let it rise!

Matthew 13:33

The key words are: parable, kingdom of heaven, yeast, mixed (or hid). The story Jesus tells is fairly common: a woman took some yeast and worked it into some dough. The kingdom, Jesus says, is like the yeast that she put in the dough. However, like most of Jesus' stories, this one contains a couple of twists. The first is that the woman "hid" the yeast in the dough. It begs the question, who was she hiding the yeast from? The yeast police? On one hand this is a pretty dumb hiding place because it will be obvious where the yeast is hidden - the dough is going to start to rise and everyone will know where it is. On the other hand, it's a brilliant hiding place because once the yeast is worked through the dough, it will be impossible to retreive. The second twist is the amount of flour she hid the dough in: 60 pounds of flour! It begs the question, who was she making bread for? the whole village?
Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like yeast hidden in dough. The comparison is clouded by the fact that a lot of modern translations use "yeast" instead of "leaven". Leaven was regular dough that was allowed to ferment. A baker would take a piece of leaven - which looked a lot like the regular dough - and work it into the new dough to cause it to be leavened as well. The dough is inert (or dead) until the leavened lump has been add, which brings "life" to the dough. What this tells us about the kingdom is: 1) it will be made up of regular people who have been changed (fermented or leavened), 2) the kingdom will be hard to point out because it is made up of regular people who have been changed and 3) the work of the kingdom will be hidden, below the surface, mysterious, subversive and very dramatic as it brings life to people, to culture and to the world.
This very short, one verse story is so rich! There is so much for me to learn from it. The first thing is that the kingdom is organic. It doesn't impose its will but infects the people and culture around it with life, bringing change from the bottom up, from the inside out. This tells me that the kingdom is not about power but about life! The second thing is that the kingdom is only effective when it is worked through the whole dough. When the Church is huddled together in one corner of society and the world, it doesn't have much effect on the culture or on people. May the life of Christ so infect me that I, in turn, infect those around me with the life and "leaven" of the kingdom of heaven.