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Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said to them, "When it is evening you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red'; and in the morning, 'It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.' Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah." And He left them and departed.
Now when His disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said to them, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." And they reasoned among themselves, saying, "It is because we have taken no bread." But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, "O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? -- but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
- Matthew 16:1-12
Yesterday, we read that Jesus departed from the region of Tyre and Sidon (where He healed the daughter of a Canaanite woman), skirted the Sea of Galilee, and went up on the mountain and sat down there. Then great multitudes came to Him, having with them the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others; and they laid them down at Jesus' feet, and He healed them. So the multitude marveled when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel. Now Jesus called His disciples to Himself and said, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And I do not want to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way." Then His disciples aid to Him, "Where could we get enough bread in the wilderness to fill such a great multitude?" Jesus said to them, "How many loaves do you have?" And they said, "Seven, and a few little fish." So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitude. So they all ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets full of the fragments that were left. Now those who ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. And He sent away the multitude, got into the boat, and came to the region of Magdala.
Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and testing Him asked that He would show them a sign from heaven. Once again the Pharisees come to Him in the mood to test (see also Saturday's reading in which they questioned a violation of the tradition of the elders), but this time there are also Sadducees with them. The Sadducees were members of what was an aristocratic landowning class of the region around Jerusalem, while the Pharisees strictly studied and interpreted the minutiae of the Law; both groups were part of the religious leadership of the Council. A sign from heaven is a demand for some spectacular display of power, meant to be 'convincing proof' that Christ is truly Messiah. My study bible tells us that the time of the Messiah among the Jews was expected to be accompanied by signs, but these hypocrites cannot recognize the signs already being performed. Their hearts are hardened, they ignore the works happening around them and the things that have created what is by now a very well-known ministry.
He answered and said to them, "When it is evening you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red'; and in the morning, 'It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.' Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah." And He left them and departed. They cannot discern the signs of the times. Luke's Gospel will later report Jesus weeping over Jerusalem before He makes His Triumphal Entry (the beginning of Holy Week), saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes" (see Luke 19:41-44). These men 'do not know the things that make for their peace'; they are 'hidden from their eyes.' To be adulterous, in this context, is to be disloyal -- to break covenant. My study bible says that Jesus refuses to prove Himself in a spectacular way, because a sign is never given to those whose motive is to test God (see 4:5-7). The sign of the prophet Jonah is a "hidden" prediction of Christ's death and Resurrection (12:40), the ultimate sign that Jesus is the Christ.
Now when His disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said to them, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees." And they reasoned among themselves, saying, "It is because we have taken no bread." But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, "O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? Nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? -- but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. In one parable we've been given in Matthew, "leaven" is used positively, to denote the action of the Kingdom of heaven (see this reading). But overall in the Scriptures, leaven is used negatively, as Jesus uses it here as He calls their way of thinking as displayed in the gratuitous demand for a sign, the leaven of the Pharisees. My study bible says that the leaven of the Pharisees is their doctrine and their hypocrisy (see Luke 12:1). It adds that the reason the disciples are painfully slow to understand is that they have such little faith; they would not fully grasp Jesus' teachings until Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given.
The Pharisees and Sadducees here engage in a kind of hypocrisy: they are the leadership of Israel who rule the temple and religious affairs. The Pharisees are the experts in Scripture. And yet they fail to discern what is before them in the presence and ministry of Christ, and go so far as to demand a sign from Him so that He proves Himself to them. It's as if they would examine God. But God reveals what God reveals and how God wishes to reveal God's work and God's presence -- and they should know that as well. Their doctrine is hypocrisy, a kind of overweening cynicism for anything would lead to questioning of their own place of authority. Ultimately, their 'own authority' serves as their ultimate value. As individuals, we know (and the New Testament reports) there are many among them who are believers and true faithful. The book of Acts of the Apostles also teaches us about the wisdom, courage, and leadership of the widely-respected Gamaliel (Acts 5:33-42), and also gives us St. Paul's reference to Gamaliel as his early teacher (Acts 22:3). But as a body they suffer from those individuals in leadership who wish to be rid of Christ. He's too much trouble for them. The people are stirred by Him. Here, He's openly questioning their "doctrines" to His disciples; He is scathing in His own assessment of their hearts and minds and ways of thinking. He has already called the Pharisees the blind leaders of the blind. The interesting thing here is that Jesus calls His own disciples "ye of little faith." We've already been given to know that there are things the disciples don't understand; even Jesus seems surprised and impatient at their lack of comprehension here. But we're clearly to distinguish between the lack of understanding (and the "little faith") of the disciples, and the leaven of the Pharisees. Even as Jesus told the parables of chapter 13, He explained afterward in private to His disciples. So clearly there is a discernment between the "little faith" of the disciples and those without eyes to see and ears to hear. The doctrine of hypocrisy truly stands in the way of spiritual growth and healing, or the perception of the work of God in their midst. The Pharisees display a kind of cynicism that makes it impossible to perceive the presence of love and goodness, spiritual beauty. They have pared down their doctrine to apply only to what is sanctioned by them and by the traditions that they as a body have developed around the Law. Legalistic interpretations of God's love will do this, and so the Church has historically been against forms of "legalism" as doctrine. How does one have insight into the workings of God's love with such a perspective that allows no leniency and no growth, no new revelation? The vast creativity of the Holy Spirit is always revealing to us what we do not yet "know" for certain, ways in which we are to be stretched and to grow and to give up old ways of thinking. Jesus truly used the analogy of "new wineskins" to illustrate God's work through His ministry, which needs space and room to grow and expand into things not before seen nor understood, even though prophecy has revealed what is only understood later -- such as God's revelation and promise to Abraham that "in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 22:18). The workings of God are works of love, and need a heartfelt response of love in order to be perceived -- even in order to give us a "little faith" or to be drawn into the mysteries of God. These are not things to be coveted and measured, nor to be stored up like some sort of private cache of goods. Competition doesn't enter into it. But without the spiritual eyes and ears of the heart, one would never understand this. Let us beware of the leaven of hypocrisy and a false sort of cynicism. Remember the response of love.
