Hope for Our Big Problems

In Matthew 13:33 Jesus tells the crowds a parable saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

The late minister and author, Robert Farrar Capon, who also happened to be a food nut, highlights the amount of flour this woman is working with here – it is exorbitant for a regular person. Capon wrote,

“Three measures is a bushel of flour, for crying out loud! That’s 128 cups! That’s 16 five-pound bags! And when you get done putting in the 42 cups or so of water you need to make it come together, you’ve got a little over 101 pounds of dough on your hands” (Kingdom, Grace, and Judgment, p. 100).

Why is the amount of flour important? First, it points to the fact that this is not just a normal person making a cake in their kitchen…this is a professional baker. Someone whose area of expertise is to take basic ingredients and turn them into something completely new. Ingredients that left to themselves are not at all what we would categorize as food. Have you ever tried to eat a mouthful of plain flour? It’s not enjoyable to say the least. This woman, who, make no mistake about it, is Jesus in the parable, is a more than capable professional who works with large amounts and produces big results.

Second, the large amount tells us that this is not a limited picture. It gives us an understanding of the size and scope of the kinds of things this expert baker does. If we’re honest, our perspective is often very limited, or anemic might be a better word for it. In one way or another in our lives we are all skeptics. We all have areas in our lives right now where we do not have much hope or optimism. Perhaps there’s an area of your life where you are downright hiding because you don’t think there’s any way that anyone could really love you if they knew that about you. Maybe we think some of our struggles or unsolved problems are too big for anyone to really help us. They certainly are too big for us. Maybe you live with a kind of quiet resignation. Well, Jesus choosing to have this woman working with a massive amount of flour is a very clear message to us that there is nothing too big for him. Capon describes the amount of flour this way, “Indigestible in its present form, incapable of going anywhere…and absolutely certain to wear out anybody…who tries to deal with it” (p. 100). That’s what we see when we look at our problems. That’s what our limited perspective brings. But Jesus paints us a picture here to tell us that he majors in massive problems. Issues that are way too big for us to fix or solve or heal are just his cup of tea. He is an expert at dealing with them.

So, let’s gain Jesus’ perspective. What can you make with this 1 bushel of flour?…this indigestible, overwhelming, and potentially exhausting amount of flour? Consider the Texas Farm Bureau’s stats: one bushel of wheat produces 90 1lb loaves of bread, fills 53 boxes of cereal, makes 72 pounds of tortillas, about 210 servings of spaghetti...or, what’s missing on this list, about 100 large pizzas for you pizza lovers out there. In typical Jesus-style, he uses hyperbole for the average listener of his day (this amount of flour is absurd to a typical person) to drive home his point. In the hands of this master baker this massive problem of flour can become so so much more. He is telling us that he exceeds your needs and expectations.

On top of that, Jesus gives us the scope of his work. He uses the word “all,” or “whole” in some other translations, when he talks about the exhaustive impact of his work. He majors in “God-sized problems,” and he works them all the way through to completion. He never goes half-way. He is not interested in a part of you…the attractive part that you work so hard to present to the world, or the areas in your life where you think you’ve actually got it together or where you’re succeeding. Do you know the truth is those areas are actually the most problematic when it comes to faith because they are also the places where we don’t think we need help…we don’t need him and his grace. It’s in those places where we begin to buy into our own press and begin to believe the original lie that we can be self-sufficient. But that’s not how we were made to be. In the hands of this expert baker, we have been made to depend on him, to rely completely on his love and grace for us, to rely on him to sustain us. As Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (1:16-17). He does not leave one part of you alone, but rather does a complete transformative work in you. ALL of you.

Another implication of Jesus using the word “all” here is that there is no compartmentalization. This is something that historically we humans love to do. We love to try to put things into categories or compartments. The worst being the compartments of sacred vs. secular. This is the belief or thinking that some things are somehow more holy or sacred than others. This has been especially true when it comes to vocation. It dates back millennia, people wanting to elevate certain positions over others...and usually the position of priest or religious leader over everything else. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not true, and I’m an ordained minister, so I’m shooting myself in the foot here. There is no sacred/secular divide. There are not parts of life that are somehow more holy than others. Jesus is telling us that he goes after the whole thing...all of you and your life are important to him...he is at work in all of you. That means that the particular gifts and skills he has given you are important parts of his work in this world. He doesn’t waste anything. So whether you are a called to ordained ministry or to car sales or to banking or real estate or farming...whatever it is, it is all sacred in him. You are serving him in your particular industry, and he is using you to serve those around you. And make no mistake about it, he is glorified in your work. Because he addresses all the flour there is no professional life and private life, no sacred vs. secular, no church world and business world. It is all in view together, and the leaven permeates all of it...Jesus transforms all of the flour that is you.

