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Last modified on October 31, 2002,
3:27 Pacific Standard Time.
Jesus'
Sleeping Servants Parable
Speaking in parables in Chapter 13
about the coming tribulation, the departure and eventual return of the son of
God, Mark has Jesus tell his disciples the story about servants who must not
fail to serve well their master, and who must not be caught sleeping because
their master could return at any time, at any hour. Here is the parable:
"Be
on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It's like a man going away: He leaves his
house and puts his servants in charge...and tells the one at the door to keep
watch... because you do not know when the owner of the house will come
back...If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.
(Mark 13:32-37)
Mark's Sleeping Disciples Parable
Soon after Mark has Jesus tell his
sleeping servants parable, Mark constructs his own parable, one which is
the parallel of sleeping-servants parable.
In this parallel parable, Mark makes Jesus the "master," and
the disciples are the "servants," and in this story the "servants"
do exactly what Jesus' parable above taught them not to do:
He took Peter, James and John
along with him...he said to them. "Stay here and keep watch."...Then
he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Simon," he
said to Peter, "are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is
willing, but the body is weak." Once more he went away...When he came
back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy....Returning
the third time, he said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting?
Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of
sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!" (Mark 14:32-41) [And
then Jesus is arrested, and his disciples flee.]
In Mark's
sleeping disciples parable above, the disciples are cautioned by Jesus that
while they might intend to serve him well (the spirit is willing), their need
for rest (the body is weak) might tempt (peirasmos) them to close their
heavy eyes and fall asleep. Some
commentators read peirasmos as a "test, " or "trial." Either way, Mark 14:38 means the same
thing: Jesus is warning the disciples
about the contest between the will of the body to close its eyes, and the will
of the mind to remain awake.
Thus, with either
meaning of the word peirasmos, Jesus is telling the disciples to pray
that they do not fail the body's test and close their eyes--in other words,
succumb to the temptation (or, fail the body's test) and close their eyes.
In Mark's sleeping disciples
parable, he has the disciples do exactly what Jesus in his sleeping-servants
parable admonished against: Servants
must not sleep while the master is away, and be caught sleeping when he
returns. Thus, just as Mark had Jesus
tell a parable that would serve as a warning to his audience, the disciples,
Mark then tells his own parable, which is also apparently intended to
serve as a warning to his audience--the people of Jerusalem.
The implied warning from Mark
seems to be this: You saw how the foolish servants (disciples) fell asleep,
even after just having listened to Jesus' sleeping servants parable, and the
result was that their master (Jesus) was lost to the arresting crowd. If you, likewise, are so foolish as to fail
to be watchful, and close your eyes to the truth while Jesus is away [already
forty years now], the kingdom of heaven will be lost to you, too. This, for the most part, is the message Mark
wanted to convey with the sleeping servants and sleeping disciples pericopes.
Another
Interpretation
Jeffrey Gibson, in a preprint of
his conference paper, "Mark
14:38 as a Key to the Markan Audience," 2 submitted to his Kata Markon 3 discussion
forum, seemingly attaches to Mark's sleeping disciples passage a depth of
meaning that is far greater than is warranted, in my opinion. A few excerpts from his paper are reproduced
below:
"At Mk. 14:38 Mark presents Jesus commanding Peter, James
and John to petition God to be kept from 'entering into' a phenomenon denoted
by the term [peirasmos]...What, in Mark's eyes, is the object of this
petition? What is it that according to Mark these three disciples are to pray
for?...I seek to argue here [that] Mark presents Jesus as urging the disciples
to ask for in praying...to avoid their perpetrating a "testing of
faithfulness..."
"Now if, according to Mark, securing divine aid to
avoid putting God to the test is the theme of Jesus' own Gethsemane prayer, it
is reasonable to conclude that it is also the theme of the prayer that Jesus
urges Peter, James, and John to pray."
Thus, Gibson is asserting that
Jesus is not asking the disciples to pray that they're not tempted to
close their eyes while he is away, but to pray that they don't tempt, or test,
God's faithfulness.
Rebutting Gibson's Interpretation
Below are four main objections I
have to Gibson's argument that Mark was having Jesus ask the disciples to pray
that they not tempt or test God's faithfulness.
