O you of little faith

 

 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 that 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 the 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 said 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.  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."  My study Bible explains that a sign from heaven means a spectacular display of power.  It says that the time of the Messiah among the Jews was expected to be accompanied by signs, but these hypocrites have not recognized the signs already being performed because their hearts were hardened, and they ignored the works which were happening all around them.

"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.  An adulterous generation is an echo of the illustration used by the prophets when Israel was unfaithful to God (see Jeremiah 3; Hosea 2:2-13).  Jesus refuses to prove Himself in some spectacular way -- a sign is not given to those whose motive is to test God.  (See also Matthew 4:5-7).  The sign of the prophet Jonah is Christ's veiled prediction of His death and Resurrection (Matthew 12:40), the ultimate sign that He 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 that 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.  The leaven of the Pharisees is their doctrine and their hypocrisy (Luke 12:1).  My study Bible teaches that the reason the disciples are painfully slow to understand is that they have such little faith; in fact, they would not fully grasp Christ's teachings until Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given.

Why do we think the disciples are so slow to learn?  Christ addresses them, "O you of little faith."  He has to remind them about the feeding of the five thousand from five loaves, and the seven loaves that fed the four thousand on another, more recent, occasion (see yesterday's reading, above).  How does faith correspond with what we understand?  Clearly today's reading expresses that link for us.  Faith is also linked to the activity of the Holy Spirit, as my study Bible points out that the disciples would not really understand Christ's teachings until Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given.  We understand that the word faith is rooted in "trust" -- but in today's reading there is a link expressed between the growth of this trust in Christ and an understanding of His life, His works, His teachings.  It is as if the more full participation in the life of Christ is the one correlation with our understanding of it.  This, then, makes perfect sense out of why Christ will not give a miracle "on demand," won't acquiesce to the demand for a sign by the religious leaders.  There are all kinds of signs happening in His ministry, and they manage to ignore them anyway.  Any such proof would still be denied or explained away, just as they have already sought to explain miraculous healings by Jesus as the work of the demonic (Matthew 12:24).  We seem to be given a great clue to human nature in today's reading, since we're given to understand that so much depends upon what we put our faith into.  Human beings are capable of rationalizing away all kinds of things, of deluding themselves about relationships and other realities in order to empower beliefs that make life easier than the stark reality we'd rather not face.  In this case, the power of Christ's presence and work in the world is not easily acceptable.  We might understand the gospel of the kingdom of heaven as good news, but imagine being confronted with such shocking and powerful reality in the flesh, right in front of you.  For the Sadducees and Pharisees from Jerusalem, the reality of Christ is like an earthquake in their establishment, one that rocks their positions as the regulators and keepers of the faith.  How can they possibly assert a greater authority than One such as Christ if He's really divine, if He "casts out demons by the finger of God" (Luke 11:20)?  Their own faithlessness is self-protective in this sense:  what Christ brings into the world shatters their illusion of their own ultimate authority, for a greater authority is present here.  And what do we make of the disciples, who are so slow of comprehension that even Christ seems to be somewhat amazed?  They are witnesses to two miraculous feedings, and still they misunderstand His words about "leaven."  This teaches us, first of all, not to be afraid of our own "little faith" or comprehension, because faith is not a one-time-only declaration or experience.  It is a journey, and today's text clearly indicates that faith is something that grows and is dynamic within us, and parallel to it is our own understanding of the things of God, of Christ's action in our own lives.  To understand salvation as a one-time declaration of faith is belied by the text:  even though these men have left everything behind to follow Christ as disciples, they still have an enormous amount of growth to do as far as their spiritual lives and their faith is concerned.  And so it is with us.  There is no comparison between individuals, but all of our lives must be on a track going one way or the other.  We are on a road somewhere, and there are times when we will grow in faith and dependency upon God, and other times when our more comfortable understanding of life will do battle within us against the things to which God seeks to open up our eyes, about which we need a deeper faith, and a greater enlightenment.  Perhaps we feel highly secure with certain beliefs that need to be shaken up, perhaps faith calls us to relinquish a sense of control we don't really have -- such experience can be extremely disconcerting although our faith gives us a more true sense of reality.  There are times when we'll have to open up our eyes to the unreliability of particular relationships or certain things we take for granted in our lives; and again, that will spark a time when our faith will be at war with our fears, and that struggle for faith taking place within our souls.  These times can shake up our sense of ourselves and our place in the world, but we can usually count on them to be times when our faith is being challenged, our depth of faith being called upon to grow through the experience.  We will certainly be called upon to an even greater dependency upon God.  One way or another, there is a choice we're being asked to make.  It may seem like a strange quandary:  our understanding increases with faith, and not the other way around.  But this is the way that spiritual growth happens, the ways that challenges to faith will work in our lives.  So much depends upon that struggle within, and how we come to respond.  For this is the ongoing work of salvation.

