Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 401

He  spoke to them another parable.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened.”

Jesus, that most transparent and inscrutable of men, persistently announced the kingdom of heaven. I wonder if it was like a standing joke with his disciples, something they understood among themselves but could explain to no one else. And they couldn't explain it because they didn't get it either. When they asked the Lord about this "kingdom of God" or "kingdom of  heaven," they got another parable. 

The last time we hear of it is in the passion narrative of Saint John's gospel when Pilate asked his prisoner, "Are you the king of the Jews?' We recognize our king by his crown of thorns, his place on the Seat of Judgement, the solders' salute, his enthronement on the cross, and the inscription in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, "The King of the Jews." 

With his resurrection we see that Jesus is the Kingdom of God, and everyone who believes in him is his subject. 

Today's parables about the mustard seed and yeast describe the kingdom as small to the point of insignificant and yet mysteriously influential. Ignore it at your own risk. 

It is subtle like yeast. How many people knew about yeast? Certainly no one knew it in Jesus's day as "eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom." 

Bakers kept a "stock" of dough from the last batch; a small lump of wet dough which was kneaded into the next batch of dough, to be baked as bread. During Passover, their religion insisted they should throw out the old yeast and not knead it into fresh bread. The Passover bread was unleavened with yeast; it recalled the rushed exodus from Egypt when the Hebrews dared not wait for the dough to rise. The hard lump had to be baked and eaten on the run. 

After the Passover, they would knead the dough all the more and then wait for it to rise. They could not have known that "single-celled microorganisms" were floating in the air like so many viruses, ready to be folded into the fresh dough and germinate. 

So the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that causes the dough to swell and the bread to be light and chewy. It is subtle, invisible, and somewhat unpredictable. How exactly that works Jesus could no more explain than the baker. It's like faith, we trust that God knows what he's doing. As Psalm 131 says, 

LORD, my heart is not proud;

nor are my eyes haughty.

I do not busy myself with great matters,

with things too sublime for me. 

Rather, I have stilled my soul,

Like a weaned child to its mother,

weaned is my soul. 

Israel, hope in the LORD,

now and forever.

2020 will be long remembered as a transitional year when we wondered if the Lord knows what he's doing. Covid-19 is changing us more drastically than the AIDS epidemic of the 1980's, perhaps as much as World War II, Vietnam, and the 9/11 attacks. The pandemic has forced us again to look at the racism which uses disease, poverty, and social violence to kill a disproportionate number of African-Americans. Few "white folks" saw the terrorist methods of America's police forces. Also, the paycheck-to-paycheck desperation of millions of Americans has appeared in plain sight. We're shocked to discover the wretched conditions of our nursing homes, the extreme stresses on our health care systems, and inadequate funding of our schools. Maintenance of our infrastructures has once again been put off while our federal government can only wring its hands and blame the other party. 

When we turn to the Lord this morning for guidance we hear parables about mustard seeds and yeast. He does not offer money, armies, weapons, higher or lower taxes. His presence is quiet like mustard seeds and yeast. He offers the Holy Spirit of wisdom to guide our public and private policies. He announces what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world: our guilt, responsibility, and opportunity.