1. A Prayer to Avoid Testing God Breaks
Continuity
One reason to cast aside Gibson's thesis is that Jesus' request for
prayer is sandwiched inside references to the disciples' physical inability to
remain awake. The following outline
contrasts the orthodox interpretation to Gibson's:
Physical endurance: Disciples found sleeping, "Could you
not stay awake?"
Then, Jesus asks disciples to pray
a. that they not
succumb to body's need for sleep ?
or
b. that they
don't test God's faithfulness ?
Physical endurance: Jesus explains, "the body is
weak."
Physical endurance: Disciples were
again found sleeping because "their eyelids were heavy."
Which makes more sense: (a), or
(b)?
Any other meaning for the prayer
request besides a prayer for physical strength breaks the natural continuity of
the passage, and goes completely against common sense. Why would Jesus completely and so abruptly
change the subject from physical endurance to ask the disciples to pray that
they not test God, and then immediately return to the topic of physical
endurance? It doesn't make sense.
2. Why Didn't Jesus Ask Them to Pray Before
He Found Them Asleep?
Now, common sense presents another
problem with Gibson's interpretation:
If Jesus wanted his disciples to pray that they don't test God, then why
did he wait to ask them to do this until after he found them
sleeping? Common sense tells us that
the trigger for the prayer request was the fact that the disciples were found
sleeping.
Perhaps if Jesus had overhead the
disciples discussing how they might test God's faithfulness, then it would have
been appropriate for Jesus to ask them to pray that they never do this again,
but that is not what happened. Jesus
found them asleep, even after he had warned them in the parable that this was
something they should not do while waiting for the master (Jesus) to return,
and that is why he asked them to pray that they not to that again. Jesus request for prayer is part of Mark's
larger request to his audience that they not fall asleep spiritually while
waiting for Jesus' return. Few things in the Bible seem clearer than this, but
Gibson does not agree.
3. Jesus' Prayer Was Not About Testing God
Gibson, in the second excerpt
above from his paper, offers Jesus' private lamenting prayer at Gethsemane as
support for his thesis. If it's true,
Gibson says, that Jesus was asking in his prayer for help avoiding testing God,
then why shouldn't we conclude that was what he wanted his disciples to do,
too? Well, in my opinion, it is not
true that Jesus lamenting prayer was a call for divine aid to avoid having to
test God. I explained why I believe
this in a post to the Kata Markon discussion forum on October 15, 2002. That post is found in Appendix A. A relevant excerpt is below:
Just as David expresses the hope
following his betrayal that he will prevail, but recognizes it's the Lord's
decision to make ("whatever seems good to [God]"), then so
does Jesus express the hope following
his betrayal that his agony will be relieved, but accepts that it is "not
my will, but yours [whatever God wants]."
All that Mark is doing here is what he has done throughout his gospel stories: He is trying to show the reader that many of the heroic events in the lives of the divine figures of the Old Testament are being reenacted in the life of Jesus.
4. Mark Could Not Have Had Psalm in Mind
Immediately
following Jesus' request that the disciples pray that they not test
God--according to Gibson, Jesus then reminds his disciples that "the body
is weak." What does a "weak
body" have to do with testing God's faithfulness? It just doesn't make sense. If the phrase, "the body is weak,"
does not clearly refer to the physical problem of sleepy disciples keeping
their eyes open, and thus being tempted to close them, then what else could it
mean?
Gibson's
explanation of the connection between the weak body and testing God is based on
something he thinks he sees in Psalm 78:
In Psalm 78:37-41 the words pneuma
(spirit), sarx (flesh), asthenes
(weakness),and perasmon (tempt) appear, and these four words also appear
in Mark's sleeping disciples parable. Gibson
infers from this connection that Mark must have expected his readers to be
reminded of this Psalm when they thought about his sleeping disciples
story. Thus, according to Gibson, since
that Psalm is about testing God, he concludes that Mark 14:38 is about testing
God, too, otherwise, why would Mark have wanted them to think about the
Psalm?
Aside
from the fact that Gibson's argument is circular, there is a very good reason
to disbelieve that Mark had Psalm 78 in mind when he wrote his sleeping
disciples story. In the verses below,
the author is noting that the Lord does not bother to kill the faithless
because they are mortal, so they will die anyway.
