Red Letter Year: 4/26

Matthew 16:1-12







If it seems like we just read this demand for a sign passage, we sort of did. This is very similar to Matt. 12.38ff. What I find interesting here is the red sky folk wisdom, which is a very handy example of the importance of interpretation. The same exact thing (observing a red sky) occurring at different times can mean something very different, in this case the exact opposite. Jesus is not introducing a new method of interpretation here, he is just pointing out that we all engage in nuanced interpretation. But we can be quite stubborn we want to be, setting reasonableness aside and insisting on something that gets us out of our interpretive responsibility. Since we’ve already given up being reasonable and charitable, what we insist on when we act like that is the impossible. We want proof, but there is no amount of proof we would accept as true. They didn’t need another sign. They needed to pay attention to the signs they were already seeing. Matthew calls them deceptive. They cynically ask for a sign, knowing full well that same cynicism would reject any sign offered. Jesus refuses to play their game and compares their cynicism to yeast. It spreads like yeast and takes over any host. Unlike yeast, it does not produce nourishing bread but deadly poison. So we must beware. And what is the protection against that poisonous yeast? Another sign? No, that just cycles us back around. The only protection is memory. Remember what Jesus has done. Remember  Jesus healing you. Remember  Jesus feeding you. Remember  Jesus setting you free. And then leave space for others to interpret the signs in their lives as the Holy Spirit leads and they see fit. You may both be looking at a red sky, but that might mean something quite different for each of you. Reminds me of the end of John’s Gospel. Jesus was giving Peter instructions, and Peter motioned to John and said, “What about him?” I think the answer Jesus gave Peter is the same answer he gives to a lot of us a lot of the time: “What’s that to you? You follow me!”
