The Parable of the Yeast
Dr. James Smith
Matthew 13:33
31 August 2003
Bread is a very nutritious food that has been a staple of the human diet for thousands of years. It’s an excellent source of vitamins, protein and carbohydrates.
The simplest breads are made from various grains such as wheat, oats, barley, rye and millet. Milk, oil, spices, sugar or other things might be added to change the texture and variety of the bread.
After the grain is pounded & mixed with water, a leavening agent is typically stirred in and then kneaded into the dough.
In fact, when most people think of bread, they usually think of leavened bread. There are really only a couple of types of bread that do not make use of some sort of leavening agent; Jewish matzoh and Mexican tortillas.
The most well known leavening agent is of course, yeast. Yeast is perhaps one of least thought about and yet most interesting substances in God’s creation.
Yeast is a single celled fungi that is capable of fermenting carbohydrates.
Yeast is also known as “leaven” which probably comes from the Latin word, “levare” which means, “to raise”.
And various kinds of yeasts or leavens have been used for thousands of years by men and women.
After yeast is added to a batch of dough, it produces harmless carbon dioxide gas bubbles which cause the bread to rise. It is beaten down once and then allowed to rise again, giving the bread a lighter texture and more volume.
Yeast is a living organism and before the manufacturing of commercial yeast in 1868, bread bakers depended on wild airborne yeasts to leaven their bread spontaneously.
When a baker found a particularly good strain of yeast, he or she would save a piece of the uncooked dough and then add a piece of that dough to new batches. They called this a “starter.”
This is still the technique that is used in making sourdough bread today.
Another way that bread bakers would leaven their bread before commercial yeast was introduced, was to use the residue of the beer and wine, since fermentation takes place naturally in alcohol production.
Yeast-risen wheat breads seem to have been developed in Egypt about 4000 years ago and it is believed that the Egyptians were the first people to grind wheat flour in a way that is very similar to the modern milling process.
The Greeks were enthusiastic bakers and further refined their flours to eliminate impurities and liked to season their breads, cakes and pastries with fruit, sesame seeds and honey as well as developing a special stone oven for baking.
The Romans of Jesus’ day enjoyed many different kinds of breads and introduced their breads and bread making techniques into all the lands of their empire.
During the Early Middle Ages, wheat was not always readily available in the cooler and moister areas of Northern Europe, so bakers began to perfect techniques of making rye, oat and barley breads.
Colonial Americans frequently made cornmeal bread and Americans did not eat wheat breads as frequently as they do today, before the Great Plains areas began to be heavily cultivated for wheat growing.
The Bible frequently talks about daily matters of living that are easily overlooked or taken for granted.
For example, let’s take a look at Matthew 13:33. (Read)
Here we have a one sentence parable of Jesus. Jesus seemed to have measured His words carefully whenever he spoke or taught. He does not seem to have been long winded. And this intriguing parable is also carried by Luke 13:20-21. (& Gospel of Thomas 96)
This occurrence of yeast or leaven in the Scriptures seems to occur about 40 times in the Bible.
And what’s curious is that at least 35 of these occurrences portray yeast negatively.
The discussion of yeast really begins with the Exodus story in the Old Testament. Exodus 12 tells of how the people of God hastily left Egypt and didn’t even have time to let their bread rise.
And so whenever Jews celebrate the Passover, they still only use unleavened bread, which they call Matzoh. Exodus 12:19 even goes so far as to say that anyone who consumes bread with yeast in it during that sacred time, was to be cut off or thrown out of the community.
This did not mean that Jews did not eat leavened bread at all, in fact, they usually did. They were simply forbidden to during that sacred time.
In fact, this issue about yeast even affected the communion debate in the life of the church. Catholic churches believed that only unleavened bread should be used and the Eastern Orthodox churches believed bread with yeast should be used.
Protestant churches didn’t seem to care either way, so we use both, but these practices continue on today.
Perhaps, its not so hard then to see why yeast is typically portrayed negatively in the Scriptures which makes Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13:33 all the more interesting.
Jesus seems to have frequently turned commonly held notions or ideas on their heads.
With just a few words, He had the unique ability to captivate an audience, upset religious leaders, delight everyday people and to challenge everyone to understand spiritual matters in a new and fresh way.
This little, one sentence, parable of the leavened bread is an excellent example. Before the day, when commercial bread was readily available, most families made and baked their own bread for their daily consumption.
A large amount of hand ground flour would be mixed and often a piece of starter dough would be added.
The NIV text tells us that an average woman of Jesus’ day took a large amount of flour and added yeast.
The original Greek text as well as some English translations tells us that is was three satas or measures, which would have been the equivalent of about 36 quarts or 50 pounds of flour.
Can you imagine making such a huge batch of bread? Obviously, this woman would not have been making all this bread simply for herself. Especially when we keep in mind that there were no preservatives added to the bread in those days.
The woman concealed or hid a little bit of leavened starter in this huge amount of flour and then silently and quietly these little single celled organisms called yeast began their work inside the dough.
(Show yeast) These little fungi caused a huge amount of flour to expand and to rise. This dough became bigger then itself because of that which was hidden away inside of it.
Jesus says, that this is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
When God’s kingdom is hidden away in the human heart by the Holy Spirit, it has the power to completely alter our texture and volume from the inside out.
Everyone knows that flour is the basic and essential ingredient of bread. But without yeast, there’s no real bread. The power of the leavening agent is absolutely needed.
And likewise, without the leavened and powerful Words of God hidden away in our hearts, we cannot be that which God has called each and every believer to be . . . agents of transformation in this world.
Without the leavening power of the living Christ concealed in our bodies and spirits, men and women will remain big lumps of gooey dough.
The word “yeast” is derived from the Old English word, “gist”. I know that I may be speaking in riddles this morning. But do you get the “gist” of what I’m trying to say?
In one sentence, Jesus speaks to us a parable of subversion and power. He takes one of the most common and overlooked things in the world and calls us to prayerfully ponder such things as our modern notions of success in the world and in the church.
The Kingdom of Heaven will inevitably grow actively in power, but at the same time, it remains hidden and concealed within the lives of God’s redeemed people. And just as people viewed leaven negatively, so many would think the good news of Jesus was a corruption.
But, “the Kingdom of God is within you” Jesus declared to puzzled audiences.
The leaven of the Word is needed now more then ever as Hyde Park Alliance Church seeks to be an instrument of quiet subversion. And as we actively await the day when the kingdoms of this world, become the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Let’s Pray
