I just made, baked and ate my very first home-made loaf of
bread. I’m very proud of myself,
although the entire process was painfully simple. 3 cups of flour, 1 ½ cups of warm water, 1
teaspoon of salt and ¼ teaspoon of live yeast make up the recipe. Combine ingredients, let sit for 18 hours, bake
and eat. It’s that easy. And as every baker knows, the yeast does all
the heavy lifting. Though the smallest
ingredient, it is the most important; working unseen in the dough, causing her
to rise and be ready for baking even while I sleep.
As Jesus points out, His kingdom is altogether similar. “’What
shall I compare the Kingdom of God to? It is like yeast that a woman took and
mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.’”
Once the yeast beings its work,
it cannot be undone, it will end by overtaking the entire lump of dough,
transforming it into life giving bread. And, much like my loaf of bread, the
work of Christ’s Kingdom is being done outside of my strength and effort. Yes, I need to be faithful and honor the recipe,
but the real work happens almost mysteriously, even mystically, outside of my coercive
power. Again, Jesus refers to his
kingdom:
“”This is what the Kingdom of God
is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or
gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself
the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in
the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the
harvest has come.’”
Just like the farmer in this parable, we ‘do not know how’
His kingdom is being fulfilled; we are simply called upon to be faithful to the
process, to trust the recipe. The eternal
lesson is that the means of the kingdom must never be compromised by attempting
to manipulate the ends. And yet, it is
awful tempting to either force God’s hand or use the current plausibility structures
of coercion and power to impose the Kingdom in the here and now. If you are
like me, you very rarely see a tangible expression of God’s kingdom on earth as
it now is in heaven. Much of life is
filled with broken relationships, shattered dreams and pain. But, over against the cynicism of
determinism, Jesus pits the revolutionary patience and hope of his kingdom
coming very soon, but just not quite yet.
And, in case we still have little faith, he offers up one final soliloquy
of hope:
“Again he said, ‘what shall we
say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It
is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when
planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big
branches that the birds can perch in its shade.’”
No doubt, these parables helped to instill courage and hope
within the small discipleship community Jesus gathered around him, especially as
they lived under the scourge of Rome.
And, more than likely, they couldn’t see it either. They lived, worked and died under Caesar’s
dominion, wondering if and when Yahweh was ever going to put the earth to
rights, overthrowing these monstrous pagans and establishing His reign and His
righteousness by putting the rightful king upon the throne. Like them, we too will probably die before
the yeast and seed complete their work. But
this is no cause for despair. For once
planted and once kneaded into the dough, the transformational power of His work
on this earth can never be overturned.
No comments:
Post a Comment