Math Lessons by Jesus

In the immediate "aftermath" of Jesus' miraculous feeding (with limited resources) of 5000 and then 4000, another scene unfolds - the disciples are worried about not having enough bread.  They are with the miracle worker who just (presumably) amazed them with his food multiplication ability.   He gently gives them a math lesson:

And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why are you discussing 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?  When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" They said to him, "Twelve."  "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" And they said to him, "Seven."  And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"

5 loaves - 5000 - 12 baskets left over

7 loaves - 4000 fed - 7 baskets left over

"Do you not yet understand?" 

What was it that Jesus was wanting them to understand through this math quiz?  Was it simply that he had twice done amazing feeding miracles - starting with limited resources, feeding many beyond what those resources would usually feed, having an abundance left over beyond what was started with?   Note that this was true on both occasions.  Or was he trying to point out something deeper - the principle of faithless diminishing returns - that in the face of a miracle, faith not actualized leads to a restriction in the ability of God to perform future miracles; that faith opens the door to the storehouse of heaven and provides a context and milieu for the power of God to be evident.  Could it be that our lack of faith in our western materialistic, naturalistic culture and world view has in some way stayed God's hand and restricted him in the realm of the supernatural? 

God restricted?!?  Remember what happened to Jesus in the context of unbelief in his home town Nazareth.  The people saw their home grown boy and disbelieved - "isn't this Mary's son - aren't his brothers James, Simon, Judas and Joses?  Isn't he a carpenter?"  They were focussing on the natural.  They were unwilling to see that, while he was indeed all those things, he was also the son of the most high God, that he was in fact God in the flesh and that he had not only already demonstrated his miraculous power but he had come to their town to do the same. Mark, in his account, writes that "he could do no mighty work there....."  Imagine - the power of lack of faith to create a milieu in which God in the flesh was restricted in what he could do!  Insisting on nothing more than the natural gives birth to just that - a life and experience of "nothing more than the natural."  How sad.

I can't help but think that we in the western world, that we in the western church have this same Nazareth mentality.  As a result we have reaped what we have sown - our insistence on natural explanations and natural expectations has blossomed and bloomed into a life of nothing but the natural.  When the supernatural somehow breaks through we discount, diminish and discredit to the point where our 5-5000-12 becomes 7-4000-7 and eventually 0-0-0.  

A good friend of mine is having his PET scan this morning to determine the extent of his newly diagnosed esophageal cancer.  My tendency in this situation is to be, like the disciples, overwhelmed by the lack of resources or, like the people of Nazareth, myopic in my view of who Jesus is.  But I am choosing today to believe in the God of the miraculous - the one who multiplies, fulfills and heals.