You’ve probably had the feeling – someone has been trying really hard to explain something, but you’re still not getting it. There’s a point at which you get frustrated and start thinking maybe the problem isn’t me but with the person doing the explaining. But you don’t want to admit you’re not getting it, so it’s easier to nod and say nothing, and try to escape from your frustration, and maybe irritation, by having a conversation with the others in the group – who also don’t want to admit they’re not getting it either. So better talk about something completely different, so no-one gets embarrassed.
This is a workable strategy, unless you choose the wrong topic of conversation. Then you can find yourself getting embarrassed from a completely different direction. And of course if the person doing the explaining is Jesus, and this isn’t the first time he’s been on about this dying stuff, and you can’t push back because look how Peter got his head bitten off last time …. Well it’s all rather difficult. And then Jesus knows what you were talking about anyway, because he’s like that, he always seems to know what you’re thinking about. Maybe just curl up under a stone and hide…
No wonder Jesus gave them a very simple lesson. I wonder if they were really able to take even that on board. But of course the reason Mark is telling us all this is not for some psychodrama about the disciples, but because he wants us to hear the lesson also (Mk 9:30-37).
James is similarly concerned to drive the point home (Jas 3:16—4:3): if we live in a world of jealousy and ambition then all hell will break loose: “You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war.” If we can break out of that world then the result is “peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity.”
But, the “fruit of righteousness is sown in peace”, not just out of thin air, or like the rain falling on the ground, as Isaiah might say. No, it’s sown in peace – “for those who cultivate peace.” You have to prepare the garden before anything will grow in it. Rooting out the weeds of jealousy and envy and passion has to come first, and there are always new seeds arriving from somewhere, so that work doesn’t stop. But if you do cultivate peace, not once but continuously, then righteousness will grow. The disciples got there in the end. So can we.