Turning Bread into Stones
TURNING BREAD INTO STONES
By J. Randall O`Brien, Professor of Religion
Special Assistant to the President, Baylor University
Editor`s Note: The sermon was delivered at the Truett Seminary Convocation on August 24, 2000, during the time Dr. O`Brien served as the Acting Dean of Truett Seminary.
Text: Matthew 15: 32-16:1, 5-12; 4:1-4
Have you ever noticed how many stories there are in the Bible related to bread? The preceding are two of my favorites, but there are many others. On 384 occasions in the Old Testament, seven different Hebrew words are translated bread or food, although one word, lechem, appears in almost 300 of the instances. In the New Testament 3 Greek words for bread are used 108 times, while there, too, one word, artos, predominates with nearly100 occurrences, bringing the biblical total to roughly 500 citations.
Ah, but man cannot live on literal bread alone; he must have metaphor. So from Moses to Messiah bread holds a symbolic and religious significance, as well as literal. In the Tabernacle and Temple, for instance, the Bread of the Presence (literally "faces") rests on the table in the Holy Place to symbolize the Presence of God (Lev. 24:5ff). Isaiah speaks of the Bread of Affliction (30:20), and the Psalmist of the Bread of Tears, each a figurative bread of mourners. The writer of Proverbs warns of the Bread of Idleness (31:27), the Bread of Deception (20:17), and the Bread of Wickedness (4:17). Jesus describes himself as the Bread of Life (John 6:35), the Bread of Heaven (John 6:41), the True Bread (John 6:32), the Living Bread (John 6:51) and the Bread of God (John 6:33). Bread is also used in the Eucharist to symbolize the Body of Christ (Mk. 14:.22; 1 Cor. 11:23-26).
Bread was a dietary staple, the food of most people in biblical times. Sometimes bread was made with yeast or leaven, and sometimes not. Originally leaven, because it fermented and could therefore corrupt, was viewed as a ritually unclean substance. Consequently, it was forbidden in the offering to God in the Feast of Unleavened Bread associated with the Passover and Lord`s Supper. In general in the New Testament leaven symbolized any evil, corrupting influence. So Paul could write that we believers, by contrast, are "unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. 5:6-8).
Now back to our stories. It is against the backdrop of breaking bread and feeding 4,000 men (besides women and children), that Jesus warns, "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." As the always clever disciples begin to exchange recipes, Jesus wonders aloud, "How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? . . . Then they understood that he did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees."
The Pharisees, you may recall, were the most important and numerous sect of their day. They accepted both written and oral law as authoritative and could become quite militant in their insistence upon proper observance of the Sabbath, tithing, and other rituals. They believed in the resurrection, angels, demons, and rewards and punishments in the afterlife. Too, they were quite missionary minded about converting Gentiles. Jesus was much too liberal for the Pharisees. The Sadducees, on the other hand, accepted only the Torah as authoritative. They denied the resurrection and the existence of angels and demons. Leaning toward Hellenism, they were materialistic, aristocratic, rich, and worldly. They were in charge of the Temple and stressed strict observance of the Torah, but not the rest of the Hebrew Bible, such as the prophets, nor oral law. Jesus was much too conservative for the Sadducees.
Writing before Matthew, Mark preserves a different warning from Jesus in this bread story. "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod," rather than Sadducees, Jesus admonishes (Mk. 8.15). Some ancient manuscripts read "Herodians." Herod was Herod Antipas who had already beheaded John the Baptist. The Herodians were wealthy, worldly, people who supported Herod Antipas and his dynasty. They accepted Hellenism and foreign rule. The clear interests of both Herod and the Herodians were political rather than religious. To reconcile the separate readings from Mark and Matthew we might simply note that Sadducees could also be Herodians.
In any event, representatives of these groups demand a sign from Jesus AFTER he feeds the thousands. They just don`t get it! They question His authority. So the issue IS indeed authority! "Whom will the disciples follow? Whom will we follow? What will we feed on, be sustained by, be nurtured on? Whose teaching will nourish us, grow us? Whose call shall we heed? Whose path shall we flee?"
