My mother-in-law makes the best cinnamon sweet rolls ever! From what I can tell now that Cassie has gotten the recipe (and thus is well on her way to making the best cinnamon sweet rolls ever) there are two secrets. The first secret is icy cold water, and the second is patience. Without enough time to rise properly the doughy goodness would become hard and unappetizing when baked, but if you can wait long enough for the dough to rise, the reward is ultimately worth it.
There is plenty to be learned about patience in this morning’s gospel lesson. Patience with Matthew for stringing all the kingdom parables together – patience with the lectionary folk for stretching them out over three weeks – patience with Jesus as we try to figure out what he is talking about – and the patience of Jesus as he has to know full well that the disciples really have no idea what he is talking about. The most important thing that we are to be patiently waiting upon, however, is the kingdom of heaven. Of the 5 parables we just heard and knowing my love for sweet rolls you can all but assume that I resonate most with the parable of the yeast. “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.” Baking with yeast, be it a waffle batter or in the case of this parable enough flour for 100 or more loaves of bread is slow. There is kneading and waiting and kneading and waiting and kneading and waiting.
The kingdom of heaven is, in all actuality, a lot like baking with yeast; patience is important. The Church to which Matthew writes is a group of Jews despised by their own people. Thinking they have found the Messiah and proclaiming that Good News has brought them nothing but heartache, strife, and in many cases made them the targets of physical violence. Their hope was to see the inauguration of the kingdom of heaven as soon as possible; if Jesus came back that afternoon, that'd be fine and dandy. As we know, however, Jesus didn't come back in their lifetime, and may not come back in ours. So with patience like a woman waiting for her bread dough to rise, Matthew's church went about the business of kingdom building on their own. They told the story of Jesus of Nazareth no matter the cost. They ordered themselves into a church structure. They lived lives of humility and forgiveness; doing their best to live into the ideal given to them by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
We can learn a lot from Matthew's church and their patient waiting upon the Lord. First and foremost we should note that while they waited they acted. For them waiting was not like at the doctor's office or Big-10 tire; waiting was an active verb. When Cassie places the ingredients for her sweet rolls into the breadmaker for kneading and rising, she doesn't stand and stare at the machine until its cycle is complete - instead she moves on to other things; preparing other dishes, dying easter eggs, trimming the Christmas tree, whatever it is it is active. As we wait for the kingdom of heaven to be fully realized there is no reason to sit on our laurels. For us, as for Matthew's church, waiting on the Lord should be an active verb. We are called to a lifestyle of humility, forgiveness, peacemaking, and justice seeking. We are called to acts of love to the poor, oppressed, outcast, and prisoners. We are called to disciplines like prayer, meditation, biblical study, and theological inquiry. There is much to do as we patiently wait for the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is a lot like baking with yeast.
The great thing about Jesus' parables is that there is usually one clear and obvious meaning. Every time we read a parable, however, that clear and obvious meaning seems to change. Up until now I have assumed that we, the Church, are the woman in this parable, but with all this action, all this movement, all this work, it seems to me that we could just as easily be the yeast; hidden away in enough flour for 100 loaves of bread we are working feverishly to ferment this world and to raise it to new standards. Yeast is a fascinating micro-organism. In researching for this sermon I stumbled upon the Fleischman's Yeast website breadworld.com where I learned perhaps the best yeast analogy for the kingdom - a single yeast cell can produce tons of yeast. The method of production sounds somewhat like the early life of the Church, the spiritual journey, and the slow and methodical in-breaking of the kingdom of heaven.
"Using a strong microscope, one healthy and vigorous yeast cell is selected from the desired strain. Once selected, the cell is planted in a test tube, which contains all the nutrients necessary to make yeast grow. Once the yeast has multiplied into a small mass of pure cells, it is transferred to glass laboratory flasks which contain a mixture called wort; a nutrient-rich growth medium containing molasses or another carbohydrate source, vitamins, minerals and other components. When the yeast cells have increased many times, the fermentation stage begins. The flasks are emptied into fermentation tanks. The tanks contain more wort, which causes the yeast to continue to multiply. As the yeast cells continue to grow, they are transferred to increasingly larger tanks. The final tank can be as high as a multi-story building, with a capacity of up to 60,000 gallons. By the time the yeast is ready to be harvested, it will have grown into tons of yeast, ...over 3 generations!" (1)
Having determined the best way to put the whole world to rights, God selected his only Son to come to earth. In three short years Jesus went from an obscure rabbi in Nazareth to a religious and political icon who had to be dealt with harshly, but the small group of devoted disciples that he had accumulated, spread throughout the known world would continue to grow the kingdom that began innocently enough with an out-of-wedlock child born in Bethlehem. By the end of its third generation the followers of the Way of Jesus had firmly established the Church. Since then the Church has grown and grown and grown - feeding on the passion that Jesus lived and died by - permeating all aspects of culture, life, and creation; slowly but surely bringing new glimpses of the kingdom of heaven to all sorts of people in all corners of the world. The kingdom of heaven is very much like yeast.
Aren't parables great? A one sentence parable spoken by Jesus to a crowd of people allows our imaginations to run wild as we ponder, "the kingdom of heaven is like..." Who are we in the kingdom of heaven? Are we the baker? Do we wait patiently upon it? Are we the yeast? Do we actively work to bring it to earth? Do we somehow do both - acting as both baker and yeast? The bread that the kingdom of heaven continues to reproduce and gets larger by the minute, and each of us has an opportunity to be a part of its growth. Are we ready to roll up your sleeves and get dirty, to bake, to ferment this world for God's glory?a
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