Sermon: Like Yeast

Lectionary: Proper 12A

Text: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52; (not in week's lection) Genesis 18:1-15

A Brief History of “Leaven”

Among one of the many unusual activities that became popular during the early days of the pandemic was making sourdough bread, and more specifically, making your own sourdough starter. I did not participate in this activity, but I did try making my own sourdough starter once before. The success of sourdough depends on the ability to successfully inoculate the flour-and-water mixture with wild yeast. Once that happens, it becomes a matter of maintaining the starter by using or discarding portions and providing it with new sources of nutrients for the yeast to continue growing.

In our present day, most yeast baking we do uses dry yeast that comes in little packets, a jar, or a block. When we hear the parable of the yeast that was included in today’s reading, that is probably what we most likely visualize first.

But isolated, dry yeast is a relatively recent invention, the first attempts dating back to the 1700s. Before then yeast or leaven, at least when it came to baking, was what we now call sourdough starter.

Our Mental Picture of the Parable of the Yeast

As you might be suspecting by now, I am focusing today solely on this one little parable of the yeast. You might wonder how much there could be to extract from such a short parable, after all it is just one sentence:

He told them another parable: “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.” (Matthew 13:33 NRSVue)

What most of us picture is a woman in a kitchen, taking a bunch of flour, adding yeast and water, and then mixing the result until they are all combined. It seems ordinary and obvious. Except it isn’t.

I already noted that yeast or leaven (both are found in English translations) is not just a small bit of dry yeast, but a good amount of starter. What is being added is not something that could easily be overlooked, but it is a good amount and quite intentional.

The next point where our imagination differs from the text is where the woman “mixes” the yeast into the flour. The actual word is “hid” and it is found in multiple English translations as well. But “hiding” yeast in flour doesn’t make much sense to us, whereas mixing it into the dough makes more sense, so many translators have opted to use “mix” instead. And our imagined picture follows this translation choice.

An aside here regards the use of “yeast” in scripture. In Christian tradition, yeast is often assumed to be negative. In fact, this very parable has some interpretations where the entire premise is based on yeast being something evil and sinful, which then permeates the dough. But is that a good interpretation? Although many uses of the yeast metaphor in the New Testament often has negative connotations, it is the context around the yeast that determines whether or not the yeast and its behavior should be understood as negative or positive. The metaphor itself is neutral.[1]

The final point where we need to break through our imagined kitchen scene is where the text reads “three measures of flour”. We probably imagine an amount that is reasonable for regular, domestic baking – say three cups of flour. But that is not what is in the text. Three measures of flour is about 47 pounds of flour. Imagine adding water and yeast to it and then trying to mix the whole thing so that the yeast is distributed throughout the dough. Now you see why “mix” doesn’t make any sense in this parable. First, the amount would be way too much for a single person to accomplish. Second, it would take a huge amount of starter to make any difference in the short run. Therefore, “hid” is the proper word, rather than “mix”.

What we have then, is a new picture of this parable. A woman has 47 pounds of flour, presumably with sufficient water added to let it soak and permeate all of the flour, and then a portion of sourdough starter that she places deep into the dough, somewhere. And then she lets time pass. The yeast in the starter feeds and multiplies at this immense amount of food. It grows until it spreads to the entire dough.

Interpretations of the Parable

The yeast is “planted” into the dough, just as the seeds from earlier parables in Mathew 13 are sown into the field. Time passes until the harvest is revealed. For the dough, time passes until the yeast is found throughout the dough. Each of the parables in Matthew 13 contains a surprise that is found: surprising abundance, unexpected weeds, surprising treasure, and so on. That a small amount of starter can permeate such an enormous amount of dough is also a surprise.

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine writes in Short Stories by Jesus, “Whatever the woman is doing, its results will come to light. What is hidden is only hidden so that it can be brought forth, and in the revelation the original is somehow transformed…”[2]

Connections with Story of Abraham and the Three Strangers

But there is even more. The words and the images of this parable have a strong connection to the story of Abraham, Sarah, and the three strangers that is found in Genesis 18:1-15.

The first connection between Abraham’s story and the parable is quite easy to make. It is the “three measures” of flour that are used in both stories. Both describe bread baking that is far more than would be needed for a small household, or even a larger, extended family. Sixty dozen biscuits[3] could literally feed a small army. Never mind the amount of time and work it would take to bake them all from scratch.

The second connection is not nearly so obvious, especially when working only with English translations. I will get a bit nerdy and into the weeds with a quick study of a couple of key Greek terms that are found in these texts.

