Someone had screwed up.
The disciples and Jesus were in a boat heading across the lake and an oversight of great concern had taken place. Someone had forgot the bread.
If you’ve ever been on a picnic or camping trip, you know that something is usually forgotten. And when that something is the food, it’s never a great scene.
As to the scene unfolding in the disciples boat, we don’t know who had forgotten the food and what all had been said, but no doubt some good old fashion ribbing had probably taken place.
But soon the conversation about the bread had died down and the main noise was the bow of the boat breaking across the waves. Then out of nowhere, Jesus says, “Be careful. Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
What? One can almost hear Thaddeus lean over to Andrew and say, “That was random.”
The Bible says that soon the disciples were discussing amongst themselves what in the world Jesus was talking about. “Are the Pharisees selling bad yeast?” “Is their bread bad?” That’s it, it must be because we didn’t bring any bread.
Jesus just sits at the other end of the boat, shaking his head. Clearly, his disciples were clueless.
Now we don’t know what the real chronology of Jesus time on earth was but it is important to note that just one chapter earlier in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus had just used seven loaves and a few small fish to feed more than 4,000 people so its safe to presume that this exchange with the disciples was occurring not much later.
I suppose its even possible that the “forgotten” bread was from the leftovers collected from feeding the people. Matthew 15 tells us they had picked up seven basketfuls of presumably very edible pieces of bread. Bread should have been on the mind, but never-the-less it had been forgotten.
Jesus sits there just shaking his head. “Why are you talking amongst yourselves about having no bread,” he asks. “Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand and how many basketfuls you gathered?” Obviously, he’s implying, I can come up with food to feed us. Then he continues, “How is it that you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of Pharisees and Sadducees.”
Ooooh. Now the light bulb went off. It was the teachings they were being warned about. You can almost imagine the muttering under the breath that followed. “Told you it wasn’t the bread.” “Ya, but you didn’t know what he was talking about either.”
It wasn’t the first time or the last time that the disciples simply didn’t get what Jesus was talking to them about. Once again, they were so caught up in the context of the moment that the meaning of the words just flew right by. Bread was on the mind. Yeast was part of bread. So clearly Jesus must be unhappy about having no bread.
Reading Matthew 16, it’s hard not to laugh at the disciples totally missing the point.
Until, I suppose, we stop to think about how we constantly miss the point.
I made a comment in Sabbath School class a few weeks back that I didn’t think anyone there really knew the Bible. It was a random comment, out of context. Several weeks went by before another class member noted that he had been really bothered by the comment because he really believed that he knew the Bible. But, he noted, the more I thought about it, the more I knew you were right.
He began to explain the precise point I was trying to make. We are so influenced by the context of our lives and those who influence us that it is very hard to listen to what the Bible is actually saying to us. The problem is very pervasive.
My daughter asked me a couple of weeks ago about an act of creation and about Adam and Eve and the tree. Her Bible textbook at school said one thing about these events and her Bible said another.
These problems are everywhere. Sing the carol away in a manger. The Cattle are lowing the baby awakes but little lord Jesus no crying he makes. It’s a great song and all the manger scenes with cattle and sheep make for beautiful pictures. But there probably weren’t any cows in the stable. Think about it. The stable was with the inn so it was a stable for travelers at the inn. People didn’t ride cows then either. Or sheep. The right way to sing the song? The camels were spitting? The donkeys were braying? Or the horses neighing? But no cattle lowing. Sorry.
There are dozens upon dozens of examples like this where seemingly harmless traditional stories have become part of the folklore of the Bible. But the Bible shouldn’t be about folklore. And if we don’t notice the difference, our reality and awareness of the world around us substitutes a slight variation on truth and we began to create a Bible knowledge based on our own newly created reality.
It’s not just the Bible either. On July 3, 1776 John Adams wrote his wife that no doubt July 2 would be a day of picnics, community events and great celebration. Why? Because July 2 was the date that America’s forefathers declared independence. Why do we celebrate on the 4th then? Because that was the day the document summarizing the declaration was dated. It was signed in August. Slight variations on real truth and probably harmless in secular life.
Next there’s the challenge of church culture. It doesn’t matter what denomination. Just pick a belief statement and choose to believe it and from that point forward you can’t view anything differently. If you believe in the trinity doctrine, you’ll find support for it in the Bible. Don’t believe in it? The Bible is pretty clear you are right. Once a group of individuals with a common belief system stake a claim about a belief, selective perception kicks into high gear. That means you hear what you want to hear louder than what you don’t want to hear. Unless you consciously change, you forever see the Bible message through filtered glasses. But the Bible shouldn’t be about proving your religious views. It should be about discovering them.
Take a look at our own church. We are reading a morning devotional currently that was published by the Adventist church in 1982. A couple of times a week I have to edit it on the fly because the content is extrabiblical … someone’s projection on what the Bible message is. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are wrong. How would we know? And then there’s the Clear Word about which only one thing is clear, it’s no longer the Bible. In many ways, such things seem harmless. People will say, We do believe these things, don’t we? But the Bible shouldn’t be expanded upon to support a belief. Should it?
