July 24, 2011 – Sixth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 12
Year A
By the Rev. Charles Hoffacker
(RCL) Genesis 29:15-28 and Psalm 105:1-11, 45b or Psalm 128 (Track
2: 1 Kings 3:5-12 and Psalm 119:129-136); Romans 8:26-39; Matthew
13:31-33, 44-52
Today let’s picture the world as an ungainly, promising mass of dough.
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The comedian comes out on stage, and starts his routine. In a rapid-fire
monologue, he serves up jokes. His timing is masterful, and the oneliners burst forth in succession, with precision, so that you can’t help
but laugh.
Jesus comes out in front of the crowds and starts his teaching. In a
rapid-fire monologue, he serves up parables. His timing is masterful,
and these word-pictures burst forth in succession, with precision, so that
you can’t help but see.
Here there’s a similarity between Jesus and a stand-up comic. The
comedian makes you laugh; Jesus makes you see. And what you see is
something of the kingdom of heaven, that realm where God’s
sovereignty is recognized.
The routine Jesus offers in today’s gospel is a bonanza: five short
parables in a row. All of them are gems. Parables about a mustard seed,
treasure buried in a field, a pricey pearl, a fishing net. Then there’s the
one we might focus on this morning: the parable about yeast in the
flour.
It’s a one-liner. You might have missed it if you sneezed when the gospel
was read. It goes like this: “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.”
Three measures of flour. Do you know how much that is? About eighty
pounds! This woman is not Martha Stewart whipping up a couple
delicate, exquisite little biscuits that together weigh less than a canary.
No, no. This woman is a baker!
She’s emptying sixteen five-pound bags of flour into the biggest mixing
bowl you’ve ever seen. She’s pouring in forty-two cups of water. She’s
got a mass of dough on her hands that weighs over a hundred pounds.
Kneading this lump of dough, shaping it, pounding it. It looks like some
scene at the end of a professional wrestling match. Here we have a nononsense operation. Sports fans, this is baking at its best. A woman,
with her apron dusted with flour, her ten fingers deep into the dough –
she’s a combination of Julia Child and Hulk Hogan.
“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.” Jesus tosses
out this parable, this one-liner, and he does so for a purpose. Just as the
stand-up comic wants us to laugh, Jesus wants us to glimpse the
kingdom of heaven, that realm where God’s sovereignty is recognized.
Take another look at that huge mass of dough. It’s not just flour any
more. The yeast is in the dough, invisible, but permeating the mass, and
having its effect. A mystery is bubbling away inside, with much more
happening than meets the eye.
As this process continues, the hidden will become manifest. There’s no
way to stop it! The movement from mystery to manifestation: Jesus
presents this to us as the pulse of the kingdom of heaven. Here is how
God’s sovereignty becomes apparent: it resembles the strange
transformation that turns flour into dough.
We get to watch the baker woman at work. We’re invited to look at this
process and see it for what it’s worth. But if we’re to get a glimpse of the
kingdom, if we’re to look down to the center of this parable, then two
things are asked of us: we must be patient, and we must exercise
discernment.
Yeast takes a while to work, and its working is mysterious. So we have
to be patient as the dough rises and comes to life. This dough is not a
dead lump, a hopeless, shapeless pile, but instead a universe where
opportunities become real. The baker woman is at work with our life,
our circumstances, and the people around us. Nothing is outside this
lump of dough.
We need to be patient and to exercise discernment if a lump of dough is
ever to be bread for the world. And we must exercise this same patience
and discernment about the universe. Life is something other than a pile
of flour and a bit of yeast. Life is an ungainly, promising mass of dough,
on its way to becoming abundant bread. Just as yeast permeates the
entire lump, so the kingdom is present everywhere, and everywhere it
becomes manifest for those with eyes to see.
If we look around us and within us, we can recognize the presence of the
kingdom. That kingdom is at work, just as yeast is active in the dough.
And as yeast is invisible and known by its effects, so the kingdom is
hidden, concealed, buried deep in ordinary circumstances, yet known by
its effects.
Look at your life in the light of grace. Something is there for you to find
– whether you feel happy or sad, whether your life seems successful or
disastrous, whether you call yourself a winner or a loser. That
something is the activity of the kingdom, yeast bubbling away in your
corner of the lump.
And when you find the kingdom among the realities of your life, nothing
prevents you from finding this same kingdom present as well in the
circumstances around you, in the lives of other people, and everywhere
you choose to look.
There’s one caution to keep in mind. The kingdom does not come with
brass bands. It is not the subject of headline news and public-relations
efforts. We are talking here about yeast working invisibly in the dough,
a hidden yet potent activity.
As it takes faith to believe that bread will rise, so too faith is necessary
to see the kingdom manifest in the everyday and the ordinary. We must
exercise patience and discernment wherever God places us. Then we
will see that what seems like a dead lump is in fact bubbling with divine
life.
So may each of us go forth this week, and encounter places and people
and circumstances, and look there for the kingdom: not as distant, but
near at hand; not as obvious, but hidden; not as static, but alive and
becoming manifest; a kingdom making room for all of us.
When we look for the kingdom, then we find it present, abundantly
present. And when we do, then we have more reasons to give thanks
than we ever expected.
We discover it’s true, that one-liner Jesus tells us. All the world is a
lump of dough, flour with yeast mixed in, and SURPRISE! God’s a
baker woman making bread.
— The Rev. Charles Hoffacker is an Episcopal priest and writer. He is
the author of “A Matter of Life and Death: Preaching at Funerals”
(Cowley Publications, 2002) and also contributes sermons to
www.lectionary.org. E-mail: charleshoffacker8@gmail.com.