Hungry in the Desert - Part Five

When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. Jesus said to them, "Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, "We brought no bread." But Jesus, aware of this, said, "O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? 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 teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
[Matthew 16:5-12]

Here we go again. Jesus and his disciples retreat across Galilee to a desolate place. Robertson’s “Harmony of the Gospels” suggests that this is the fourth trip recorded. (Thomas & Gundry’s Harmony doesn’t specify the number). Whether there were four trips, or more than four trips, there is clearly a pattern that develops. When ministry becomes too intense, Jesus takes his disciples away until things calm down.

And ministry had been intense. Just prior to this trip, Jesus fed the four thousand in a desolate place with seven loaves and a few small fish. And the Pharisees and Sadducees had demanded a sign from heaven!?!?! His popularity, and the accompanying opposition, required him to withdraw. Why? Because neither those who praised him nor those who opposed him understood his mission. That should not surprise us, because neither did his disciples.

Jesus’ disciples were concerned with getting through the day. Amidst a busy schedule, it is easy to forget the basics. Like the plate spinner, we can begin to focus on the thing that is wobbling, without taking time to step back and see what is actually the priority. It is easy to make things complicated. The secret to success is to make the complicated simple.

There has been a running joke within our ministry about my idea of what it takes to run a conference. With conferences of hundreds of students turning up, the issues are quite complex and there are many, many details to keep track of. With the way we run our Mid Year Conferences, an error in the budget of a dollar or so per student can be the difference between breaking even or making a huge loss. But I have said for many years, the key to a successful conference is to have a good venue, a good speaker, and to have students turn up. Keeping the principles simple allows us to make good decisions about the details.

The disciples were worried about the “here and now”, but Jesus had brought them on retreat in order to train them for future ministry. So, he gives them a warning, but it goes straight over their heads. He is warning about dangers posed by outsiders, they think he is pointing out their own failing. (I have done that too – taken a general comment as a personal criticism).

Why warn his disciples about the Pharisees and Sadducees? The religious leaders looked like the good guys. As one commentator put it, no one needs a warning that the guy coming at you with a knife is dangerous. But the Pharisees and Sadducees were the “good guys”. They were religious. They taught the Bible. They sought to honour God with their whole lives. In many ways, the differences between Jesus and the Pharisees, at least on paper, were quite subtle.

The big difference was in their picture of what God was doing in the world. Their teaching, which is what Jesus warns about, reflected their understanding of how God was working and how he was going to work. It was in direct conflict with Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God.

How we view God and his work in the world directly impacts our thinking and our actions and our emotions. The challenge Tom Wright poses is,
“If we are beginning to understand what Jesus’ mission was all about, and to make it the foundation of our faith and hope, do we understand what he is doing right now, not only in our lives, but in our world?”
Tom Wright “Mark for Everyone” p.105

We need to get our big picture of God and the kingdom right if we are going to make wise and godly decisions about life and ministry in the detail.

One illustration of this comes from the business world. Many companies have moved, over recent decades, to a more flat organisational structure. The employees on the “frontline” – at the retail store, or on the factory floor – have been given more and more responsibility to make decisions that used to rest with middle management. Now there are two ways of helping those frontline employees make the right decisions.

The first way is to think of every possible scenario that they might face, decide ahead of time what the best response would be (from an organisational point of view) and develop a system – a training program or a manual – which would then empower those employees to respond appropriately. The weakness of this high control approach is that it is well nigh impossible to anticipate every possible scenario. And the multitude of scenarios and variations result in manuals that are like a series of phone books that no one can really absorb.

The second way is the impart a clear and compelling vision of what the whole organisation is working towards, and a set of values that the organisation wants expressed as it works towards that vision, and then release the employees to make up their own responses within those parameters. This is incredibly motivating for employees who are given real power to make real decisions. The greatest challenge for the organisation is to keep the vision fresh and at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

Some people, when warned to watch out for the teaching of the Pharisees, want to go through the details of their “training manuals” and query whether each proposed solution was right or wrong. But what I think Jesus is doing here with his disciples is warning them that the Pharisees’ whole vision and values were coming from a wrong place. If the disciples followed the details of the Pharisees teaching it would eventually lead them to adopt a wrong picture of God and how he worked in the world.

Now let’s return to the moment when the disciples took Jesus comment as a personal criticism. Obviously it was because they were focussed on the here and now issue of the bread. And Jesus rebukes them for that too. Over and over again he has taught them not to worry about their physical needs. Twice now in Matthew’s gospel he has turned a few loaves into enough bread to feed thousands, with basketfuls left over. And still the disciples are concerned that they haven’t adequately provided for themselves.