Yet he...did not destroy them...he
restrained his anger [for] He
remembered that they were but flesh (sarx), a passing breeze that does
not return. (Psalm 78:38-39)
The Psalm reference to sarx is
about transience and mortality. Thus,
if we are to accept Gibson's claim that Mark wanted his audience to think of
this verse when they read Mark 14:38, then we will have to believe that Jesus'
prayer request was followed by a reminder to his disciples that they were not
immortal:
"Pray
that you don't test God. Remember, you
are not immortal."
What kind of sense does that
make?
Does it not make much more sense to
believe that Mark merely was having Jesus explain to his disciples that they
needed God's help to gain the strength needed to remain awake, because the body
(sarx) was weak in a physical sense, and not because their flesh would
not last forever?
"Pray that you don't close
your eyes. Remember, your body is
weak."
Conclusions
We should claim no more than that
Mark was having Jesus tell his disciples to pray that they not succumb to the
temptation to close their eyes, lest they be sleeping when the son of God
returns--in this instance, returning from praying to God. Mark explains parabolically to his audience
that they face the same danger as faced by the disciples: Perhaps they might lose patience while
waiting for Jesus' return and let their eyes be closed in a spiritual sense,
too, just like the foolish disciples, and thereby lose sight of God and his
kingdom.
In Mark 14:38, Mark has Jesus say that
the disciples' willpower is not enough to keep their eyes open, ("the
spirit is willing"), but the
fact that their bodies are weak means
they might succumb to the temptation (peirasmos) to close their eyes,
and that this is a parabolic teaching to Mark's audience that they must not
fall asleep spiritually while waiting for Jesus to return.
Gibson's suggestion that Jesus
wanted his disciples to pray that they not test God's faithfulness just doesn't
fit into the context of the pericope. Furthermore, if Mark really wanted
his readers to understand that Jesus didn't want his disciples to test God,
then he would have written this passage in a way which would readily be
understood by his readers. Why would
Mark write in a manner so indirect--if we can believe Gibson--that we would
have to wait two thousand years for his "true" intentions be made
clear to us?
I would think that if Mark wanted
us to know that he was having Jesus warn his disciples against putting God to
the test, he easily could have had Jesus speak plainly about testing God. There's ample evidence that gospel-writers
of that age knew how to do this.
Consider, for example, Luke's Peter in Acts 15:10, who said, "Now
therefore why tempt ye God (nun oun tis peirazo theos)...?" Luke knew how to speak directly about tempting
God. Why would Mark not also know
how? If Mark really did wish for his
audience to know that Jesus wanted his disciples to pray that they not tempt
God, rather than pray not to let their eyes be closed, would he not have known
that generations of readers would not be able to figure that out from what he
wrote?
A Kata Markon forum member responded
in some detail to questions regarding the translation of Mark 14:38 and the
meaning of peirasmos. (See
Appendix C.)
1. Jeffrey B. Gibson,
D.Phil. (Oxon.), DePaul University; Lecturer in Humanities at Wright College/
Roosevelt University/Columbia College, and Lecturer in New Testament Institute
for Pastoral Studies at Loyola University, Chicago. Curriculum vitae:
2. Online file no longer available.
Note #1 added Monday, October 21,
2002, 9:00 am California time: Gibson's
paper seems no longer to be available.
3. http://www.ibiblio.org/GMark/
4. Gibson's use of Psalm 78 to
support his "testing God" thesis:
Third, that the disciples are on
the verge of "testing God" is the specific import of the saying that
Mark has Jesus utter immediately after Jesus urges them to "keep
awake", "watch", and pray MH ELQHTE EIS PEIRASMON, namely, the
saying that the "the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" (TO MEN
PNEUMA PROQUMONH DE SARC ASQENHS, Mk. 14:39). It should be noted that in its
conjunction of the terms "flesh" (SARC), "spirit" (PNEUMA)
and "testing" (PEIRASMOS) not only with each other but with the theme
of the "weakness" (ASQENHS) of those purportedly dedicated to God,
the saying is an allusion to Ps. 78 (LXX) -- especially vv. 39-41 where the
same terms appear (in reverse order) in conjunction with the theme of the
weakness and the disobedience of nominal Israel. Now this Psalm not only recites the dark events
during and after Israel's wilderness wanderings when Israel doubted the
efficacy of God's ways to deliver them from "the foe" (cf. vv. 17-31
[compare Exod. 16-17]; 26-32 [compare Num. 11:31-35]; 56-66). It defines
itself, and was intent [sic] to be used as, as a warning to "coming
generations" within Israel not to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors
who "did not keep in mind [God's] power or the day when he redeemed them
from the foe"(v. 42) and thereby "put God to the test" (cf. vv.
