josephholubsermons


 

July 24, 2011 -   Pent 6
Matthew 13:31-33

(you can copy and paste this into a word document - remember to change the font to black)

The Leavening

Who would you name as your favorite teachers in your years of formal education?  My answer to that question has varied over the years.  When I was a youth I might have said that my favorite teachers were the ones who did not assign too much homework.   At another time in my life I would have said that my favorite teachers were those who took a personal interest in me and challenged me to grow.  Now, at 63, as I reflect back on my 20 years of formal education, I see things in a different light.   I see that those teachers I may not have named my favorites back then were actually some of my best teachers, and they have become my favorites now!   They were the ones who  taught me to critically think and discover things on my own.  They taught me to have a healthy skepticism;  to be active in asking questions;  to be open to alternative ideas; and to appreciate the complexities of real life that accompany most things.  

As I continue to live with and engage the Jesus of the gospels, the more I am convinced that he was that kind of a teacher.  He didn’t deal in simplistic answers, but he almost always left the disciples and the crowds with something to really think about, to reflect upon and to chew on.  Sometimes his responses were rather obscure and arcane like the time the Pharisees asked, ”When can we expect the Kingdom of God to arrive?”   You see, they were looking for signs and specific events.  But Jesus responded  saying, “The Kingdom of God is not coming  with events that can be observed… the Kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21)  And they probably gazed at each other with a perplexed look that said, “Say what? Whatever does he mean?”  (I could cite many  more examples)

Jesus was a story-teller, and the thing he taught about more than anything else was the Kingdom of God (heaven - same thing).  The  Kingdom of God is not a reference to a saccharin-coated afterlife, but Kingdom of God is a description of God’s vision for the way this world can and could be;  back then in contrast to the imperial world of Rome under whose crushing power the people were living and being exploited; and today in contrast to the way the world is right now.    

Jesus employed two primary teaching techniques when it came to the Kingdom of God.  First, he  taught by example.  His own life was a living embodiment of the Kingdom of God in this world.  For example, rather than preach down to the people about their religiously legitimated prejudices, he touched the lepers, included the socially and religiously despised in his circle of friends, and held up women, children, Samaritans and Gentiles as models of faith.  Then he invited his disciples to emulate him and to build a new kind of community life that was radically inclusive.   You see, it is one thing to teach by talking at or down to others; it is another thing altogether to teach by living it and challenging others to live it as well, and that is what he did – and that is exactly why he was considered to be so dangerous to the political and religious establishment.  As I heard one person say, he didn’t lead the people in a chorus of Kum Bah Yah on his guitar which would not have been threatening, but he embodied, in his own life, the Kingdom of God and that was threatening.

His other primary teaching technique was to tell stories. We call them parables.  They seem like such simple little stories on the surface, that is until you begin to reflect on them and unpack them; and the more you  reflect on and unpack them, the more dimensions of meaning they take on.

In the DVD series that has been the basis of Theo-Talk the past month, author Brian McClaren shares why he thinks Jesus would be a bad interview on a contemporary TV news network.  He imagines Jesus being interviewed by a news reporter who says, “Now Jesus, you have been traveling around the countryside and talking a whole lot about the Kingdom of God.  Could you just distill your message down to a simple, concise sentence?”  And then McClaren imagines Jesus responding, “Well, the Kingdom of God is like a father who had two sons, and the younger son demanded his inheritance; the father gave it to him, and he left home and squandered the money on wine, women and song; and he got to a point of desperation where he was eating pig food with the pigs and…”  The reporter interrupts and says, “We must cut to a commercial break.  We’ll be right back.”  During the break the reporter looks at Jesus incredulously and says something like, “Jesus, you don’t understand.  What I need is a sound bite – your stories just won’t do.  We only have a limited amount of time, and we like things really simplistic,  so please give us a sound bite!” 

They return from commercial break and the reporter again asks, “Jesus, tell us what you mean by the Kingdom of God as concisely as you can.”

Jesus sighs and again responds, “Well, the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”   At that point the reporter is exasperated, and along with the reporter we might even say, “Whatever is Jesus talking about?”

Ok, fair enough - whatever is he talking about?  “The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

One of my favorite things as child was to help my mom bake bread – and other things like pie crust and cookies and muffins and cake and all that good stuff.  She loved to bake, and I loved to eat what she baked.  She would lay out all the ingredients and show me how to mix them.  But bread was my favorite because she taught me her technique of kneading the dough.  She explained to me that kneading the dough was key to making a good textured bread and working in the yeast.

When I asked her about the yeast, she would explain it something like this:  “Well, yeast is a germ that makes the bread sweet and the dough swell up, and the dough is not ready to bake until the yeast has infected the whole lump of dough.”

