Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 13 verses 18 through 21:
18 He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? 19 It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” 20 And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? 21 It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”
When we read this teaching we get it that Jesus is telling us the kingdom is always small in the beginning -- like a tiny mustard seed or a small pinch of leaven. But, what we might miss about what he is saying is that the kingdom is also pesky and unwanted.
The mustard plant is a weed -- notoriously difficult to contain. For you Southerners, the mustard plant is the kudzu of the Middle East. Then there's the leaven. Leaven in the Bible is always seen as bad, even a metaphor for evil. Leaven is always to be gotten rid of. "For just a little leaven spoils the whole [unleavened] loaf." Mustard bushes and leaven -- these are things to be fought against by the whole community.
But for Jesus, these are signs of the coming of the kingdom of God -- undesired and unwelcome and vehemently opposed, yet also tougher than a boot and impossible to get rid of.
When that great colonial gadfly Roger Williams was kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for questioning authority, the General Court ruled that he must be expelled [or executed] in order to prevent the "spreading of his Leaven to sundry." And what nefarious "Leaven" was that exactly? It was his dangerous ideas about human rights for native peoples, and religious tolerance of all persuasions and that very, very dangerous idea that the Church and State ought to be separate.
These were the dangerous ideas the General Court tried mightily to stamp out. But eventually, the little pinch of yeast leavened the whole loaf.
It always does.
(PS -- I'll be taking a few days off from Daily Lessons. See you soon.)
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