18; 41; 56). Given this, the question arises: Why would Mark have Jesus allude
to this Psalm unless those to whom the allusion is addressed are in need of
hearing what the Psalm has to say?
Appendix A
This email exchange below is in large part identical to the post I sent to Kata
Markon on October 15, 2002, with some changes.
JEFFREY GIBSON
"…how else should Jesus'
anguished words ending with '[but] not my will but yours', be interpreted except
as a prayer for divine aid to avoid putting God to the test?"
JOE ALWARD
I don't see the need to make this
passage that complicated, or meaningful.
I think you may be attaching an undeserved sophistication to the Markan
author, as well as a depth of meaning to the passage that is not there, in my
opinion. I don't see why this pericope
has to have anything whatever to do with testing God. I believe the simpler explanation for "not my will but
yours" is that the author was just having Jesus imitate David's lament.
As I have suggested more than once
in this forum, there is ample evidence that some of the stories about Jesus in
the Markan gospel are an examples of the type of aemulatio (emulation)
that Dennis MacDonald described so well in his book, The Homeric Epics and
the Gospel of Mark, (Yale University Press, 2000). While MacDonald suggests that Mark had Jesus
emulate Odysseus, I see a much clearer connection to the Old Testament
heroes, Elisha, Elijah, Moses, David, and Yahweh. For example, Mark seems to have adapted the fishes and loaves
story from Elisha's multiplication of the loaves, but made Jesus better. He likewise had Jesus intend to pass by the
boat, in emulation of the Lord's passing by Moses. There are other examples, but the one which is relevant to your
Gethsemane analysis is David's lament after having been betrayed by his
counselor:
Then the king said…"If I find
favor in the LORD's eyes, he will bring me back and let me see...his dwelling
place again. But if he says, `I am not pleased with you,' then I am ready; let
him do to me whatever seems good to him." (2 Samuel 15:25-26)
Just as David expresses the hope
following his betrayal that he will prevail, but recognizes it's the Lord's
decision to make ("whatever seems good to [God]"), then so
does Jesus express the hope following
his betrayal that his agony will be relieved, but accepts that it is "not
my will, but yours [whatever God wants]."
All that Mark is doing here is
what he had done throughout his gospel stories: He is trying to show the reader that many of the heroic events in
the lives of the divine figures of the Old Testament are being reenacted in the
life of Jesus. Mark created these
fictional stories--or, at least they were created in the oral tradition from which
Mark derived the tales--in order to give the impression that this
"Jesus" person must be the son of God. How else could one explain why all of these divine-like things
happen to him?
Thus, in my opinion, Jesus'
lamenting prayer has nothing whatever to do with a request for divine aid to
avoid putting God to the test, as Gibson has asserted. Instead, it is just one more item in a long
list of items in the life of Jesus manufactured by Mark to convince his audience
that Jesus was the son of God. Readers
who are interested in seeing the evidence to back up my claims will find it in
the articles on the web site shown below.
I am aware of your views on
"parallelmania," and agree that the practice of seeking parallels can
be carried too far, but in this case I think the parallels between David's
lament and Jesus' agony at Gethsemane are too strong to dismiss. If you wish to see a stronger case for
Mark's emulation of David in this case, you will find it in the article, "David and
Jesus."
Other articles by Joseph F. Alward
on Mark's gospel are found on the web page,
"A
Skeptical View of Christianity and the Bible".
