Respuestas a la Encuesta

We have seen that a major theme of the Markan story of Jesus was the never-failing presence of Jesus to his disciples. This theme was highlighted in the Markan account of Jesus’ final meal with them— told in Mark 14:17-31—within a context of the light and darkness of the presence of Jesus and the failing disciples in 14:1-72. For the Markan story, the theme of sinfulness and failure is important. It forms part of a wider theology that makes sense of a failing discipleship and

104 | A Body Broken for a Broken People

no doubt reflects an early Christian Church struggling with its own experience of failure. The story of Jesus as it is retold in the Gospel of Matthew does not repeat Mark’s message. Although present, there is a change of direction in Matthew’s use of the theme.12

In the Gospel of Mark the disciples will not and cannot understand the teaching and the person of Jesus, or the cost of discipleship. For Matthew they do “understand.” For Matthew the disciples do not fail totally. Indeed, they often appear to grasp very clearly who Jesus is and what he is demanding of them. They fail, rather, in their inability

to put into action what they have come to understand. The disciples

are a major presence in Matthew’s version of the two miracles of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish (14:13-21; 15:32-38). Both Mark and Matthew reproduce discussions between Jesus and the disciples in boat trips that immediately follow the miracles (Mark 6:45- 52; 8:14-21; Matt 14:22-33; 16:1-12). The Gospel of Mark points out the failure of the disciples on both occasions.13 _{The Matthean}

parallel reinterprets this misunderstanding. Matthew does not report the disciples’ misunderstanding. Instead, a term appears that is found on the lips of Jesus several times in the Gospel of Matthew: he speaks of the disciples as “you of little faith” (Greek: oligopistoi; see also 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8).

After the first feeding miracle, as Jesus comes to his frightened disciples across the sea, the reaction of the disciples is recorded as follows in Mark and Matthew:

Mark 6:51b-52

And they were utterly astounded

for they did not understand

about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

Mark makes it clear that, as well as the fear of the disciples, there was no understanding. But Matthew leads into this final response to Jesus’ appearance across the waters by developing the fearfulness of the disciples. “They were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear” (Matt 14:26). Yet, surprisingly, despite their terror and fear they understood exactly who it was who had come to them

Matthew 14:33

And those in the boat

worshipped him

saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

across the waters. He is the Son of God, and they respond accordingly with an act of worship.

After the second feeding miracle, again in a boat as they cross the lake, the reaction of the disciples is recorded as follows in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew:

Mark 8:14-21

“Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” And they discussed it with one another, saying, “We have no bread.” And being aware of it, Jesus said to them, “Why do you discuss the fact

that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand?

Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? [Jesus recalls the two miracles and their aftermath.]

And he said to them,

“Do you not yet understand?”

Matthew 16:6-12

“Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.” And they discussed it among themselves saying, “We brought no bread.” But Jesus, being aware of this said,

“O you of little faith,

why do you discuss among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive?

Do you not remember … [Jesus recalls the two miracles and their aftermath.]

Then they understood

that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

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The contrast between the Markan theme of the disciples’ lack of understanding (see Mark 8:21) and the Matthean presentation of the same disciples as understanding (see Matt 16:12) but of little faith (see 16:8) is clear. In these parallel passages the difference in the reaction of the disciples in their encounter with Jesus in the boat is explicit. In Mark the narrator has Jesus ask the disciples: “Do you not yet understand” (Mark 8:21), while in Matthew the narrator makes the comment: “Then they understood” (Matt 16:12). The two versions of the exchange between Jesus and his disciples that follow the accounts of the bread miracles in Mark and Matthew respectively highlight the differing points of view found in the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew. The disciples in Mark simply do not understand. This is not so with the Matthean disciples. They understand (see 16:12), but they have little faith (16:8).

Failure among disciples can also be dramatic in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew highlights, on the one hand, the uniqueness of the person and the authority of Simon Peter (see 14:28-31; 16:16b- 19; 17:24-27), but on the other, Peter’s repeated hesitation and failure (see 14:30-31; 16:21-23; 26:31-35, 69-75).14 _{Not only Simon Peter}

hesitates and fails. On the final page of the story, as the disciples gather on a mountain in Galilee, responding to the command of the angels at the empty tomb (see 28:10) in the presence of their risen Lord, who sends them out on a mission to the entire world, Matthew reports: “And when they saw him they worshipped him; but some doubted” (28:17). The response of Simon Peter and all the disciples in the story of the Gospel of Matthew reflects the real-life experience of the Christian community receiving Matthew’s story—hesitating and doubting before the task of the Gentile mission.15

But Matthew, strongly aware of the “little faith” of the disciples, confidently communicates a message of Jesus as the Emmanuel, God- with-us. The Gospel opens with a prophecy: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (which means God with us)” (1:23). Despite the little faith and the hesitation of the disciples’ response to Jesus, Matthew closes his Gospel with a promise from the risen Christ indicating that this presence will go on: “And lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (28:20). The theme of the “little faith” of the disciples

across Matthew’s Gospel establishes that weakness and failure were a problem, despite the promises of the Scriptures (1:23) and the final words of Jesus (28:20). In the Gospel of Matthew the message of the Risen Christ is communicated to the disciples by women who have discovered the empty tomb, and had an encounter with the risen Lord (28:1-10). They do not flee in silence and fear. The disciples have a solemn final encounter with the risen Lord, and are given a mission (vv. 16-20). But even Matthew indicates that this encounter generates two responses: some believe, while others still doubt (28:17). However fragile the disciples’ faith in the presence of the risen Lord might be, Matthew insists upon the presence of the Emmanuel, God in the midst of his people until the close of the age: “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (28:20).16

As Mark addressed a community suffering from fear and flight in the midst of failure to live up to the challenge of belief in a crucified and risen Son of God, Matthew spoke to an audience with its own experience of failure. They know that Jesus is the risen Lord among them till the end of the ages, but they are people of little faith and still doubt. Although different, the two Evangelists paint a narrative portrait of disciples that continues to speak eloquently to disciples of all times, believing but still doubting.17

Israel and the Disciples