“Some unsavoury influences”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Thursday, November 16, 2023

Matthew 16:1-12 (Forward, p. 18) CEV p. 1003

What a relief! It is good to know that we moderns are not the only ones who take Jesus’ words or images in the wrong way, but that the disciples were also susceptible to this. Here Jesus says to them, ‘Watch out! Guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees’ and they take this as referring to bread and a scarcity of bread. They couldn’t be any more wrong.

Jesus is not referring to literal bread, literal yeast, but to the idea of yeast being a contaminant that can spread and wreak havoc on things. Picking up on this, even as figure of speech can be a bit tricky as ‘yeast’ or ‘leaven’ can be used in both positive and negative fashions in Scripture. For instance, in a positive sense, Jesus uses the image of a woman adding leaven or yeast to a batch of dough to describe the stealthy, continuous and unseen growth of the kingdom (Matthew 13:33). Thus, Jesus is telling us to act positively and stealthily and strategically in our lives, that is, as yeast or leaven that brings nourishment, flavour and goodness within this needy and unsavoury world. And so, our world is ‘flat’ and unwholesome within our influence

The apostle Paul, on the other hand uses the image of leaven or yeast in a negative sense, namely to describe how sin can permeate all of our lives and ‘take over’ as it were, both within the church and within our individual lives (see 1 Corinthians 5:6-8). So then, how were the disciples—and us as well, to ‘take’ Jesus words in our text for today?

Here, Jesus is using the image of leaven or yeast in a negative sense. (He actually does so twice). In today’s passage He is speaking to the rampant insincerity and hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They claimed to want to want a sign from heaven, that is, from God, but as Jesus knows fully well, they won’t accept it if it runs counter to what they think and want and believe. Indeed, as the text tells us they only asked for this as a means of testing Jesus.

But as Jesus explains in verse 12, He is also talking about their false teachings. Luke’s Gospel, in the Contemporary English Version, has this to say about it: “Be sure to guard against the dishonest teaching of the

Pharisees. It is their way of fooling people. (Luke 12:1). So, what might these false or dishonest teachings be?

Here, I can’t answer it definitely, but in both Matthew’s and Luke’s contexts we get a clue. Here, the discussion is framed in terms of what has been purposefully hidden but will one day be revealed. So, what have the Pharisees or Sadducees kept hidden from public view? Several things might be mentioned: the identity of the Christ, for sure and the way of salvation, certainly. Here, we have the false notion that salvation could be earned or was automatic by virtue of being of God’s chosen people. And, of course, given Jesus’ rather caustic remarks later on, their tendency to heap on oppressive burdens upon people in the mistaken assumption that this would save them. And, not only that, but they were also conspicuous in adding to or taking away the strictures of Scripture when it suited them (see Matthew 15:1-9; 23:18-22). And with the Sadducees, there was their disbelief in entire canon of the Hebrew Scriptures and in the power of Almighty God (see Matthew 22:29-32).

So, what then, does this say to us? I would suggest four things. Like the Pharisees we can ‘rest on our laurels’, that is, live as if it all depends on us and live as if our deeds or works are sufficient to save us. Or, again like them, we can add or subtract from Scripture as it suits us and our own agendas. Or, like the Sadducees we can pick and choose which Scriptures we will like and obey, or again, like them, discount the ability of God to work in our lives. What is common to all of them is sin, the propensity of us humans ‘to do it my way’, to want to be the lords or bosses of our own lives. And like leaven, yeast, it has a tendency to infest the whole loaf, the whole business and needs to be rooted out.

Forward notes: “How could you fail to perceive that I was not speaking about bread? Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!”

(verse 11).

“Jesus must have gotten bone-weary of his bone-headed disciples. After seeing him feed some 12,000 people with what amounts to a couple of boxes of ancient Lunchables, they still assumed he was talking about bread when he warned them about the ‘yeast of the Pharisees.’ These guys had God with them in the boat, and they still didn’t get it!

“In Christopher Moore’s novel Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, Mary Magdalene takes Jesus to task for expecting

intellectual acumen from his disciples. She tells him that Peter has become a powerful preacher and can heal the sick, and James can make the lame walk. ‘They don’t need to understand it,’ she tells him. ‘They only need to believe. And they do. They imagine the Kingdom as they need it to be.’

“We all may encounter passages in Scripture that we don’t understand, but with steadfast faith, we still believe, and, in that belief, we can encounter the kingdom of God—on earth and in heaven.

Moving Forward; “Does a lack of understanding undermine your faith?”

A concluding note: While today’s author is undoubtedly correct in saying that we don’t have to fully understand to have faith and trust in Jesus Christ, that is not at all what Jesus is trying to get across to the disciples.

He fully wants them to understand simply because He wants them to avoid certain things certain things that we are all rather susceptible to. And so it is with us as well.