The Parables

Matthew 12:26-14:21

Over the next few days, we will be reading a great number of parables.  Parables are short stories which describe situations encountered in everyday life that help convey a spiritual meaning.  Jesus uses objects and experiences which are very familiar to his followers in order to help them understand new and abstract concepts.  The most common formula for a parable begins “The kingdom of heaven is like…”

We’re fairly familiar with the two parables that are afforded explanations in the Gospel text, the two that are about sowing seed, but it’s easy for us to pass the others by.  Some are extremely brief and the text offers no explanation so we simply move on to the next thing.  Unfortunately, when we read too quickly we miss opportunities to deepen our understanding.  This is where a good commentary can be incredibly helpful, not to mention interesting!

For example, I’ve never given the parable comparing the kingdom of heaven to yeast so much as a second glance.  It’s only one verse long (13:33) and somehow I lose it in the midst of everything else going on.  Here’s the entire 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.”

  William Barclay describes several factors that make this parable very interesting.  First, in the Jewish tradition, yeast is almost always a symbol for evil, for corruption.  For Jesus’ Jewish audience, the comparison of yeast to the kingdom of heaven would have been nothing short of shocking.  Today, it’s a parable that we skip over but if we lived in Jesus’ time this parable would have grabbed our attention. 

Second, in order to understand the parable, we need to know something about the effects of yeast in bread making.  Bread baked without yeast is flat and dry.  Yeast is what causes the dough to rise by feeding on the sugars in the flour and releasing carbon dioxide as a byproduct which creates bubbles in the dough.  Yeast is what transforms the dough when baked into bread with a light, airy texture.  This is a parable about the transformation caused by the coming of the kingdom.

The great question with this parable is how exactly does that transforming power work?  There are two different ways we might understand the transformation brought about by the kingdom of God.  The first way is hidden.  We can’t see yeast at work in the dough, but whether we can see it or not, the yeast is working.  The second way is obvious.  When yeast works in dough, the dough rises and changes which any observer can see.  Is one way right and the other wrong?  Are we meant to understand that both may be true at different times?  What do you think?  Do you relate to this parable?

           

This weekend, why not pick one or two of the parables with which you’re not familiar, grab a commentary and maybe an iced tea, and explore!