15th August 2021 - 11th Sunday after Trinity
A couple of people have asked for copies of last week's Sunday reflection on bread… so here it is!
Imagine the smell of making bread, the fermenting yeast already beginning to leaven the flour. Jesus told a parable: The kingdom of God is like yeast that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.
Three measures of flour – Abraham, abundant in his hospitality, tells Sarah his wife to prepare three measures of flour for the angelic strangers who come visiting (Gen 18). Hannah, finally conceiving the child for whom she prayed, offers Samuel back to serve God in the house of the Lord with three measures of flour, wine and meat (1 Sam 1:24).
This bread is a symbol of generous hospitality, a gift to fill the hungry with good things (Luke 1:53). Grain, fed and watered by God’s almighty hand, human hands uniting in planting, harvesting, grinding, and nurturing sourdough yeast into fermentation.
Three measures of flour, wheat or barley, taken by the woman in Jesus’ parable, more than half a sack, perhaps 60 loaves. This woman is a serious baker, like Sarah and Hannah; someone who is wildly extravagant.
Extravagant generosity like Jesus turning water into too much wine at the wedding in Cana, or miraculously turning meagre rolls and two fish into supper for 5000 followers, fed on a barren hillside with 12 baskets full of left overs.
Bethlehem, translated as the House of Bread, where the baby Jesus slept in a manager, a feeding trough, to the Last Supper, when Jesus broke a loaf of bread and said to his disciples, This is my body that is for you (1 Cor 11:34). Always offering more than we know or expect, Jesus seems unable to help himself expressing the abundant generosity of God
In the parable, the woman hides yeast in the flour like a secret which will be revealed as the loaf grows and grows. Nothing, said Jesus, nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, nor is anything secret that will not become known and come to light (Luke 8:17).
The wild yeast, hidden in the whole enormous bowl of flour, irrepressibly, radically, silently changing, leavening the bread, turning glue into the staff of life.
The yeast starter is nurtured, as Sarah, Hannah, Mary nurtured the unexpected pregnancies in stories of miraculous, mysterious births. If we too nurture, will the kingdom of God come among us?
Jesus, the bread of heaven, manna for the world to feast on, today, tomorrow, forever. Jesus, the bread of heaven, uniting us, sustaining us on our journey of faith. Jesus, the bread of heaven, giving himself for our salvation. Jesus, the bread of heaven, the radical, abundant generosity of God.
God’s abundant hospitality might lead us to wonder who will go hungry today - while we sit satisfied, praying “Give us this day our daily bread” Lord, re-paint our image of heaven. Maybe the kingdom of God should offer a community, and communal oven where everyone has enough to eat.
15 August 2021
© Revd Canon Dana Delap