The word for “hid” is enkrypto in Greek, from which we get words such as encrypt, cryptography, and crypts. When Abraham calls for Sarah to make cakes, the Hebrew word used there is ugot. That in itself is uninteresting and no connection is found, but in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew, the word used for “cake” is enkrypsias, a cognate (i.e., derived from same root) of enkrypto. Why might the root “to hide” apply to a baked bread? It seems to be that it was because the dough was “hidden” in the ashes of the oven for it to bake.

The third connection is that of a woman and her involvement in the process of baking. Sarah is asked to bake cakes; the woman in the parable hides the yeast in the flour.

The connection between the two texts appears to be intentional. Therefore, we might do well to see how the two stories together might bring us new understandings from the parable. For these, I continue to borrow from Dr. Levine’s work on this parable.

The first connected interpretation suggested by Dr. Levine is that of pregnancy and the Messianic age. The story of Abraham is quite explicit in its statement of Sarah’s insemination by Abraham,[4] a subsequent pregnancy, and then the birth of a miraculous child. In ancient times (and perhaps even in fairly modern times) women’s bodies were seen as fields to be plowed and sowed, the women’s bodies, like the earth, providing nurturing and a place for growth. Back then as well as today there is also a phrase, “She’s got a bun in the oven,” conveying a similar analogy, but reducing the woman to merely an appliance.

Several Suggested Interpretations

The parable of the yeast is about a miraculous growing of something that is planted into it. The growth of the dough could be compared to a pregnancy. Second Esdras 4:39-40 and Romans 8:22 describe the end of the Present Age as a pregnancy coming to term.

Dr. Levine suggests, “Perhaps the parable tells us that, like dough that has been carefully prepared with sourdough starter or a child growing in the womb, the kingdom will come if we nurture it.”[5]

A second suggested interpretation is about the abundance of the kingdom. Perhaps the parable is telling us that when it comes to the kingdom, extravagance and generosity is the norm. Is the parable telling us that what might seem wasteful, is in fact, not? That sometimes our well-intentioned stewardship of resources might be getting in the way of the growth of the kingdom? Or is it an indirect reminder that as we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” some of us have way more than we need, while others really mean the prayer?

And a third suggested message from the parable is that the kingdom springs up and grows in the mundane, whenever and wherever peoples’ needs are being met. That through our everyday, ordinary lives, when we strive to do the best we can to be neighbors to our neighbors, the yeast of the gospel and God’s kingdom is being hidden where it will multiple and grow in its own time, to be revealed at the end of present history.

Conclusion: Reading Parables Well

Today’s gospel reading ended with the following words.

“Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Matthew 13:51-52 NRSV)

My hope and prayers and desires for us, including myself, is that what I have offered this week and last, will be seeds and yeast that give us new spiritual eyes and minds as we read familiar parables. And in that way, we will be better equipped to be like the scribe of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus describes as the summary of his parables.

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[1] Levine, Amy-Jill. Short Stories by Jesus, p. 124, 129. “The term ‘yeast,’ used metaphorically in the New Testament, has a negative connotation. Yet at least in the Gospels, it is particular leaven that is the problem… Yeast need not have a negative connotation, but it might have one.”

[2] Ibid., p. 132.

[3] Ibid., p. 133.

[4] Genesis 18:12. “After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?” Many English translations try to skirt around the quite obvious statement that Sarah is wondering if she will experience sexual pleasure again.

[5] Levine, p. 136.

Sermon: Weeds!

Lectionary: Proper 11

Text: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Literary and Historical Contexts

These three weeks – last week, today, and next week – the gospel texts go through the parables that are recorded in Matthew chapter 13. One way to read them is to take each one as an isolated parable, self-contained and interpreted within itself. Additionally, a couple of them have interpretations that are offered: the parable of the Sower which we heard last week, and the parable of the weeds found in today’s reading.

But if we zoom out and look at how this gospel writer has arranged the narratives around chapter 13, we can find some possible reasons for this textual and literary arrangement and perhaps some interpretive keys as well.

Chapter 12 is a series of narratives about how religious experts and even his birth family had conflicts and misunderstandings about Jesus. Chapter 13 ends, after the parables, with Jesus’ rejection by his hometown, Nazareth. From a historical perspective, this could reflect what was being experienced by the community to whom Matthew wrote. It is then, quite likely that the parables as recorded through Matthew, addressed and offered answers to some of the questions that may have been strong in the minds of one of the early Christian communities.