We experience anxiety when we fail to recall God’s previous acts of provision. How many times, and in how many ways, has God provided for you? And yet with each new challenge, do you immediately respond with anxiety and fear? One of the things I admired about Dr Bill Bright (founder of Campus Crusade) was his faith. As I read his biography it became clear to me that he was not born with an amazing faith. It was not bestowed upon him in a unique moment by a benevolent God. It was like a muscle that he exercised. God called him forward into the unknown and each step was an adventure into the unknown that required faith in the God whom he did know. His first efforts at fundraising were for thousands of dollars, but within a few years of launching the ministry they needed to acquire a headquarters that meant raising millions of dollars. No one sets out initially to raise millions of dollars. You have to build up to it. As you learn to trust God to provide a little, he will then challenge you to trust him for more.

When you are surrounded by plenty, you don’t need to trust God. But God’s vision and values for the world invite you to engage with something much bigger than the resources you currently have, or can access yourself. That’s the life of faith. If you are living within your current resources – time, money, influence, ability, knowledge – and if you think that is all that God expects of you, I wonder if you have accepted some view of God that is not the one revealed in the Scriptures. Faith means living out trust in God. If we are relying on ourselves, we aren’t trusting God. If we aren’t trying things which are beyond ourselves, we are relying on ourselves. But the reed will splinter in our hand. We need to, and we are called to, trust in God.

And what about those times when we try to trust God and it all falls flat?

Firstly, consider whether we are still in the desert. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied” was Jesus promise. But when will they be satisfied? Unlike the crowds who had a bit of a tummy rumble as the sun was setting, Jesus endured 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness and he was HUNGRY! I’d hate to last 1 day or 7 days or 39 days in the desert, and then conclude that God wasn’t going to provide and give up.

Secondly, consider what provision we are hungering for. What is “righteousness”? JP Moreland describes two contrasting views about the goal for our lives. He begins,

“From Old Testament times and ancient Greece until this century, the good life was widely understood to mean a life of intellectual and moral virtue. The good life is the life of ideal human functioning according to the nature God Himself gave to us… the successful person was one who knew how to live life well according to what we are by nature due to the creative design of God…. So understood, happiness involves suffering, endurance and patience because these are important means to becoming a good person who lives the good life.”
[Love Your God with All Your Mind, JP Moreland, P.35]

Then he continues,

“According to the modern view, the good life is the satisfaction of any pleasure or desire that someone freely and autonomously chooses for himself or herself. The successful person is the individual who has a life of pleasure and can obtain enough consumer goods to satisfy his or her desires.”
[Love Your God with All Your Mind, JP Moreland, P.37]

Let me finish this part with one final quote, from Tom Wright. In Mark’s account of this episode, Jesus quotes from Jeremiah 5:21 saying,

“Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?”

Tom Wright says that the Pharisees and Sadducees in Jesus’ day reminded Jesus of the people of Jeremiah’s day,

“People were so caught up in their own concerns, and so unconcerned about injustice and wickedness in their own society, that God had no alternative but to abandon them to their fate at the hands of foreigners”
[Tom Wright, Mark for Everyone p.105]

Hungry in the Desert - Part Three

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Matthew 6:25-34 [ESV]

I couldn’t write about Matthew’s thoughts on hunger and overlook this passage. In these verses, Jesus unpacks for us one of the major stumbling blocks we face when hungering and thirsting after righteousness: fear or anxiety.

But this section begins with the word “therefore”, which directs our thoughts back to the previous verses. Earlier in the chapter, the focus on Jesus’ teaching was on the practice of spiritual disciplines, or the “practicing of righteousness” (6:1). The first thing he says is “when you give…”, and then “when you pray…” and thirdly “when you fast…” (Notice it is “when”, not “if”. Even for fasting). The goal of these practices is not to accumulate wealth on earth, which is vulnerable, but to store up treasure in heaven, which is secure. After instructing his followers in the three “practices of righteousness”, Jesus concludes each with the promise “And your Father in heaven who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:4, 6, 18) So the challenge Jesus issues just prior to our passage is clear: “You cannot serve God and money”.

Anxiety (“μεριμνατε”) comes from the root phrase μεριζειν τον νουν (“dividing the mind”). Many of the older commentaries focussed on the question, “what does this mean about planning for your life?” This is an important question, and the simple answer is that this passage does not preclude planning or ambition, it addresses worry or anxiety.

Anxiety is the result when you try to control or manage things beyond your power. In ministry, this is the world I live in constantly. There is no way that I can control who gives money to support us. I cannot control who or how many will respond to the gospel. I have no power over students to make them grow in their faith, to make them turn up to meetings or Bible studies. Anxiety is a constant threat in ministry. I can try to compensate by over-controlling other areas of my life, or imagining situations where I am powerful and in control. But becoming a control-freak or imagining a fantasy life is not pursuing righteousness. They lead me into the desert - a wasteland of broken relationships, half-baked ideas, distractions and self-indulgence. The answer is not fantasy but faith.