 

 

I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat

 

 Jesus departed from there, 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 said 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.

 

- Matthew 15:29-39 

 

Yesterday we read that, after a confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem, Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David!  My daughter is severely demon-possessed."  But He answered her not a word.  And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, "Send her away, for she cries out after us."  But He answered and said, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"  But He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."  And she said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table."  Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, great is your faith!  Let it be to you as you desire."  And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

 

  Jesus departed from there, 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.  My study Bible comments that Christ's healing of the multitudes here shows that these Jews actually had less faith than the Canaanite woman in yesterday's reading (see above).  To quote St. John Chrysostom, Christ healed the woman's daughter "with much delay, but these immediately, because she is more faithful than they.  He delays with her to reveal her perseverance, while here He bestows the gift immediately to stop the mouths of the unbelieving Jews."  To behold the mute speaking, the maimed made whole, the lame walking, the blind seeing are all prophesied signs of the Messiah (see Isaiah 35:5-8).

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 said 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.  My study Bible tells us that this second feeding of a multitude should not be confused with the first (see this reading from Friday last week).  They are two distinct miracles (see Matthew 16:8-10, in which Jesus refers to each one).  There is traditional significance ascribed in the variance in the number of loaves.  In the first feeding in the wilderness, there were five loaves, which symbolized the Law.  Here there are seven.  Seven is a symbol of completeness, and here it indicates spiritual perfection.  So, in the first instance, Christ is revealing Himself as fulfilling the Law.  But here He shows that it is He who grants spiritual perfection.   Also, my study Bible remarks, these crowds had been with Christ for three days, which is the number of days that He would rest in the tomb.  To participate in His perfection can only come through being united to His death (see Romans 6:3-5). 

Why do we suppose that Jesus does two separate feedings in the wilderness?  Certainly we can understand that the circumstance arose more than once, and also that there must be a special significance to each, as this is the way that His ministry evolved, and these are the events the Evangelists have recorded as part of what the Church commemorates and honors.  These specific events are given to us for a purpose, by God and by the Church in the recording of the Gospels.  But one thing we can learn from these different miraculous feedings is that we are to take note of Christ's ministry and its characteristic of evolving through time.  It does not simply stay the same or repeat itself in the sense of never changing.  If Christ was to go first to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel," as He said to the woman of Canaan in yesterday's reading (see above), then we can understand the evolution of ministry as Gentiles also begin to be included as examples of faith as in occasions for miraculous works by Christ.  Every part of this ministry is important, necessary, and significant.  Just as the feeding of the five thousand with five loaves is understood as fulfilling the Law (the first five books of the Bible, also called Penteteuch or Talmud), so Christ also comes to fulfill spiritual perfection , especially through His Passion, which is understood in the various symbols of today's reading, such as the three days and the seven loaves.  As Christ's own ministry and mission evolves through the Gospels, so we should also come to understand our own spiritual journeys and faith, because God's love is always active and working in this mission that takes place within us and in our lives.  We remarked earlier on the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Messiah that we read in the first few verses of today's reading.  Isaiah writes, after he prophecies that at the time of the Messiah "the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing . . .."  But the prophecy continues:  "And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein" (see Isaiah 35:5-8).   Christ's ministry expresses for us "The way of holiness," the "highway" He also refers to when He speaks of Himself as "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6).  That "way" in Greek literally means "road," and it delineates the path that Christ gives us, the journey of faith such as we read about as His ministry evolves, and also as our own faith journey evolves through new challenges and new lessons in discipleship.  It is an important concept to understand, for if even Christ's understanding and ministry evolves for Himself, how much more, then, as His disciples shall we expect this for ourselves?  The spiritual life is not simply a stagnant repetition of the "same old thing," but a constant evolution of new understandings, new discipline, new teachings to learn.  Just like caring for a home, a garden, an agricultural enterpriese or business, things are constantly in flux:  there will be new things to cast out, new things to take on and learn, new practices we must start, and old things we will learn to discard.  This is the spiritual life, for in Christ we have an eternal life, and one that never stops growing in its dynamic engagement with our life.  Let us keep in mind the journey, and be ever alert to where He asks us to go and offers His counsel and teachings for each new step.  The multitude continues with Jesus for three days; we continue with Him for our lives, even unto eternal life.

 

 

How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?