Here I want to offer some thoughts on the interpretations that are found alongside the parables. According to the text, it is Jesus who explains his own parables after his disciples ask about them. And many scholars accept that these explanations come from Jesus. But there are other scholars who question that view. They suggest that it was the gospel writer who provided these interpretations as coming from Jesus. Since the author of the gospel of Matthew was separated from Jesus by four or more decades, he may have been writing down a tradition that had become attributed to Jesus.

Some reasons to think that the interpretation given may not be originally from Jesus include 1) that the interpretation fits too neatly, and 2) the interpretation is too allegorical rather than parabolic. Generally, parables were told to raise questions and to discomfort, to cause listeners to think, and offer multiple interpretations.

Whether the interpretations found in Matthew 13 are originally from Jesus or not ultimately does not matter too much, except when they stop us from pondering over them for additional meanings. The interpretations do fit with giving answers to the historical question of why Jesus and his gospel was rejected by so many who heard it.

With some of the preceding literary and critical background out of the way, let us investigate today’s text about the parable of the weeds.

Thinking About Parables

This is another of the parables that I recall hearing in sermons and in children and youth classes. You may have had the same kind of experience. Therefore, it is easy to kind of skim over it, saying, “Uh huh, yup,” and content that we know what it says. It is so familiar, as is the interpretation of it given some verses down. We know how the parable reads and what it means. Or do we?

I began preparation for this sermon by going through several commentaries, and of them there were two that offered suggestions for an interpretation of the parable that pretty much is the opposite of the interpretation given in the Matthean text.[1] At first, I thought this interpretation was bonkers and couldn’t see how it could be derived from the parable’s text. But then I got into the “weeds” (so to speak) about the weed that is the likely one described in the parable. And from there I looked at the next two, short parables following today’s and realized, hmm…, yes…, the alternative interpretation is completely nontraditional and seems totally crazy, but…, not so crazy and fits thematically and literarily where the parable is placed among the other ones. If we take the perspective that the interpretation that is offered in the text is not the only one or the only correct one, it opens multiple other possibilities.

That’s the general thought process I had. Now let’s get into some specifics.

Thinking About Weeds

Wheat

For some reason, perhaps because I heard this story many times growing up, and those early impressions still are the most prominent in my mind; when I hear or read about the weeds in this parable, I think of normal, everyday weeds most of us are familiar with. They are still annoying, frustrating, and take work to dig out, but that pales in comparison with the weed that is the most likely one found in this parable.

Bearded Darnel

I figuratively went into the “weeds” to learn about the weed of this parable. What most scholars believe this weed is, is the one known as the bearded darnel. It is a truly fascinating plant.[2] What I found explains some of the specific details found in the parable.

For instance, why does it take so long for the slaves to discover that there are weeds mixed with the wheat? Because the darnel looks exactly like wheat until the unripe stalks of fruit open up at the same time as the wheat. Then the two plants become identifiable. And by then the roots of the wheat and weeds are so intertwined that it is impossible to dig up the weeds without also digging up the unripe wheat.

The sorting could only happen after they are harvested, and the good stalks sorted out from the darnel. The wheat stalks have a straight fruit while darnel stalks have fruit that develops in small alternating clumps. Modern sorting machinery is able to automatically separate the wheat, but it was previously a tedious job done by hand.

The darnel is a weed that has fully adapted to infiltrating cultivated wheat crops. It cannot exist on its own. It must be planted alongside the wheat by humans. It is also interesting to note that oat and rye were found by humans because they too, required human cultivation. However, they were found to be useful to humans and thus their adaptation worked out quite well.

Darnel, on the other hand, is mostly harmful to humans. It does have properties that can cause intoxication – dizzy, off-balance, and nauseous – in small amounts. In larger amounts it is fatal. This small amount is known to have been deliberately introduced into ancient and medieval brewing to obtain their effects and increase the intoxication from drinking a beer, for instance. There is at least one scholar who argued that because it was impossible to fully eradicate the presence of darnel from wheat, that medieval baked goods were to some degree, intoxicating, and therefore, “European peasantry lived in a state of semi-permanent hallucination.”[3] Sort of like the “special” weed brownies that we might find down the street today.

If you ever encounter the surname Darnell, it is quite probable that one or more of their ancestors had cultivated the darnel plant for its properties, to be added intentionally in brewing beverages or to baking.