"Beware the leaven of the Sadducees, or Herod or Herodians." The choice between the two readings on one hand is quite different. One group is religious; the other political. On the other hand, both were "this world" oriented. The Sadducees did not believe in the afterlife, nor in divine Providence. Although some Herodians may well have come from conservative religious ranks, their unifying agenda was a secular one. Both Sadducees and Herod were a part of the domination system of Israel. With Temple and throne they oppressed the people. To them the "here and now" mattered ultimately. If the secular worldview accepts reality as "this world alone," whereas a religious worldview believes in "more than this," then both Sadducees and Herodians were decidedly secular. It is of this settled conviction which in turn affects all of life that Jesus warns. Ultimately there is no room for God in the secular mindset. This leaven would destroy the Bread of Life. "Beware the leaven of the Sadducees-beware the leaven of Herod."
Today spiritual (and I use that term loosely) descendants of the Sadducees and Herodians yet offer us their leaven. Modernity is grounded in and dominated by a secular worldview. Since the Enlightenment and the advent of modern science, reason has trumped revelation. Reality is reduced to scientifically verifiable facts in the secular worldview. "Truth is objectivity," claims Descartes, the father of modern philosophy. "God is dead," we are told by philosophers, theologians, and scientists. "If not, show Him to us in this microscope or telescope."
Yet, a competing branch of the secular worldview might be called "post-modern relativism." Instead of claiming that truth is knowable through scientific objectivity alone, this philosophical persuasion argues there IS no such thing as truth, not with a capital "T" anyway. Truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. Everything is beautiful; everything is relative. Truth becomes subjectivity supreme here. Truth is what YOU say it is, for you. Someone else`s competing opinion is no less true.
Both of these branches of secularism are enemies of God and would destroy God. Both the Sadducees and Herodians challenge divine authority, setting themselves over against Truth as competing powers. To eliminate authority, one must eliminate the author, either literally or metaphorically. Either way Jesus has to go. When science or reason replaces revelation, both the revelation and the Revealer are lost, both authority and the Author are banished. God is dead! Science sits on the throne. Or when post-modern relativism removes authority from the text, and gives it to the reader, the Author dies. In the case of Scripture, ultimately who might that be?
John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and others associated with the "Jesus scholarship" group could not be more clear: "the Gospels are not literally true, but history metaphorized, though there be some history remembered; the Bible is not divine, but a totally human product of two ancient communities; there was no virgin birth, no bodily resurrection, no Second Coming, and Jesus was a Jewish peasant, certainly not divine."
In his book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die, Bishop John Shelby Spong writes, "The Bible is not the word of God in any literal or verbal sense. It never has been!" He adds, "There is no God external to life. God is not a being superior to all other beings." In fact, the Gospels contain "embarrassing moral and intellectual concepts. The divine nature of Jesus or the interpretations of Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity was also a late-developing reality," not a part of original Christianity. (I am considering writing a book entitled, Why Bishop Spong Must Change or DieJ) In sum, as surely as did the secular Sadducees and Herodians, these Neo-Sadducees reject the Jesus of the Gospels.
Is it any wonder then that Neo-Phariseeism has experienced a rebirth? As a reaction to modernity and secular humanism, fundamentalism offers, for some, a strongly attractive alternative worldview. This belief system builds upon a foundation of biblical inerrancy. Doctrines of creation, the virgin birth of Jesus, the incarnation, the atoning death of Christ on the cross, the bodily resurrection, and the Second Coming are embraced as fundamentals of the faith. Miracles are historically factual. Judgment and Heaven and Hell are realities, not metaphor. Along with these bedrock beliefs comes an emphasis on personal salvation and soul-winning, as well as missions. So what`s the rub? For some there is no rub. For others, however, fundamentalism is too militant, whether it is housed in the first century or the twenty-first. Stances on anti-evolution, anti-education, anti-women`s rights, anti-abortion, anti-sex education, anti-separation of church and state, and anti-social ministries, have caused society at large to view fundamentalism as the "anti-movement," largely negative, often hostile, and generally offensive.