Then there’s the political realm. Boy howdy does God get abused there. How many wars have taken place where the fighters claimed to have God on their side? How is it that suicide bombers can call on the name of Allah / God as justification for taking life? How many people forward emails that allude to Scripture to make some claim that this party or that party or this president or that president is the agent of God and the other of the devil? What an insult that is to Jesus. How dare we allow these emails to reduce the word of God and of Jesus into a tool of petty partisan tirades? We should be outraged at these insults to our Savior. The Bible isn’t about promoting political views.
Jesus warns about this challenge in Matthew 9. He’s being asked why he and his disciples don’t follow the church culture that is expected of him. “You don’t pour new wine into old wineskins,” he says. “If you do, the skins will burst and the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, you pour new wine into new wineskins and both are preserved.”
In other words, don’t try to make a message fit into preset boundaries. In ancient times goatskins were used to hold wine. A new skin would expand with the wine as it fermented. An already stretched skin would just burst. So Jesus is saying, don’t make me fit your irrelevant rules. That was a rather counter culture statement. Yet it is good guidance for today. Don’t follow a religious culture just because it exists.
Jesus gets even more pointed in Matthew 15. The Pharisees ask him, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!” Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, Honor father and mother and Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. But you say if a man says to his father or mother, Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God, he is not to honor his father with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.” Jesus ends this diatribe by quoting from Isaiah, “The worship me in Vain, says God, yet their teachings are but rules taught by men.” Ouch. Painful and pointed … don’t enforce traditions you have created and don’t change the word of God to fit your traditions.
Jesus also had little tolerance for people who tried to take daily news and somehow connect it to the spiritual. There’s a great story in Luke 13. A bit gruesome, but great. Jesus has just been told about a horrific news event in which Pilate had mixed the blood of some Galileans into their sacrifices. Listen carefully to Jesus’ response. “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you no! Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them, do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you no! But unless you repent,” he concludes, “you too will perish.”
I love this passage. It is so pregnant with meaning. Jesus says bad things happen but don’t try to read things into them. Don’t take today’s news and try to connect bad events to some spiritual meaning. Bad things happen. Evil people commit evil acts and the victims are victims just out of circumstance. Towers fall. There’s this thing called gravity. And if people die, it’s because the building fell and not because God was creating some form of retribution. Earthquakes on major fault lines happen. And badly built buildings fall and kill people. Don’t try to make that an act of a so-called vengeful God.
The theme is there over and over again in Jesus’ teaching.. Quit making things up. Quit rewriting the Bible to fit your life, your views, your desires.
But can we really do that?
My mother’s name is Shirley and I often joke that I don’t know about Goodness and Mercy but I’m confident that Shirley is following me all the days of my life. We are the culmination of what our parents have taught us, of how our teachers and textbooks influence us, of what our pastors tell us. Therapists make a living on this.
But I don’t think that’s where God wants us to be. Paul admonishes us in Colossians 2:8 to “see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”
I’d love to think that I’m completely tuned in. That I would instantly recognize human tradition or basic principles of this world when I saw them. But I know that’s not the case. I’m just as clueless as the disciples on the boat. Jesus is warning me not to let my life be infiltrated by bad teaching and I think he thinks I forgot the bread or something.
So what do we do? We’re in the world. And while we’d like to not be of the world, as Jesus asks, We are influenced by what surrounds us. We struggle to know what is good. What is bad. What’s just tradition and what is truly meaningful.
I don’t know the answer. But I would like to leave you with four suggestions:
First, question absolutely everything. Put everything you’re told, everything you’re taught and everything you read to the test to see if it is in harmony with what the Bible says. My journalism professor at KU tells the story of a professor and student driving through the Flint Hills. The student says, Professor, look at those freshly shorn sheep. To which the professor replies, At least on this side. The point is well made. Look closely to be sure that you are really seeing what you see. Until you see the back side of the sheep, you don’t really know if they are fully shorn or not.
A good technique to use is a research methodology called laddering. In laddering one keeps asking the question “why do you say that” over and over again until you arrive at the basic core reason for a statement or belief someone has. When people share some belief, this is a good technique to see if the source is truly based in God’s word or in some opinion or tradition. It’s also something very good to try on yourself on your beliefs.
Second, apply the principal of Seek first to understand. Dig deep into understanding what is motivating a message a preacher, parent, teacher or friend is sharing with you. Once you understand the root of their message or motivation, then you are in a position to compare it to what the Bible says to see if it is in fact true.
Third, be a change agent. Don’t get caught up in tradition, sensationalism, church culture, religious babble and other factors that often intend good but yet tear at God’s word. Instead, be in tune to when your emotions are driven by people and circumstances around you and when you are acting out of being anchored in the actual teachings from the Bible. There is such a tendency today when news is so instantaneous to rush to judgments, opinions and conclusions. Just pause and allow time to bring perspective to the harmony or disconnect of the news of the day and the word of God.
And finally, allow God’s Word to write its own message on your heart. Clear away your preconceptions. Park personal prejudices and really listen as you read the Bible and pray for the message God has for you. You will find me, God promises in Jeremiah 29, when you seek me with all your heart.
The yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees is everywhere in our world today, just waiting to infiltrate every corner of our lives. Be on guard, Jesus still says today.
And he’s not talking about forgotten bread.