Obviously that confused me completely as a child.  A germ!  I knew germs could make things swell up, but how was that good thing?  “Infected”, whatever did she mean?   I had infections, and it wasn’t a good thing.  How could a germ that infected produce something so good as fresh bread?   Well, it wasn’t until later in life that I learned more precisely about the yeast.   

As you know yeast is alive – a living organism - a plant actually.  Living organisms need food for fuel and yeast needs sugars.  The yeast breaks down the starch in the flour into the right kind of sugars, some of which is food for the yeast and the rest sweetens the bread.  As the yeast interacts with the sugars it creates two by-products – alcohol and carbon dioxide.  The alcohol evaporates during baking and the carbon dioxide is what leavens the bread making it rise in a fermentation process. 

I looked up the word “leaven.”  As a noun it means “an element that is a transforming influence.”  As a verb it means, “to permeate in a transformative way.”  (Dictionary.com)

Jesus and the people of his time would not have known the scientific explanation of the interaction of the yeast with the flour.  But they did know all about the permeating and transformative affect the yeast had on the lump of dough and how it made the bread gloriously rise.   

My mother used to tell me that the dough was not ready to bake until the whole lump was  infected.”  Now I know what she meant.  It was her language to describe the reality she intuitively understood that, given the kneading and enough time, the yeast would permeate the entire lump of dough exerting a transformative influence, making it rise, and in the end produce really good bread! 

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God (heaven) is like that!  It’s like that yeast, a living organism, that the baker works into the lump of dough until it permeates the entire lump, and then it does its transformative work. 

For me, this is a description of the very essence of the life of faith.  Jesus came announcing and embodying the kingdom of God.  When we encounter and embrace his life we run the risk of being infected if you will; opening ourselves to the living organism of Kingdom of God.   Our very lives, yours and mine, we as a community and even the world are the dough.   This kingdom, this new paradigm for life and living is not merely a good idea or a philosophical truth, but it’s a living organism that is at work to affect the whole lump of dough in a transformative manner; to raise us up to a new kind of life.    

I am convinced that is the dynamic, vibrant, vigorous and exciting experience the earliest followers of Jesus had of him – he was like yeast that got inside of the dough of their lives and their community life in such a way that it yielded and brought about transformation.  They restructured their living according to this new paradigm.  For example: 

At first, the disciples, since they were a part of his inner circle, expected they would have special privileges and have power over others.  After all that’s the way the world was setup; why not for them too. But they were dumbfounded when Jesus leavened them to shed traditional paradigms of power and hierarchy and to serve one another calling the servant the greatest among them.  (Luke 9:46-48; 22:24-27)

Some expected that Jesus would tell them that their neighbors were those who looked and believed like them.  But they were shocked when Jesus leavened them to see that a neighbor was anyone in need, anyone suffering as a victim no matter how different they might be from them; and when they ministered to them they really were ministering to him!  (Luke 10:25-37; Matthew 25:31-46)

The super religious expected that Jesus would congratulate them for being so righteous in dedicating their lives to Mosaic Law. But they were stunned when Jesus leavened them by trumping their sacred law with compassion; experiencing their fullest humanity beyond the law. (Luke 11:37-44)

The zealots of the Jewish armed underground expected that Jesus would side with their cause to forcibly and violently drive the Roman occupiers from their land. But they were scandalized when Jesus leavened them with a way that was non-violent and showed them how to use the "weapon" of love on their enemies without compromising their own dignity. (Luke 6:27-28, 32-36)

Many expected that Jesus would assure them that the ritually unclean and sick had gotten what they deserved; that their suffering was the result of God’s judgment. But they were confounded when Jesus leavened them with a new paradigm for community life that included all those that the respectable religious and social community had excluded. (Luke 5:17-26) 

The wealthy elites thought Jesus might affirm them in their wealth and tell them they deserved the abundance of their material security.  Instead they were appalled when Jesus leavened them to see that their wealth provided an opportunity to empower those who had much less, and that everyone was “deserving” of having enough.  (Luke 18:18-25; Luke 6:20-26; Matthew 6:19-21)

The early followers of Jesus experienced him as a profound and powerful leavening that left nothing in their lives untouched, unaffected and not permeated.  

The leavening is still going on – it never stops no matter how great the resistance.  The Kingdom of God, as revealed and embodied in Jesus, is a living organism that never ceases to work its way into the dough of our lives, the dough of our community life and the life of the world so that we all, everyone, might taste the goodness and sweetness of the bread.  Let us pray:

Divine Presence,
May we be discontented with things as they are in the world;
May we take notice of the stain when people get spilled on;
May we care about those who have not enough good food to eat or clean water to drink; who languish in extreme poverty; children who are abused and neglected; inmates in prisons; the mentally ill on our streets and in institutions; any and all who suffer.
May we seek to be changed and transformed with a new awareness of our common humanity;
like a baker kneads in the yeast that leavens the dough may we be so through our faith Jesus who embodied the Kingdom of God so that that we might too.  Amen.