 In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.  Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

- Mark 8:1-10

Yesterday, we read that Jesus traveled north from Galilee to the region of Tyre and Sidon.  And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden.  For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet.  The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.  But Jesus said to her, "Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."  And she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs."  Then He said to her, "For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter."  And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.  Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.  Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.  And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched His tongue.  Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."  Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.  Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it.  And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well.  He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak."

  In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat.  And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar."  Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"  He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?"  And they said, "Seven."  So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude.  They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them.  So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.  Now those who had eaten were about four thousand.  And He sent them away, immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.  Here we have another "feeding" miracle; this time there are four thousand (see You give them something to eat for the feeding of the five thousand).  The first thing to notice in today's reading is Mark's repeated emphasis on the great crowds that now follow Jesus.  That plays into traditional interpretations of this distinctly separate feeding miracle from the first, and its meanings.  In the first feeding there were five loaves, and here we read about seven.  My study bible says that the earlier five loaves symbolizes the Law, while seven here symbolizes completeness, and indicates spiritual perfection.  Therefore, in the first feeding in the wilderness Christ reveals Himself as fulfilling the Law, and here He shows that it is He who grants spiritual perfection.  There's also symbolism in the number of days we're told these crowds have been with Him:  three is the number of days He would remain in the tomb.  My study bible says, "Participation in His perfection can only come through being united to Christ's death."

We've just read (in yesterday's reading) about the Syro-Phoenician woman who received the "crumbs" from the food given to the children -- that is the miraculous healing of her daughter via her faith in Christ, at a time when He was in Gentile territory ostensibly for a rest from the crowds, and wanted to remain hidden.  Today's feeding in the wilderness reflects a growing understanding of the faith that will be taken into the whole world, even as it is first taken in ministry to the Jews.  This has a different sort of "flavor" than the ministry in which Jesus fulfills the Law; it is a reflection of the power of the Spirit, of holiness that will work via grace.  In and of itself, it's a teaching about transformation:  that power that works within us as we persist in discipleship to Christ.  It's really important to note that in every case Jesus isn't only working here to feed people as His entire mission in life.  We're not talking about a kind of generous donation as His sole ministry in which He simply seeks to give people food to eat.  As we said in the commentary of the previous feeding miracle,  we have to be able to consider what kind of food is really at work here, and what His true basic offering to the world is.  We really must accept that what comes first is that these people have been with Him for three days.  They have sacrificed their own comforts and physical needs for the spiritual food that He offers, for the ministry of His word, His teaching.  That's the first place we have to go in order to understand what is happening here and what Jesus is about.  These crowds have first expressed a spiritual hunger and thirst so great that they've continued with Him for three days, ignoring their own physical needs.  In other words, this hunger and thirst is a faith, a deep desire for relationship, and overall an expression of trust that they have expressed for Him.  We really have to start there to understand what's happening.  The message here is about discipleship, about sticking with one's faith, no matter where it leads.  This feeding in the wilderness comes in the sense that Christ helps us with the necessities, even when we don't know where they are coming from -- but faith comes first.   It's a kind of statement about a spiritual journey of faith, a long road of trust in Christ, in which what is at hand may surprisingly suffice for our needs, with His help.  And the importance of transformation mustn't be forgotten here:  this comes through relationship, time put into the journey with Him.  That is what discipleship is all about.  One after another, we read in Mark's Gospel about the places Jesus leads His disciples:  they repeatedly go across the sea in storms that terrify them (here and here), they come to frightful sights in strange places (as in meeting the man who called himself Legion), and here yet again even whole multitudes find themselves in the wilderness without resources for food.  But it's always faith that leads the way, it's the seeking of the stuff He's truly offering:  Himself, His word.  Let's remember that's how the journey starts.  This isn't just about a charitable work (elsewhere He evades the crowd that seeks to make Him king and chastizes them that they just followed Him for the loaves He gave them).   Jesus' mission is all about something we put our faith into, something much grander than whatever we might consider our lives to be about in a worldly sense, and it's into that mystical reality we're invited.  It's a widening of the picture, a much greater concept of life into which all our own understanding of life may fit and is included:  a kind of broadening out of what we think our lives and our concerns are all about.  We put faith first because everything else that concerns us is contained within that discipline to learn what life is about, how we go about putting our lives together, what kind of choices we want to make as we put our own futures into real perspective and planning.  So much depends on what we put our faith into, what we trust, and how we go about building our futures.  Faith encircles everything we may think to build and to become, the whole portrait of life we want to live, the world we choose to build, what kind of people we are and how we make whatever impact we do upon the world.  This is the whole picture, not a piece of it.  It's His whole mission, for the "whole" of our lives.