That is precisely what happens when you add yeast and water to flour…you get that completely new thing: dough! You can’t reverse the process. Once you have dough, you can’t go back and remove the yeast. You can’t take the water out. You can’t try to revert back to the raw ingredients. The separate ingredients that you may have been able to compartmentalize at one time have been brought together in such a way that they can never be separated again. Something new has been made and cannot be unmade. This is the way the Lord works in our lives. He brings something new into existence. He brings new life out of death. He takes us in our broken bifurcated lives, loves us, forgives us, and makes us whole. Gives us new life in him, and there is no going back. He integrates us.

The amazing thing is that this new life always bears fruit. It is never ever stagnant. Just like the massive amounts of dough this woman has made...her goal wasn’t just to make dough, but to produce all sorts of food to feed and bless others. That’s what the Lord always does in us when he brings faith to life in us. New things start to bubble up in us that weren’t there before.

Did you know this is exactly what leaven does to flour? Leaven actually affects the flour by trapping tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide in the dough. It then lightens the dough by expanding when heat is applied - this is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Breathing the hot breath of God over you, in you, and through you every day expanding that life-giving word in you, integrating it and the result is lightness and shape.

Let’s take a look at both. Lightness – the gospel (the leaven that the kingdom of God has come in Jesus Christ who died for your sins and rose for your justification) brings lightness to you life by 1. lifting the weight of your salvation (or your acceptance by God) off of your shoulders – It has nothing to do with your performance, but everything to do with Jesus’ completed work for you. This is the absolutely essential security for you to run, to live. 2. The gospel lifts the burden of your identity off of what you do – you are not what you do. You are a beloved and forgiven child of God because of what he has done for you. That sets you free to stop worrying about proving yourself all of the time – proving your value. Your work can never stand up to that kind of pressure because life changes all the time. And it will only make you obsessed with failure and other people’s perceptions of you – trying to avoid failure at all costs (which is not the same thing as true creativity by the way, because true creativity always involves failure in the process at some point).

Shape – pastor and author, Steve Brown, talks about how the gospel makes you “dangerous.” And he does it with his baritone-James-Earl-Jones-esque voice that is so rich and low that it actually shakes the room when he says it. It makes you dangerous because you’re no longer running in the zone of the law – the zone of convention and what’s expected of you. Now you’re running in the zone of the Spirit! As the Apostle Paul wrote, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom,” (2 Cor. 3:17) and again: “It is for freedom that Christ has set you free!” (Gal. 5:1). Do you hear any conditions on that? Do you hear any caveats or provisos? No! When the leaven of the gospel takes hold in your life and this new thing comes to life in you, you begin to ask the very dangerous question: what do I want to do? You stop “shoulding” all over yourself, and you start to get into the area of passion. Passion is the right word for it because if you know your ancient Greek or Latin, then you know that word “pascho” means “to suffer.” You start getting into the deep desires in your soul that matter so much to you that you’d be willing to suffer for them. You care so much that you’re willing to take the big risk, you’re willing to walk through the potential failure, the misunderstanding from others when they don’t quite get the vision because it’s actually new. Or the criticism because it doesn’t look like what everyone else is doing or saying. You want it so bad that you know to not pursue it, to not run after it, would actually hurt more than any of the adversity you might face doing it. From a worldly perspective, that is a very dangerous place to be. And at the same time, amazingly, it is the safest place in the world because the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has you and won’t ever let you go. You are completely safe. Once the leaven gets into the dough, there is no taking it out.

You’re no longer limited by or hemmed in by trying to impress or please God (he’s already completely pleased with you because of his Son Jesus) or others (your identity is secure in the Lord – your life is hidden in him), you’re actually free to run in your gifts and passions. God, the expert baker, is kneading these promises into you right now, creating something completely new. He has brought his kingdom to bear in your life. And there’s no going back. You are righteous by the gift of faith he has given to you. This gospel word awakens those new desires, gives you lightness and shape, and leads you out by faith and not by sight. SO, let’s ask some dangerous questions...questions of freedom, questions of someone who knows they are in the expert hands of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who brought you here to this post to hear this word again for the first time, so that you can run free in him.

Here are the questions: 1. What do you love to do? or Where does your passion lie? 2. What are you really good at? 3. Where does your passion cross over with a need you see around you?

Lord, have your way with us and cause us to run free in the passions and desires you have put in us through your liberating gospel word of grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Amen.

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