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.