Faith is the only responsible response because it is responding to the reality of the one who really has all the power and who really is in control. Jesus provides three reasons for placing my trust in God.

Firstly, he is the one who gave me life and who made my body (v.25). His power was not exhausted by the act of creation. His power is limitless. His love is boundless. Surely the God who gave me these greater things, my life and body, will also provide me with the lesser things to accompany them - food, drink and clothing. It reminds me of one of my favourite verses, Romans 8:32, where Paul talks about sanctification following justification,

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

We have not exhausted our Father’s generosity, his grace. Just as he gave us life, he wants to provide food, drink and clothes for us. Just as he has saved us, he wants to make us righteous, mature, godly, competent fellow-workers in his kingdom.

Secondly, Jesus compares our situation with the seemingly ridiculous situation of the birds and the flowers (v.26, 28-30). I am fascinated by the behaviour and beauty of the birdlife in Sydney. It is so diverse. The sounds, the colours, the quirks of so many different species just grab my attention. Just yesterday I was walking through the bushland behind our place and saw a sulphur crested cockatoo poking its head out of its nest in a hole in a gum tree about 40’ off the ground while others from the flock circled around squawking raucously. And as I get older, I am gaining appreciation for the aesthetic beauty of flowers in the garden. I even planted bulbs! Jesus says that these displays are the result of God’s providential activity. And we are worth more to God than these lesser creations.

Thirdly, worry is unproductive because we are powerless to make significant changes anyway (v.27). We cannot make ourselves taller. We cannot delay death for a day. I wrote back in part one that we use our (God-given) creativity and capability to mask our true dependence on God. As soon as I wrote that we cannot delay death a day my mind started arguing with the statement. What about healthy living? Regular exercise? Modest diet? Life support? But these are trivialities compared the great overarching truth that we do not determine our birth or our death. Those control points should, like wandering through a spiritual desert, remind us of our constant dependence on God.

But in our Western society we have isolated ourselves from those control points. Once upon a time, a whole family lived under the same roof and went through all of the stages of life together. Children were birthed in the family home, not some sterile maternity ward. Grandparents grew frail and forgetful amidst the hustle and bustle of family life, not in some retirement village or nursing home. Children grew up seeing birth and death regularly. Most of the young adults I know have never seen a dead body or had anyone close to them pass away. We have lost the accompaniment to the rhythm of life. We become soloists rather than members of a full orchestra. We depend totally on our own skill for the end result. Yet the Psalmist is able to write:

"O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!
Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
[Psalm 39:4-6]

To fail to trust God, to choose instead to anxiously pursue our own power and control, is to act like the Gentiles – those who do not know God. In other words, we may say we are following Jesus but in practice we are living like atheists. The life of faith requires faith, not just a commitment to an alternative lifestyle. Faith may be lived out in the alternative lifestyle (i.e. support-raising may be done as an expression of faith in God, or by following a system that “works”) or it may not. It may be lived out in the mainstream lifestyle (e.g. employment), or it may not. Only an atheist would deny that God is the source of their ability (mental, physical, etc.) and opportunity to earn money through their occupation. Yet as followers of Jesus it is all too easy in our materialistic, humanistic culture to attribute any success we have to our own capability and creativity, and to ignore God.

A friend of mine shared recently that a new role he had at work was beyond his ability to perform or to meet the expectations placed on him. He confessed that he was praying for God to enable him to do what he needed to do. I have had a similar experience as I have taken on new roles in ministry over the years. Initially it is very easy to feel inexperienced, lacking capability and to express dependence on God. But when the competence and experience comes, then my awareness of my dependence on God also waned.

Still, Jesus is commanding us to be single minded in our pursuit of the kingdom of God and his righteousness, not dividing our attention between God and money. Our divided mind comes when we fail to acknowledge reality, when our beliefs fail to lead us to faith.

What are we to believe?
Firstly, that the God who created us – gave us a body and life – values us sufficiently to provide everything else we need.
Secondly, we are powerless to control so many of the outcomes we become anxious about.
Thirdly, that God the Father knows everything we need, and is committed to providing it.
Do you accept these points as true? Do they frame the foundation of your life? How do they affect the way you live? How do they affect your prayer life? How do they affect your ideas about your career?

As the nation of Israel stood on the verge of entering the Promised Land, God renewed his covenant with them. He began by reminding them of their journey out of Egypt and said,

I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet. You have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the LORD your God… Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.
[Deuteronomy 29:5-6, 9]

When we think about God promising to provide for our food, drink and clothing in Matthew’s gospel, how can we not recall his amazing provision for Israel during their 40 years of wandering. His purpose was to shape them into his covenant people, a people who would know him, follow him, be blessed by him and be a light to the world. The example of the Israelites should be both an encouragement and a warning to us. Do not be anxious or have a divided mind. Instead, pursue God’s kingdom and his righteousness.