Unexpected Impact

A man in his field and a woman in her kitchen: He plants a little seed – places it in the dark earth. She hides a little leaven – places it in the dough. And then what happens? The greatest of shrub trees grows and the whole dough was leavened.

The parables on the surface seem to be parables of hope and encouragement for these disciples who have, remember, had a long day. Remember how the day started?

They were hungry, and as they were walking trying to get to the synagogue, they picked some grain from the edge of the field to eat. And some Pharisees saw them and accused them of wrongdoing because they were working on the Sabbath. Then at the synagogue Jesus had been overwhelmed with compassion for this man with a withered hand and healed it and that triggered the Pharisees. And all day, he kept healing, and they kept following him, they even started calling him the prince of demons, taunting him to show them a sign. Jesus goes down by the sea and the crowds gather around him, and he puts out into a boat and teaches in parables about the Kingdom of Heaven.

The parable of the sower, the parable of the weeds and the wheat, and now the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven. These two could be encouraging to Jesus’ followers. It only takes a little action to create ripples that make a big difference. We know this to be true.

I heard a year ago about a new tent that has been developed for homeless people. It folds into a backpack so that it can be easily stowed and carried. It also is solar powered. And the power can charge a cell-phone. But until this week I hadn’t known how it was developed. 12 teenagers from Los Angeles developed it as part of a competition for an MIT grant for student groups attempting to solve real-world problems with engineering-based solutions. The girls participate in DIY girls – a nonprofit that teaches girls from low income communities about STEM. DIY girls at the time had an interim director, Evelyn Gomez, who grew up in that community of LA, who became an engineer, who cared about her community enough to stay connected, to serve as interim executive director of a non-profit teaching about science, technology, engineering, and math, using her engineering background to change the lives of girls, and as an end result those who find themselves homeless.

Something small – agreeing to serve as an interim director of a nonprofit – becomes something large – impacting the lives of thousands.

But remember, parables are supposed to challenge us. They are riddles designed to “tease the mind into insight” (Dr. Douglas Hare) causing us to “look into the hidden aspects of our own values, our own lives. They bring to the surface unasked questions, and they reveal the answers we have always known, but refuse to acknowledge.” Remember Dr. Amy-Jill Levine’s warning that our reaction to a parable “should be one of resistance rather than acceptance….Therefore, if we hear a parable and think, ‘I really like that’ or worse, fail to take any challenge, we are not listening well enough.”

So, what is the challenge in the Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven? Surely it isn’t that a man in his field and a woman in her kitchen, doing what they always do, what they know how to do, what seems good to them, have great impact. It seems to me that it’s true, but that it is the lesson for the Pharisees in the crowd.

In the parables of the sower and the weeds and the wheat, who is the farmer? God, right? It seems to me that God is the farmer who goes into the field and sows a seed. And God is the woman in the kitchen who hides leaven in her dough.

The farmer goes into his field and plants a mustard seed in the dark earth. And from that darkness, life will quietly germinate and eventually escape the darkness and reach toward the light of the sun. Are you a mustard seed? Planted in the darkness of the earth, quietly germinating, pushing toward the light, eager to grow into a …well, into a mighty mustard bush? Now why didn’t Jesus compare us to the cedars of Lebanon or the Redwoods of California, or a Noble Fir? A mustard bush? Is this the tree that the prophet Daniel described as “standing majestically at the center of the earth, with a top that reached to heaven, a tree that was visible to the ends of the earth, abundant enough that ‘the birds of the air nested in its branches and from it all living things were fed?’” (WBC, Long)

A majestic mustard bush? The greatness of the Kingdom of Heaven does not look like we expect it to look! Dr. David Garland remarked about it, “Jesus’ parable hints that the kingdom is breaking into the world in a disarming and, for many disenchanting form. We do not sing, ‘A mighty mustard bush is our God.’ The parable implies that the kingdom…will not come ‘as a mighty cedar astride the lofty mountain height’ reaching the topmost part of the sky but as a lowly mustard bush.’”

And when it comes, it will come as a woman forms dough. She measured out the flour, three measures. And she began to work in the eggs and the milk. As it began to form dough, she took the starter, the leavened dough, from the cupboard – because they didn’t sell yeast packets at the store in Jesus’ day, you kept part of the dough each time you made bread to allow it to ferment so that it would leaven your next dough – so, she took the leaven from the cupboard and hid it in the center of the dough and continued to fold, over and over, kneading it into a ball, allowing that starter to spread throughout the mixture. Now why would she hide it?

I think Jesus is reiterating the point that he made with the seed in the earth. The woman didn’t take leavened dough and just add it to the flour. She took the dough and formed a pit in the center, where she placed the leavened dough, deep in the center. There in the dark, the leavening agents began to spread out and be incorporated throughout. Dr. Douglas Hare says the main point here is that “God is at work, even though human eyes may fail to perceive what is happening.”

There, in the dark, the leavened agents of God are at work as God kneads them and incorporates them with the unleavened dough until all three measures of it is incorporated.
Some commentators link the hiding of the leaven with the Passover preparation, when all leaven was removed from the house. And others point out that yeast was a symbol for corruption in Jesus’ day. Again, the product is a surprise. The kingdom of heaven is not like unleavened manna, that rained down from the skies to feed the Israelites in the wilderness. “The Kingdom of heaven is like leavened bread,” Jesus tells people for whom saying ‘a little yeast leavens the loaf’ was equivalent to saying ‘one bad apple spoils the bunch.’ (Long) It is unexpected, yet common. Or maybe unexpectedly common.

The seed in the field. The leavened dough at a village oven. Dr. Amy-Jill Levine writes, “The kingdom of heaven is found in what today we might call ‘our own backyard’ in the generosity of nature and in the daily working of men and women….don’t ask ‘when’ the kingdom comes or ‘where’ it is. The when is in its own good time – as long as it takes for seed to sprout and dough to rise. The where is that it is already present…in the world.”

The seed is planted. The leaven is hidden. In you and me. Even in the darkness of this world. And it will grow. It won’t look like we might think it will look. It will come in common, unexpected places and ways. Yes, the Kingdom will come. Thanks be to God. Amen.