasional challenge of buffering. 

Since my graduate degrees are in theology and not technology, I cannot explain what causes buffering, but do know its impact. The image on the screen freezes. Sometimes, it resumes seconds later at the place where the action stopped. In other occasions, it jumps ahead to the current moment in the broadcast leaving out a few seconds of dialogue or action. Thankfully, those interruptions are rare and mostly just annoying, yet in the closing seconds of the 2018 Super Bowl it created great angst for me.     

During that game we definitely wanted the Philadelphia Eagles to win and were thrilled when they led as the final play began. Thus, we were on our feet when the quarterback for the New England Patriots went back and launched a Hail Mary. That term refers to a last gasp effort by the team who is losing to throw a pass into the end zone with multiple receivers present. The team who is leading in the score has multiple defenders present, too, hoping to knock down the ball before it is caught.

In that moment seven years ago, the broadcaster began “Brady is back, the ball is in the air, New England has several receivers in the end zone and the pass is…” Just then our screen froze with the football in midair. I will confess to you, dear reader, that there was no buffering in my reaction! Thankfully, the sound still worked and thus we could hear the announcer say that the pass was incomplete which meant our team had won.

The Biblical verses above describe a different kind of buffering that plagues humans. Just prior to it, a large crowd had gathered to listen to Jesus. After he finished teaching Jesus fed 4000 people with a few fish and loaves of bread. It was the second such time in Mark’s gospel that God’s son had done that kind of thing with meager supplies. When the meal ended, Jesus and the disciples got into their boat and left. They don’t get very far onto the Sea of Galilee before one of the Twelve points out that someone forgot to bring along any bread for their trip. 

As the men grumble about that oversight, Jesus uses their discovery for a teaching moment. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod,” he says. In that era, leaven was a symbol for corruptive power, but Jesus’ meaning completely goes over their head. They say to each other “It is because we have no bread [that he is saying this to us].” Jesus can’t believe their reaction. “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand…Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears and fail to hear? And do you not remember?”

Despite their months together and all the amazing things they had witnessed, the disciples struggled to see his point once again. It was not due to any visual impairment. They couldn’t hear his meaning either and it was not because of an auditory problem. Instead, long before the existence of wireless internet, they displayed a human kind of buffering. Even with the miracle they had just witnessed, they couldn’t grasp that Jesus would take care of their nutritional needs and spiritual ones yet again. They were so stuck in their conclusion that they missed his point entirely. 

We are their descendants. You and I can get so focused on some challenge before us that we miss the answer when it is right before our eyes, too. We can be so convinced that there is only one way to deal with a problem that we stop hearing better alternatives when they are shared. 

Part of that obtuseness can arise from living in a kind of echo chamber, surrounding ourselves only with people or news sources who already agree with our point of view. It can happen when we fail to actively listen, too, and jump to a conclusion that is far different than what was meant. And it can arise when we see and hear, but still ignore any perspective that challenges our conclusions, even ones that come from Jesus himself.

Thus, I invite you to think of a situation right now where you feel stuck. It might be that problem you are facing with a loved one or co-worker.  It could be a challenge in your neighborhood or community of faith that feels unresolvable. Or it might be a personal change that you know needs to occur, but one that you keep resisting. After identifying the situation, I urge you to consider that the solution you have settled on or the place where you have dug in your heels may be wrong. And that perhaps the message you have been resisting is actually the right one for you.

I can’t predict the outcome should you follow that suggestion, of course. It could turn out that the answer you had already settled on is ultimately the best one. But it might just be in such a moment of humility and unexpected discovery that your own form of buffering will come to an end.  

Wise One, I miss the point regularly. Whatever I am facing this day, I ask that you will open my eyes and ears. Help me lower my resistance to other possible solutions. All in such a way that I may discern and take the best way forward. Amen.

P.S. Go Birds! 🦅