|
The Energy of God by Peter L. DeGroote |
||
|
Notes for Bible Talk: July 20, 2005 Please read: Matthew 13: 33; Luke
13: 20-21 |
||
|
Bible Talk is an informal
discussion of biblical passages, ideas, and related material. The discussions are on Wednesday
evenings at 7:30 pm, following the Service of Word and Table. Occasionally,
they will not be held due to special events. These Notes are intended to
assist participants in thinking about the passages and some of their
implications prior to the gathering. Usually, the Notes are
prepared and the discussion is led by Rev. Peter L. DeGroote The sources for biblical quotations are
labeled as follows: NRSV: The New
Revised Standard Version, Copyright ©1989, The National Council of
Churches of Christ in the SV: The Scholar’s Version; i.e., The Five Gospels, The Search for the
Authentic Words of Jesus, Robert W. Funk and Roy W. Hoover, and The Jesus Seminar, Copyright © 1993 by Polebridge Press. TM: The
Message, The New Testament in Contemporary Language, Copyright ©
Eugene H. Peterson 1993. navpress,
M: My paraphrase. |
1. Once again, a very short parable: "God's
Imperial Rule is like yeast which a woman hid in fifty pounds of flour until
it was all leavened." (SV) 2. Like with all picture parables, we understand by
focusing the picture's elements. We look at four: A. Jesus listeners would have been surprised. The woman
who put the leaven in the flour can be compared to the preceding Parable of
the Mustard Seed in which the farmer was a man. The significance: Jesus felt
free to use both men and women to illustrate his teachings, an uncommon and
unpopular practice in his day. B. There is humor. Yeast cannot be simply hidden in
flour; it will begin to work immediately. There is no way to stop it. The
very absurdity of it would have brought smiles to the faces of those for whom
kneading, forming, and baking bread was a routine of daily life. Hidden in the humor is the central
message: As yeast mysteriously works in the flour, so too is God mysteriously
at work in creation. No matter what we do, God continues, creatively, irrepressibly,
and powerfully. C. There is humor and surprise wound together. 50
pounds of flour is far more than any single person would have tried to work
with before the advent of modern machinery. Who would have tried such a
thing? Any who have made bread know the difficulty of working with just a
couple of pounds. By volume, 50 pounds is about 12
gallons, enough to make bread for up to 150 people, which is also a surprise.
As the amount of bread being produced will feed far more than any one person
would be capable, so too is God busy preparing an abundant supply of the
bread of life for those who will partake. D. There is also a challenge. Leaven was a symbol of
corruption. Unleavened bread, a sign of purity and holiness, was the bread of
ritual, Passover, and other holidays. Jesus used leavened bread, the symbol
of the world's corruption, as a symbol of God's presence and activity.
Further, the corrupting influence itself, the leaven, became the symbol of
the mysterious energy and activity of God. In Jesus' teachings, the expected and acceptable
are often reversed, a reminder that the structure of our thinking and the way
we do things are often in conflict with what God is trying to do. In this
case, it raises questions about the religious community and its practices.
Are the pious and religious eating and serving the wrong spiritual food? Are
they focusing on things that don't matter? Were they then? Are we now? 3. On reflection, there are also other elements of the
message, all of which have similarities to the Parable of the Mustard Seed
(See Notes for July 13): A. The yeast (like the seed) works on its own; it does
not require our effort—it is not something we created. Rather, it is a part
of creation itself. B. The activity of God produces com-munities of
abundant living (the great amount of bread, enough for all). In the Mustard
Seed the communities are places of safety and security. C. Both parables are about God's activity in creating
human communities, often called the 4. As usual, Jesus provides some answers but also
leaves us thinking. Some further questions include: What of those who partake
of the bread? Are they allowing it to nourish and become a part of their
lives? If the leaven is already among and within us, how do we share it with
others? How does a local congregation, a com-munity of disciples, be
confident that they have been nourished by the flat bread of ritual or by the
full and abundant bread leavened by God? A Note: For those interested, we have an
example of one of the challenges faced in Bible study. Both Matthew and Luke
pair the Parable of the Mustard Seed with the Parable of the Yeast. However,
their contexts illustrate how understandings then, as well as today, can
vary. Matthew's uses the Parable of the Yeast to support the idea that God's
Kingdom is hidden, a secret known only to the disciples, but at work
preparing for the coming a messianic king/judge. This view is often used to
support the argument that certain leaders of the church are inheritors of the
disciples’ secret knowledge and must be granted certain authorities. On the other hand, Luke's use of the
parable reflects the view that the Kingdom is among us, but not entirely,
that it is in the process of breaking into the world, effecting and available
to all. Peter L. DeGroote |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|