The truly honest, healthy Christian today, however, may confess sympathy with these competing ideologies before rejecting their extreme expressions. Who among us would return to a pre-scientific age? And what is wrong with reading texts from new angles of vision as literary criticism invites us to do? Were not the Pharisees devout people? Are not fundamentalists devoted to God and His Word? Certainly we can give thanks for the advances of modern science, hermeneutics, and religious devotion. Might we go too far, however, in either direction? Indeed, Christ warned of the danger, did he not? In the case of the Pharisees, it is tragic that when Jesus` deeds did not fit their creeds, religion grew sick. When Jesus` beliefs and behavior related to fasting, the Sabbath, healing, washing hands and other areas failed to conform to the doctrine and practice of the Pharisees, legalism betrayed love, rules preempted relationships. Christ saw it coming. The danger of devout religion is that we may love our beliefs more than our brother, our system more than our sister. To show our love for God, we are willing to hate one another. We rush to win our fights and lose our souls. Alas, we can surely lose our love and keep our religion, but we will have lost our God. "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees," Jesus warned.
All of this leads to our reflection upon Jesus` temptation in the wilderness regarding bread. The Tempter finds Jesus hungry in the wilderness and tempts him saying, "If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread." This I take to be a seduction of the material, an enticement away from his first love of the spiritual. Jesus` response? "Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God." Perhaps we could exist by bread alone. But live? Never! The word of God, not literal bread, is the sustenance necessary for true life. Thus he who is Word of God soon reveals himself as the Bread of Life, in time taken, blessed, broken, and given to us on a crude banquet table on a hill called Golgotha.
Yes, Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread. But what about the reverse possibility? What about turning bread into stones? Make no mistake about it, throughout our ministries we too will be tempted, like Jesus, to place the material over the spiritual in our priorities. Turning stones into bread is a front for a global demonic operation which has long afflicted humans with street addictions such as materialism, workaholic-ism, hedonism, and yes, paganism. Naming demons frightens them, and us too, doesn`t it?
What do you think about "turning bread into stones?" Could that too be a dangerous seduction? If Jesus were tempted to transform cold, nutritionless stone into foodstuff, might not we be tempted to do the same? Yes, but also the reverse. To take the bread of life and turn it into useless stones-how might we do that? When might we fall into so grave a sin? It is already being done!
The sacred substance and sustenance of the Gospel is being challenged, as we speak, by the voices of some in the modern academy of biblical scholarship. The word (lower case "w") and the Word (capital "W") are for many no longer divine or divine-human. Is biblical teaching, for some, turning to stone? Shall the hungry cry out for bread, only to receive from our hands stone-cold, lifeless, nutritionless stone? I pray that you and I in this place, on this "holy ground" called Truett Theological Seminary, will reject the corrupting leaven of the Herodians and Sadducees. For to be sure, a purely secular worldview transforms the Bread of Life into the bread of death-for the founders of Christianity in the first century and for Christianity in the twenty-first century. "Beware the leaven of the Sadducees and Herodians," Jesus said.
But the bread which gives life may be turned into stones not only by Neo-Sadducees and Herodians, but also by Neo-Pharisees. The letter of the law kills; the Spirit gives life. Upon what or whom will we hope? Let us be careful! Leaven, or teaching, or settled convictions affect the whole life. To reject fundamentalism is not to accept whatever the cultural winds may blow our way. By all means we stand against some things and for other things! Our culture is stuffed with information and starved for values. But we are the people of God, the body of Christ. So we beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and Herodians. Ironically, each group tramples morals and true spirituality while violating the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." For they turn bread into stones, tragically exchanging the bread of life for the bread of idolatry. Unless our righteousness, Jesus warned, exceeds that of the Pharisees and Sadducees we will not see the kingdom of Heaven
Rather let us behold the Bread of Life. Let us reject secularism on the left and fundamentalism on the right. Let us embrace historic orthodox Christianity. For God has not left us clueless in Seattle or in Waco. God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the incarnate, crucified, risen, coming again Savior of the world. May we all repent of our appetites for evil and sinful leaven and receive the Bread of God. May we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. And may we, by God`s grace, love our neighbor as ourselves. Let us resist the yeast of the Tempter and accept the feast of the Savior. Let us, by God`s grace, refuse to turn bread into stones by rejecting both worldliness and religious dysfunction. Rather, may we accept the invitation to the grand banquet table set at Mount Calvary. There let us say in one accord, "Pass the Bread of Life please." And let us hear the celestial words of our Host, "Take. Eat. This do in remembrance of me."
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