“SIGN, SIGN, EVERYWHERE A SIGN…”

 

3/22/22

I hate that song, too, but its title was too appropriate not to use for this post…

 

Take a look at the passage in Matthew’s Gospel that starts with the feeding of the four thousand (15, 32-39) and ends with Jesus once again telling off the Pharisees (16, 1-4).  

 

This passage hits the reader in the proverbial head when read as a whole.   First, we have Jesus performing a miracle that, until He did it a few chapters previously (if indeed this isn’t a second telling by Matthew of the same story), hadn’t been done at least since the time of Elisha, hundreds of years before Jesus came around.   People were astounded to the point at which we are told, in John’s account of the same miracle (6, 1-15), that they wanted to seize Jesus and make Him king.   Why not?  The people of 1^st Century Palestine were intimately familiar with the concept of food insecurity.   Then they find this guy who can provide more food than they could eat seemingly at will.   If you were in their position, you’d want to make the guy king, too.   But I digress.

 

One would think that a miracle of such proportions would convince people that Jesus was, if not the Messiah, certainly somebody special whose opinions were worthy of considering.   But not the Pharisees.  Immediately after Matthew’s account of the feeding of the four thousand, the Pharisees ask Jesus “to show them a sign from heaven.”  (16, 1).   Bear in mind that Jesus had just fed four thousand people with seven loaves and “a few fish.”   And these guys ask for a sign?   What did they want?  Talk about a stubborn, or, more likely, self-serving bunch that was afraid of the proverbial new sheriff in town!

 

As always, though, the Jesus wasn’t only talking about and to 1^st century Pharisees; He was talking about and to many of us.   Think about the repeated times that God has shown us His goodness and yet we demand more.   We think of the things we don’t have rather than the things we have (e.g., living in the United States, for most of us a middle-class lifestyle that would be the envy of the kings and emperors of Jesus’s time, our families and our health, the ability to practice our faith without fear of repression, at least from the government, etc.)   And yet many of us focus on the bad things in life and demand that God make it better and, while He’s at it, send us a few more good signs, preferably dollar signs.   Why, we ask, quite understandably, does God allow the bad, and sometimes horrible, things we, those we love, and those we don’t even know are forced to endure?    (The answer to that question is the subject of thousands of years of philosophy and theology and is grist for some future mill, but, again, I digress.)   In our disappointments with God, with others, and with ourselves, however, we tend to forget the many good, and great, things in our lives.   We could just as easily ask God why He has allowed so many good things in our lives. 

 

One could also interpret the Pharisees’ request differently if we emphasize the “them” in their request to “show THEM a sign from heaven.”   According to this interpretation, they had not been present for the miracle of the loaves and fishes, which is likely, and wanted Jesus to show THEM a similar sign.   He dismisses them with (16, 4)

 

“An evil and unfaithful generation seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah.”

 

Again, Jesus is speaking both to His immediate audience and through the ages.  The Pharisees want a sign.  But they aren’t going to get another one, and certainly won’t get one that they will understand, because they show no faith in Jesus or willingness to believe in Him.   Similarly, many of us demand signs when there are signs all around us that we choose to ignore.

 

It’s understandable to be frustrated and angry with God, whether one is of great faith or one is of little faith.   No one, least of all God, would begrudge some of us that anger; there is simply too much suffering in the world not to be angry with God from time to time.   In fact, I would go so far as to say that if we are not at least occasionally angry, or at least baffled by and frustrated, with God, we aren’t close enough to God to be able to admit, or tell him that, we are angry.   But we also have to keep in mind that, along with that suffering, the world, and most of our lives, are filled with occasions for joy and gratitude to God.   These are the glimmers, and sometimes the sunbursts, of hope that can sustain us through the many trials that life entails.