Why did I just spend a rather lengthy digression bringing you details about the bearded darnel? Because 1) it occupies a grey area between potentially useful and harmful; 2) it was something that was a part of the normal wheat planting process to have some darnel just accompanying the wheat; and 3) it starts out unnoticed but then it becomes quite obvious. Each of these three observations can alter the allegorical interpretation that is found in the Matthew text. And I think that ancient societies knew these things about wheat and the bearded darnel, including the hearers of the parable.

Allowing a Different Interpretation

I am taking the interpretation suggested by the two commentators mentioned earlier, turning upside-down the traditional interpretation. This interpretation takes the position that the householder or the farmer represents the landowners of society, those who hold power and privilege; those who control the political and economic powers. The “good” seed then, is only “good” from their perspective. They sow the good seed to maintain the status quo, with their power and privilege, but for those who are not part of the upper class, the good seed is bad, for it means continued poverty and injustice. One of the commentators mentioned earlier writes,

“On the other hand, perhaps the field in this parable is a metaphor not for the church as much as for the world. The farmer then might stand not for God but for the prevailing social and economic structures of Jesus’ day, even the Roman Empire itself, and the ‘enemy’ is instead Jesus, whose preaching, teaching and healing are God’s invasion of the old world with the empire of heaven. If so, Jesus is here, as in the Beelzebul controversy, the one who is stronger than Satan and ties him up in order to plunder his house (12:29), and the farmer represents the social, political, and economic forces that oppress God’s people. Although the world opposes the church, it will not be destroyed. God will save it and judge its enemies.”[4]

The second commentator adds another facet to this interpretive perspective, writing, “Individual Christians are sown as subversive ‘weeds’ in that field.”[5]

I mentioned earlier that I thought this interpretation was crazy and untenable, but as I read through the parable with the information about the darnel weed in mind, it became more plausible.

The first place that raised a question for me was when the householder says that “an enemy has done this.” Although the hearers, as an outside observer, know this based on what has already been described, on what basis does the householder claim this? If the weeds were a normal, if undesired part, of all wheat fields, how could the householder claim that an enemy has intentionally planted the weeds? In my mind this opened the possibility that a simplistic, straightforward allegorical interpretation, while permissible, may not be the only one available.

And then I read the next two short parables (which is part of next week’s gospel reading). The first parable is about a mustard seed, where a tiny seed mysteriously grows into a large shrub that allows birds to nest in it, becoming an integral part of the ecosystem. The second parable is about yeast that is added to dough, mysteriously grows and permeates the entire dough and becomes an inseparable part of it.

Both parables share themes of mysterious origins, growth, and becoming integrated into its environment. And then I realized that the same themes could be found in the parable of the weeds: the sowing that happens in secret, the mysterious growth, the reveal of the extent of the growth that isn’t apparent until close to the end, how it becomes inextricably intertwined with the environment, and the confounding of the entire process – these are all themes in the parable of the weeds that are shared with the next two parables.

And it was at this point that I became convinced that a very different, upside-down interpretation is quite plausible and can be supported by the literary context: where perhaps “good” may sometimes be merely a label that is given to something that is used to justify beliefs and actions; where the householder/farmer and the land represents the oppressive status quo; where the “enemy” is actually good; and the “weed” represents the secret, mysterious, and the intertwining nature of the gospel that is found in the subsequent two parables.

The point of all this is not to dismiss the traditional, allegorical interpretation, or to declare that the alternate interpretation is better. Rather, I offer it to suggest a way to break out of years of prior hearing, experience, and tradition; to challenge our assumptions, and to hear parables as they were originally meant to be heard – to raise questions, to challenge beliefs, and to disquiet and discomfort its hearers.[6] If parables only serve to confirm our beliefs and settle us, perhaps we have not read them sufficiently well. If what I learned this week and offered to you today provokes and challenges us, then I think the parable has done what it is meant to do.[7]

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[1] Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Volume 1. WJK Press. “Exegetical Perspective” and “Homiletical Perspective” on Matthew 13:24-30.

[2] Wheat's Evil Twin Has Been Intoxicating Humans For Centuries - Gastro Obscura (atlasobscura.com) – https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/wheats-evil-twin-has-been-intoxicating-humans-for-centuries

[3] Ibid.

[4] Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Volume 1, p. 1009.

[5] Ibid., p. 1015.

[6] The back page of the Petersburg Lutheran Church bulletin for July 23, 2023 includes yet another way of interpreting the parable of the weeds. See 07.23.2023-bulletin.pdf (petersburglutheran.com) (https://www.petersburglutheran.com/hp_wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/07.23.2023-bulletin.pdf)

[7] For an extended discussion of these ideas, see the “introduction” in Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi, by Amy-Jill Levine.