Appendix B
The following is a post I sent to
the Kata Markon forum on October 21, 2002:
I present in this post a condensed
version of my argument against Gibson's interpretation of Mark 14:38. Readers will find the complete argument at Sleeping_Disciples.htm
In Mark 13:32-37, Jesus tells the
story of the type of failure servants must not be guilty of: closing their eyes while the master is
away. There is not the slightest hint
in this parable that Mark wanted the readers to think of the servants' failure
in terms of their testing God. No one
will deny that the second parable at Mark 32-42 was meant by Mark to read in
light of the first parable, so since there is zero reference to testing God,
how could Mark ever have expected his readers to impute that meaning to Mark
14:38, as Gibson thinks they should have?
Did he expect his audience to undertake the comprehensive rumination,
and extensive and deep probing of the Greek, while reading between the lines,
that Jeffrey Gibson has done? Of course
not. Mark would have wanted them to see
and accept the direct, surface meaning of the words he had Jesus speak. Why make it hard on his audience?
The message in the sleeping
servants parable is very simple: Keep
awake while the master is away. Since
this parable is obviously the antecedent to the parable Mark tells of the
sleeping disciples, the absence of any reference to testing God is strong
evidence against Gibson's interpretation.
The message in Mark's sleeping
disciples parable in Chapter 14 is exactly the same as the message in the
sleeping servants parable in Chapter 13, and just as simple, just as direct.
In constructing his parable, Mark
was mindful that Jesus was already about seventy years late in keeping his
promise to return with the angels and the trumpets in the heavens. People were starting to wonder whether Jesus
was ever coming back, and were losing their faith. Naturally, Mark would have wanted to warn them not let their eyes
be closed to the message of God, and to be patient and continue to wait for
Jesus' return, and not be tempted to abandon their faith (close their
eyes).
To present this warning to his
audience, Mark told them a story about the disciples doing exactly the thing
that Jesus warned against in his sleeping servants parable: closing their eyes while Jesus was away,
because the temptation to do so was so great.
The message would not be lost on the audience: they should keep their eyes open, waiting for Jesus to return,
even though they may be tempted to abandon him. This interpretation is so
simple, so sensible, so direct, that it is very hard to understand how anyone
could think that it is more complicated than this, no matter what they think
they see in the underlying Greek.
What I believe Gibson and others
have done is to construct a very convoluted
"how-it-can-be-much-more-complicated-than-people-think" scenario
based largely on a possible interpretation of a single Greek word. They see things that have not been seen even
by the greatest scholars of our time, and was beyond the understanding of all
of those translators that Sid Martin mentioned. To accept their "testing
God" interpretation, one is forced to abandon the far more natural and
sensible one, and to ignore completely the fact that the antecedent parable has
nothing whatever to do with testing.
Basically, these folks are blinding themselves to the obvious simplicity
of Mark's message, seeing things with their hearts--not their minds--in the
manner of the "Bible code" people, who need the Bible to contain
messages hidden to everyone but them.
Now, we know what Larry Swain
thinks about this simpler interpretation; he rejects it, evidently, as does
Gibson. Now, Gibson's other supporter
on this issue in this forum (the only other one I know about), Mark Goodacre,
has yet to present his views, at least not since I first offered my
observations to the forum, so let me ask Mark this: Do you believe with Gibson that 14:38 is NOT a request by Jesus
that his disciples pray that they do not fall asleep--essentially pray that
they do not lose the contest being body and mind? Do you instead believe with Gibson that 14:38 is a request by
Jesus that they pray that they do not test God? If the latter, what do you do with Jesus' reference to the body
being weak, and how do you explain the fact that the antecedent parallel seems
to have nothing to do with testing God, and only to do with staying awake--showing
patience--while the master is away?
......................................................................................................................................................
