On Mustard and Bread
One of my great joys is making – and then eating – freshly baked bread. Now that it’s summer, I haven’t made bread for a couple months…but my favorite recipe is one that calls for a very small amount of yeast mixed into 6 cups of flour. A few minutes of work, many hours of letting my dough sit in a dark, cool spot and do its thing, and then I get this miracle of goodness.
As we continue our way through Matthew's Gospel, we hear Jesus teach in a series of parables: the Kingdom of God is like yeast...is like a mustard seed...is like a merchant finding a precious pearl...Jesus teaches using many everyday actions and items, trying to use the mundane to explain the ineffable. The kingdom of heaven isn’t found in majesty or power or showy wealth, the kingdom of God isn’t discovered by spending years studying ponderous texts filled with a thesaurus of words. It’s found in the small actions you do without even thinking about it, God waiting there, hidden in dough waiting for you to open yourself to new expansion, it’s found in ordinary plants – wheat and weeds and shrubs – that grow around us unnoticed.
The Kingdom of God is all around us, Jesus says, but it is not easy to find. We have to search, looking beneath the surface of the world, digging deeper into ourselves and into the world around us.
Blessings,
Rev Jill
In Case You Missed It:
If you missed church last week or would like to hear it again,
here is Rev Jill's sermon from July 19th:
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