Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 13 verses 31 through 33:
31 He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
33 He told them another 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.
Both of these images Jesus uses today to describe the kingdom of God are subversive. The mustard plant was an invasive species no farmer in ancient Israel wanted near his fields. Find a little mustard plant and before too long it would take right over. It was like kudzu in the South. And yeast was never a good thing in the Bible. It was something to be cleaned out and strictly guarded against. For just a little yeast could ruin a whole loaf of bread -- especially the ritually required unleavened kind.
So what strange and absolutely fantastic images these are for the kingdom of God!
And to take it one step further, I was doing a Bible study with college students one year and talking about the image of the woman putting just a tiny bit of yeast in the flour and one of them said, "Let me get this right, Jesus said, 'The kingdom of God is like a passive aggressive woman who purposely ruined the religious bread.'"
Maybe that idea bothers us. If it does, then maybe we're beginning to hear these parables as they're intended.
For the reign of God is subversive and hidden in tiny pockets of resistance on this planet; but one day its hope and peace with justice shall cover the whole earth.
And there is nothing that the powers of evil can do to stop it.
NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year. Tomorrow we will read Mark chapters 4 and 5 and Matthew 10.
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