NOTES for Mat 16:6

Jesus’ words aren’t comprehensible immediately; even His disciples don’t understand them the first time. Is only after the Master’s explanations they got that, is not a matter of bread but about the teaching typical for these two religious parties. Let’s try to sort out what did Jesus mean.

Christ talks about leaven in other cases, too. It’s the image of something small which, being placed in a definite environment, influences that environment and changes its properties. According to Jesus such are the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ teachings, they are able to poison all God’s people. What is the poisonousness of these doctrines? In the same place in the Gospel of Luke (Luc 12 :1) Pharisaical leaven is called hypocrisy. The Pharisees’ rules, minimization of relations with God to the observance of some list of commandments instead of truly changing inside – this is a poison of hypocrisy. If God’s people (or God’s new people – the Church) get themselves soaked with this poison, then there will be no place for love.

Sadducees’ leaven in the Gospel of Mark is called Herod’s leaven d’Hérode (Mc 8:15). The Sadducees were not so much religious, but political party, looking in the first place earth things, state power. And we can see again that such an approach can also become a deadly dangerous temptation for the Church. The Church is called not to seek power in worldly meaning, but to manifest the God’s power, power of righteousness, power of love.