Appendix C
Sid Martin, an attorney from
Tulsa, Oklahoma, who has a "longstanding interest in Christian origins and
the Gospel of Mark," responded to Gibson's challenge to me to explain why
I believe that "tempt," or "temptation" is an appropriate
translation of "peirasmos" in Mark 14:38. Gibson, in two posts on October 19, wrote:
I wonder if you could back up your
claim that PEIRASMOS means "temptation" and not "a test/
trial"? (Kata Markon, October 19, 2002)
To aid Joe in the question I asked
him about showing me evidence that PEIRASMOS ever meant "temptation",
I decided to reproduce the data which needs to be examined if some resolution
of the question is to be attained, i.e., a listing of all the instances of the
use of PEIRASMOS before the middle of the second century CE. (Kata Markon, October 19, 2002)
In response, Martin wrote,
Forgive me for being a little
confused but doesn't "temptation" simply mean "testing" or
"trying" in a moral sense? A person's character is "tested"
or "tried" when one is faced with a choice between what is morally
right and what is personally appealing. One is "tempted" to do what
is easier or more profitable or more sensually satisfying. One passes the
"test" or "trial" when one refuses to give into
"temptation," i.e., to fail the test by choosing the lesser good or
the greater evil. Without the "temptation" there is no
"test" so that in reality they are the same thing. Just as ore may be
assayed to see if it has the chemical composition of gold, so too a person may
be tested by temptation to see if he has the "right stuff." One can
also be tempted in a prudential sense by choosing immediate gratification over
a person's greater interests; breaking one's diet is a good example.
In the context of Mark 14:38, the sense is clearly that the disciples are to
watch and pray and not give in to the temptation to sleep - the easier, more
satisfying course of conduct - rather than pass the fatigue test and stay
awake. Note God's Word, "Stay awake, and pray that you won't be
tempted." Many a soldier ordered to stand guard late at night has known
what it is to say that the soldier's spirit is willing to do his duty but the
long day's march has made his exhausted flesh too weak to watch. Indeed, Mark
is very likely alluding to this military model. Falling asleep at one's post
would, I am sure, be an instant death sentence in the Roman army.
Perhaps it would be helpful if Jeffrey would share with us his concern that
PEIRASMOS be rendered "trial" or "test" rather than
"temptation" which, to my mind, is at best a distinction without a
difference, especially where the context suggests that the test or trial of one
of moral character, i.e., temptation. Jeffrey rests his case on the LXX nisah
= a "test", a "trial." Brown-Driver-Briggs (based on
Gesenius) has as the third definition "test, try prove, tempt [but not in
modern sense of the word]." Does anyone know what the "modern sense
of the word" is, other than a test of character?
If Joe is mistaken in his translation, it is a mistake that the majority of
translators make. See KJV, RSV, NKJV, NIV, NASB, NLT, ESV, KJ21, ASV, TEV, NCV,
CEV, as well as Young, Phillips, Darby, Webster, Green, Wesley, Weymouth. This
was Jeromes's translation, "in temptationem," and following the
Vulgate, Douay-Rheims and Knox. Cognates of temptation are found in French,
"tentation" (Segond, Jerusalem), Italian, "tentazione"
(CEI, LND, IBS), Spanish, "tentacion" (RVR1960, NVI, RVR1995, DHH,
RVA, LBLA, CST-IBS), and Portugues, "tentacao" (NVI, IBS, PORAA). Luther
chose "Versuchung" as did his revisers (1912, 1975, 1984) and
successors (Elberfelder). The Staatenvertaling, "verzoeking," and the
IBS
"verleiding" are equivalent. Scandanavian versions are all of the
"frestar/frestele" variety (SVL, SV1917, DN1933, DNB1930, Nor-IBS),
while Russian has "iskushyeniye" (Russv, IBS). In all of these
languages, the terms used have the sense of resisting temptation, i.e., passing
a test of moral character.
The use of "test" or "trial" to render PEIRASMOS is
decidedly out of the ordinary, if not idiosyncratic. The only prominent English
translation to do so is NRSV which has "time of trial", although
there is nothing about "time" in the Greek. Such usage may reflect a
desire to simplify the language to the point of being rather overly colloquial,
as in the Basic English "not be put to the test," Contemporary
English "won't be tested," Worldwide English "will not do
wrong," and Biblia en Lenguaje Sencillo's "la prueba." Notable
is the IBS's Hoffnung fuer Alle which has "damit ihr die kommenden Tage
ueberstehen koennt." This reflects a view that the temptation/test/trial
is yet to come, rather than being present in the natural urge to sleep. Such
may foreshadow a future peirasmos, but the main sense is more immediate.
Martin is the author of the
articles, "Withdrawal
to the Sea", and "Mysteries
of the Kingdom."